Mobile applications for cosmetologists

The patient’s fears and stereotypes are the main problem that prevents the dermatocosmetologist from achieving truly good results. In addition, I think that each of us has had and still has cases when, after an hour-long consultation, a patient with the phrase: “I’ll think about it,” never returned for the procedure. This article will tell you what problems we most often encounter when communicating with clients and how to solve them using IT technologies.

Nina Kolot , dermatologist, cosmetologist (Ukraine)

WHAT ARE WE AFRAID OF?

Year after year, we all continue to face the same problem during the initial consultation - fear, unjustified expectations and aesthetic incompetence of the client. During my practice, about 70% of new patients come with at least one of these “cockroaches” in their heads. Let's look at them in detail, because knowing the enemy by sight makes it easier to defeat him.

Fear

Here we can all say thanks to the inflated stories from TV screens and terrible pictures from the Internet - inadequate victims of the beauty industry, with the appearance of a cat, ugly lips and hypertrophied cheekbones. Let us remember the advice of “knowledgeable” friends who are absolutely incompetent in medicine, as well as the “blessing” of a frightened husband who draws cosmetology “knowledge” from anecdotes.

Unjustified expectations

This is an equally important factor. As a rule, newbie patients come here who, not understanding what one milliliter of skinbooster looks like in volumetric modeling, hope to correct their cheekbones and lips with one syringe. Many of them, not realizing that we are engaged in serious invasive interventions that require rehabilitation and time for healing, remain dissatisfied with the result. Therefore, it is imperative to indicate possible complications in the form of hematomas or needle puncture marks, swelling and hyperemia for several days after the procedure. Patients who are undergoing thread lifting for the first time should be prepared for possible visual asymmetry and pain at the site of thread insertion, which will subside over time.

Aesthetic incompetence

To solve this problem, we connect our work experience and already formed aesthetic sense. The gaze of a professional cosmetologist is “sharpened” on the analysis of the faces we meet, so it is not difficult for us to accurately say which manipulation will bring the maximum effect. This happens on a subconscious level, when, when communicating with a person, we unconsciously analyze what needs to be worked on, where to relax the muscle with botulinum toxin, and where to add volume with hyaluronic acid. The other day, a patient came to me who had been lamenting for a long time about a slight transverse wrinkle in her forehead, while absolutely not paying attention to her tired look, deep “crow’s feet,” a pronounced nasolacrimal groove and dark circles under her eyes.

CORRECTOR PROGRAMS

I have long wanted to offer patients some kind of visualization option of what a cosmetologist can do. I wanted clients to “try on” contour correction, go with this thought, if necessary ⎼ consult with loved ones and consciously come to me for the procedure. Before the injections, we spent hours drawing out correction zones, tightening the skin of the face and imagining how the “new, toned look” would suit its lucky owner. I drew on standard face models, used professional makeup and light-correcting techniques. All these methods were uninformative and biased. Although the idea of makeup made our women incredibly happy, it was still impossible to compare it with contour correction. The solution did not take long to arrive with the advent of smartphones and a huge number of programs that can be used to correct the finished photo. So I moved from the level of a fable teller to the level of a myth buster.

The main criterion for choosing a program for me was ease of use. I stopped

on two: Novo Face and PicsArt. They are intuitive, work on Android and IOS systems, and most importantly, they allow you to quickly simulate your appearance based on a basic photo (Fig. 1⎼2).

But there is one important point: you must independently determine what volume of the drug or what procedure will implement what you propose using the program. Analyze what 1 ml of HA will look like in the lips of a young girl and an older woman with malocclusion and depression of the perioral zone, how effective and indicative will be the correction of the double chin with threads with notches, what method should be used to correct the periorbital zone so that it looks like this you drew. All these changes can be adequately assessed only by a specialist with extensive experience in injection cosmetology. And only in that case will your forecast in the program correspond to the result of the work.

Novo Face

The Novo Face application was designed specifically for visual anatomical correction. All effects are applied based on fully automatic facial recognition; no user prompts are required. Unlike simple programs that change individual areas of a photograph, the highly intelligent Novo Face core identifies different areas of the face and most correctly models the results of future intervention. The NovoFace effects application module is optimized and can be executed with sufficient speed directly on user devices, namely desktop computers, laptops, phones, tablets. How does the program work? Having photographed the patient from the front and in profile, the application scans the image and suggests making changes by zone. The bottom line shows the parts of the face that are often corrected in the cosmetologist's office.

You can easily enlarge your lips, remove nasolacrimal troughs, and raise your cheekbones. Everything is done using a cursor that easily adjusts the desired volume. This program will help convince the patient to undergo an unplanned procedure that will be more effective ⎼ it will show what, for example, the middle third will look like if we not only work with nasolabial wrinkles, but also replenish the lost volume of the cheekbones, or what the volume of the lips will be after 0.5 ml HA. With NovoFace you can also save the result and send it by e-mail.

PicsArt

The PicsArt program is more maneuverable, but complex. This is a multifunctional package that combines all the most necessary functions for professional photo processing. The program gives users more options than any other photo application: from simple functions like cropping an image, rotating it, increasing contrast, sharpening and brightness, adding a filter or caption, to more professional yet easily manageable features such as cloning, editing perspectives in photos, the effect of double exposure and mirroring. Personally, I use the “Stretch” (to change the shape) and “Clone” (to hide and smooth out wrinkles and color defects) functions in the “Tools” section. You need to understand it, you need to practice, but it allows you to do more complex actions: remove asymmetry (what in practice we do with botulinum toxins or a needle), straighten and correct a crooked nose (working with hyaluronic fillers), correct and change the oval of the face (thread lifting methods)

Incorporate such visualization into your practice and see how much more trusting the communication between you and the patient will become. And a well-motivated patient, as we all know, friends, does not need anesthesia!

First published inLes Nouvelles Esthetiques 2016/№4