The Skin Read · 30 min · complimentary
The Skin Read is thirty minutes with a nurse practitioner: your skin type, sun history and medications recorded, one test patch fired, and a written plan with the device, the sessions and the price. It is complimentary, and most people go home to think.
Three steps
Three steps, and the first one is a test.
- Step 01
Read
Skin type on the six-point scale, sun history, medications and anything that changes how skin takes a laser, recorded by Leila or Dr. Vasquez. One test patch is fired on the area and you come back in forty-eight hours.
- Step 02
Plan
A written plan: which device family and wavelength, the settings range, how many sessions and how far apart, the plan price and what maintenance usually looks like after. Nothing is added at the desk.
- Step 03
Track
The same nurse at every session, standardised photographs at sessions one, four and final, and a reaction protocol you receive in writing before session one.
Why a document
The things people fear about lasers in San Diego, in their own words, are a different technician every time, a burn on skin nobody checked, and a three-pack sold at the desk. The Skin Read removes all three: the same nurse owns your plan, a test patch is checked before anything larger, and the sessions and price are fixed in writing before you start.
It is also how we say no. If a laser is the wrong tool for your skin or your mark, the plan says so and suggests what might help, which is sometimes a dermatologist and sometimes nothing.
The test patch
One small patch is treated on the planned area at the planned settings. You go home with a card that says what normal looks like (mild redness that settles in hours) and what we want to hear about (blistering, darkening, lightening, swelling that grows).
Two days later the nurse looks at the patch, in person or on a photograph. If it is as expected, session one is booked. If it is not, the settings change, the device changes, or the plan changes, before anything larger is treated.
Sample plan
- Area
- Underarms
- Device family
- Long-wavelength laser
- Sessions
- 6, 6 weeks apart
- Test patch
- Day 0, checked day 2
- Photographs
- Sessions 1, 4 and final
- Sun rule
- Two weeks clear before and after each session
Sun-season calendar
A tan changes how skin takes a laser. We plan faces and resurfacing for the low-sun months, cover-able areas for most of the year, and we wait when your skin has had sun.
Filled months suit treatment; empty months are beach months when we wait or treat covered areas only. Every plan is checked against your own sun exposure at the Skin Read.
No obligation
You keep the plan. No deposit, no card on file, no follow-up calls unless you ask for one. Some people come back the following winter with the same sheet, and the plan is checked against the skin in front of us then.
Is the Skin Read really free?
Yes, including the test patch and the forty-eight-hour check. No deposit, no obligation to book a session.
Can I start treatment the same day?
Not a full area. The test patch is fired at the Skin Read and checked two days later; session one is booked after that. It is the one rule we do not bend.
Who does the Skin Read?
Leila Haddad, NP, or Dr. Helena Vasquez, MD, for resurfacing and complex plans. In California the exam before a laser treatment is done by a physician, PA or NP, not an aesthetician.
What are the photographs for?
Standard angles and lighting at sessions one, four and final, so progress is judged against something more reliable than memory. They are stored securely and never published.
What is on the plan?
The area, the device family, the settings range, the number of sessions and the interval, the plan price, the sun rules for your area, the reaction protocol, and the maintenance forecast.
Skin Read · 30 min · complimentary
Complimentary, with Leila or Dr. Vasquez, in Pacific Beach.