A guide to the four key pillars that influence your skin’s health and appearance.

What is skin quality and why does it matter?

Skin quality is a term that describes how healthy, undamaged, and youthful your skin looks. Skin quality can be influenced by many factors, especially age-related changes to all layers of the skin. Good skin quality can boost your self-esteem, boost confidence, your perception of attractiveness, and make you feel younger.

But how can you measure and improve your skin quality? You have probably heard many words or terms to describe skin quality – such as hydration, elasticity, radiance, and clarity. However, these terms can be vague, subjective, and inconsistent across different skin types and conditions. To overcome this challenge, a new approach was developed to categorise the different aspects of skin quality into four pillars that can apply to anyone, regardless of their age, gender, or ethnicity. These are:

Each pillar consists of individual characteristics that can be approached differently. In this blog post, we will explain what these characteristics are and how they might affect your skin quality.

Skin tone evenness

Skin tone evenness refers to the uniformity and balance of your skin colour. The individual characteristics that make up skin tone evenness include:

• Pigmentation: the amount and distribution of melanin, the pigment that gives your skin its colour
• Erythema: the redness of your skin due to blood flow
• Colouration: the overall hue and saturation of your skin

Skin surface evenness

Skin surface evenness refers to the smoothness and clarity of your skin texture. The individual characteristics that make up skin surface evenness include:

• Pores: the openings of your hair follicles and sweat glands on your skin
• Crepiness: the thinness and wrinkling of your skin, resembling crepe paper
• Wrinkles and lines: dynamic (only visible when moving) or static (always visible) folds and creases of your skin
• Scars: Scars can be caused by trauma, surgery, burns, or acne
• Hair: Unwanted hair on your face can be caused by hormonal imbalance, genetics, or medication
• Clarity: the absence of blemishes, such as blackheads, whiteheads, pimples, or spots

Skin firmness

Skin firmness refers to the elasticity and tightness of your skin. The individual characteristics that make up skin firmness include:

• Elasticity: the ability of your skin to return to its original position after being stretched or compressed
• Tautness/Tightness: the resistance of your skin against mechanical force
• Hydration: the water content of your skin

Skin glow

Skin glow is a little different to the other pillars of skin quality, because there are no individual characteristics that make up skin glow.

Skin glow is described using many words, including radiance and luminosity, which describes your skin’s ability to reflect light, giving it a bright, vibrant and healthy complexion.

Where to start?

Seek a consultation – everyone is unique and require individual treatments and approaches for enhancing skin quality!
That’s why it is important to see an aesthetic healthcare practitioner who can give you personalised advice and guidance on how to improve your skin quality according to the four pillars. Together with your aesthetic healthcare practitioner you can:

• Fully define your concerns regarding skin quality
• Prioritise your treatment goals
• Create personalised treatment program that balances your treatment goals with your lifestyle, budget, and priorities

An aesthetic healthcare practitioner is in the best position to help you plan and tailor your treatment program to your lifestyle, and focus on treatments that can deliver the greatest impact to skin quality at just the right time.

Remember that your healthcare practitioner is a professional who is there to answer questions, address your concerns, and guide your treatment – so approach your consultations with curiosity and willingness!