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So, if they come into your clinic requesting a Caucasian look for example, it’s important to be able to tell them what a realistic outcome of the treatment would be and explain why this is the case,” she adds.
Making your patients comfortable
Treating Skin of Colour Patients with Fillers Three practitioners discuss how you can make skin of colour patients feel confident seeking filler treatment in your clinic “Black people have never been treated fairly, and aesthetics is no different,” says Sharron Brown, aesthetic nurse prescriber and secretary for the British Association of Cosmetic Nurses (BACN). This is a sentiment reflected throughout the industry, with last year’s survey by the Black Aesthetics Advisory Board (BAAB) showing that there was a lack of knowledge, training and literature on treating skin of colour patients (SOC). In addition, 7/10 black patients said they had difficulties finding practitioners who were confident in treating their skin type, and 86% said aesthetic brands needed to be more culturally aware.1 With injectables remaining a hugely popular aesthetic treatment,2 Aesthetics spoke to Dr Simi Adedeji and Dr Tijion Esho, alongside Brown, to find out how practitioners can appropriately consult, assess, and treat SOC patients using dermal fillers.
Differences between ethnicities Knowing the anatomical differences between Caucasian skin and SOC patients is integral to a successful treatment, according to Dr Adedeji. This is also emphasised by aesthetic practitioners Dr Amiee Vyas and Dr Emmaline Ashley, who discuss how to recognise adverse events in SOC on p.31. Dr Adedeji explains that the signs of ageing are different depending on your skin tone, as with darker skin there is less wrinkling and less laxity, and often volume loss will occur later in life than in Caucasian skin. In terms of specific features, she explains that SOC lips have a ratio of 1:1 rather than 1:1:6 and have a greater projection. “Noses also have fundamental differences,” she says, “Because black patients tend to have a wider nose, the bridge is flatter with a less pointy tip, and in general it’s a lot shorter than Caucasian noses.” Knowing the anatomical differences between ethnicities helps to manage patient expectations, says Dr Adedeji. “We’ve all been there as practitioners where a patient brings you an image of someone famous and says, ‘I want this nose’ or ‘I want these lips’. Because SOC patients are anatomically structured differently to Caucasian patients, it’s not realistic for everyone to be able to get the same results from fillers. A black patient won’t be able to get a tiny, pointed nose with non-surgical interventions – it just isn’t possible because of the structural differences.
Filler treatments are something often not spoken about by people of SOC, says Dr Adedeji, and so going for a consultation can cause feelings of shame and guilt, greater than Caucasian patients. She explains, “Many black patients don’t view aesthetics as being for them and I have had patients who worry that getting work done betrays their heritage and culture. For example, I have one woman who’s been coming to me for years and never has she told a soul that she has any work done, because she feels that she would be massively judged by her community for it. This isn’t uncommon, because there’s a huge push in black culture about accepting who we are and embracing our culture/ heritage, so aesthetics may be viewed by some as going against that. Because a lot of SOC patients that present to clinics will be experiencing negative feelings around the experience, it’s even more important to make the patient feel confident and at ease.”
“You don’t have to be a practitioner with a darker skin tone to treat SOC patients, you just need to be knowledgeable on it!” Dr Simi Adedeji
Reproduced from Aesthetics | Volume 8/Issue 11 - October 2021
