Dermatologist Kaycee Reyes-Bacani on the future of beauty treatments that require thorough touching and close physical contact
Images and Video NOEL PABALATE
Podcast JULES VIVAS
For years prior to the pandemic, dermatologist Dr. Kaycee Reyes-Bacani, proprietor of Luminisce Holistic Skin Innovations, had been shuttling between Manila and many places in the world, such as Germany, to keep abreast with developments in the beauty sector. Even now, despite the ongoing lockdowns, she is well on top of her game with the latest innovations as well as emerging trends, ingredients, and technologies in beauty and wellness. “Skincare will always be important,” says Kaycee, whose clients include the likes of Hindy Weber, Maggie Wilson, Mark Nelson, and Carmina Villaroel. As the economy reopens, she takes baby steps into a new, changed world with positivity, resolved to rise above this challenge with eyes wide open for opportunities. “This pandemic won’t last forever and while it may or may not get back to how it used to be, our task in the care sector is to keep transforming lives for the better,” she says. Here are snippets of our conversation.
How are you holding up?
Like most businesses, we had to adapt quickly. For us, it is important we still have the same purpose of serving our clients to the best of our abilities by ensuring that we are practicing stringent health and safety protocols. This means that we no longer allow walk-ins or that we are limiting in-patient services for now. The adjustment has not been easy but we are learning day by day to adapt to this new normal.
Among our many realizations is the importance of wellbeing and a stronger sense of self. How does this impact on skincare?
I always tell the patients that it’s 60 percent genes and lifestyle and then 40 percent aesthetic or how you take care of your skin, like doing Botox regularly, fillers injection, and tightening. Even if you have good genes and you exercise and you eat well, your bones will still undergo bone degradation, loss of tissue in some areas of the face, sagging of facial ligaments, and wrinkling and pigmentation. We’ve always stressed the importance of taking care of your skin even at a young age. This lockdown period has made more people rethink their skincare routines and habits. Working from home and wearing less or no makeup, their daily lives have shifted. These factors may have changed their skin and their skincare routines. For one, less makeup and less pollution made their skin breathe. Second, seeing their bare skin may have made them consider buying skincare products or trying facial procedures.
What is the future of hands-on beauty services like facials?
Unfortunately, our type of service is really hands on, but we perform professional procedures with training and certification. We only use medical-grade machines and medical-grade products, combining them with expertise and experience. We still do our virtual consultations as well as our contactless product deliveries. Luminisce has developed a medical-grade at-home facial kit and at-home medical-grade peel kit, what we call Coquille peel kit, but since this is a medical-grade procedure, we require the patient to attend a one-on-one Zoom consult with our doctors while doing the procedure at home.
What other changes are you prepared to implement to guarantee safety?
We’ve been practicing stringent health and safety protocols, such as accepting patients only by appointment and pre-screening patients on their medical, travel, and contact history. Patient screening and scheduling are now very important. We also make sure our doctors and nurses are in good health. Right now, all the therapists who live quite far from the clinic are required to stay at our Luminisce BGC condominium while those who live nearby are being fetched by our designated drivers every day. We require patients and employees to wear PPE and we do temperature checks. We have a logbook for contact tracing. When we do our follow ups, we do not just check for post-procedural effects but also if they have developed symptoms that may be related to Covid. Our clinic is designated for social distancing since we have lots of clinic rooms and we make sure that each room receives UVC and ozone cleaning at least 30 minutes between patients. We also have employee rotations, limiting the number of people inside the clinic at a time, for example two patients in the morning and two to three patients in the afternoon and we arrange our furniture to promote social distancing. We make sure to test ourselves, especially the frontliners with rapid anti-body tests once a week. In case the therapist exhibits symptoms, we require her to undergo a PCR swab test, a rapid antibody test, and a 14-day quarantine at home. We also have acrylic barriers for facial and laser use.
What about DIY services or products like self-facials, or even mobile therapists?
During the quarantine, we launched our first do-it-yourself peel, the at-home peel kit and the luxury facial kit. This can address dullness and rejuvenate the skin by encouraging cell turnover for a natural healthy glow. This can even address severe acne flare, melasma, pigmentation, and fine wrinkling. For persistent skin problems, there are products we can recommend upon virtual consultation and deliver to you via courier. Of course, these cannot replace our clinic facials and lasers, but they can definitely help. We also offer home service. Everything can be addressed depending on the patient’s concern. We just need to do online consultation first to make sure we can deliver based on the patient’s expectations and budget.
What lessons has Covid-19 taught you?
I’ve learned that it is important to stay strong in any crisis and to learn to adapt to change quickly. This pandemic has challenged the most of us in so many ways and to me, as an entrepreneur, you always have to think on your feet. I’ve also learned that everyone is coping with this crisis differently so showing empathy and compassion goes a long way, which as a mom is an important value to teach my children. Despite this crisis, I look forward to a better society, one that is tougher yet kinder and more resilient than ever before.
Watch how Dr. Kaycee and her team prepare for the future of beauty:
Listen to the complete conversation of Dr. Kaycee and the author:
Luminisce is now open at BGC, The Podium, and Molito in Alabang. +63 915 979 46 61 | luminesce_official on Instagram | www.luminisce.com/luminisce | luminisce.com