Why choose Dermalogica for your skincare training needs?

We met with Lesley Corridan, Education Manager for Training and Development at Dermalogica UK and Ireland, to find out more about the brand’s educational opportunities and their most popular training courses.

Lesley CorridanWhat should an aspiring skin therapist look for in an educational course?
Lesley Corridan (LC): I think one of the things that an aspiring skin therapist should look for is definitely an organisation or training facility that teaches about skin in a diverse way and also teaches about skin a very inclusive way.

At Dermalogica we have, for a very long time, an understanding of skin colours, all skin tones but also all skin types and I think that understanding of that diversity really enriches what a professional skin therapist will be able to do in their practice.

One of the greatest benefits to Dermalogica education is that we offer this completely free because we strongly believe that education makes a massive difference in people's career prospects, says Lesley.
As far as inclusivity goes, one of our more recent workshops that we have been bringing to our undergraduate community but also shortly to our post-graduate community, is on understanding the differences of treating skins across all genders. Our course is Gender Inclusive Services, so really understanding how the impact of hormones might affect skin but not necessarily categorising people always by gender.

I think that's a really interesting new area of research and understanding and I think professional skin therapists could really glean a lot from organisations that can bring that kind of breadth and depth of subject matter to the conversation.

Can you outline Dermalogica's training offering in the UK and Ireland
LC: Dermalogica has worked really hard to be able to bring education to a number of communities. We predominately teach professional skin therapists, qualified beauty therapists in upskilling them in everything from understanding products to treating different skin concerns but also making sure they can do a variety of different services. 

We do that training through lots of different ways, we do that onsite across six different locations across the UK and Ireland; we also do that training digitally so students can actually do streaming classes, and thirdly students can do a lot of self-led learning through Dermalogica as well.

That's our predominant audience but over the years Dermalogica has always been passionate about sharing education beyond just the professional skin therapist; we want people to be educated about skin so we offer a certain amount of education direct to our consumers and that might be through special events or masterclasses. We also offer education through our social platforms. 

And then we are also extremely passionate about our future professionals so we offer a really extensive training programme for those apprentices and those studying beauty therapy and, in both our undergraduate and post-graduate curriculum, offer various pathways of education so people can slowly progress and upskill. 

In our undergraduate arena we actually have education that allows people to not only engage core skills by doing treatments but also helps those future professionals understand how they might become more employable, giving them business acumen, giving them retail skills, and then offer a level of education that focusses on how they might identify their skills, understanding where in the industry they might want to go, helping them to prepare for an interview or even open a business.

For our post graduate community we have something called our Expert Programme, made up of a series of workshops that will ultimately help that professional skin therapist become more successful in their business. We have been able to see the difference in profitability within a business from people who simply attend an introductory course with Dermalogica versus those that are growing their knowledge, growing their skills, growing their hands-on abilities and reaching Expert status.

So there's quite a lot that we offer, it's very extensive and there's lots of different audiences that we really want to make sure really gets the benefit of the education that we have to offer. 

One of the greatest benefits to our education is that Dermalogica offers this education completely free because we strongly believe that education makes a massive difference in people's career prospects. It's an investment back into industry for us to ensure that industry continually grows and our professional skin therapists, or future professionals, ultimately reach an amazing career in the industry that we're super passionate about as well.

What are the most popular training courses offered by Dermalogica?
LC: Probably this year one of our most popular training courses has been our Pro NanoInfusion class which is one of our new advanced services that we've launched. And we've seen a huge surge in students coming back into our locations to do that hands-on training. That has really surprised us but excited us, that students want to learn a new service and new technique.

One of the other courses that is really popular is one of our live streaming workshops, our Clear Customer Experience workshop. This is a programme that we are really excited about. We won a Princess Royal Training Award for this, which was a recognition award of how this education made such a big difference to individuals that attended the course and were able to increase their retail sales by as much as 25%. 

This course really inspires professional skin therapists to be able to take their customer through a whole journey of not just coming in and having a treatment and leaving but actually building them a full programme where they are able to understand their skin, they're able to learn something new, they're able to connect with the skin therapist and the business but then also build a long term relationship with that client. It's been incredibly popular for us so we're excited about that class because that means it's not just about learning new skills but it has that knock-on effect within the business.

How can people access Dermalogica's education?
LC: If you are a future professional or a qualified professional skin therapist, you're more than welcome to go onto https://pro.dermalogica.co.uk, all the information will be there. You will be able to access insights into how you might be able to capitalise on that education.

Equally we do encourage our consumers to be able to go straight to our social platforms or Dermalogica.ie to be able to get more information on the education that we have to offer.

Dermalogica
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