About Jeanine
ABOUT ME
An authority on taking an intuitive approach to facial therapies for many years, I love to treat each and every client as a whole person, and address their skin and overall wellness concerns accordingly.
I spent the first half of my career learning what I like to refer to now as ‘how not to treat skin’, with aggressive treatments and a quick fix approach.
This education was invaluable, and has lead me to a place where I can confidently say that having experienced the contrast, I know now that working holistically gets far better results. I see sick, impaired skin becoming healthy, glowing and resilient on a daily basis. Gradually, more and more clients are demanding a more holistic approach be taken when treating their skin, and I couldn’t be happier to say that I am well equipped to meet those demands.
My philosophy is multi-faceted, but begins with working from within using dermo-nutrition to really restore every client’s ‘glow’. I see tricky skin conditions as a challenge, and call on my full arsenal of working styles and philosophies when creating a treatment plan that works for each individual client. I take a ‘slow beauty’ approach that can elicit some truly remarkable results over time, also bringing in my craniosacral skill of being able to palpate the skin and truly feel and listen to it on a deeper level. Through this unique modality I can also gain access to a client’s whole system, and begin working with them to find better health, alignment and wellbeing.
My work as a trainer has allowed me to spread the word about all of the above, instructing others in a similar whole person approach to the world of skin in all its infinite complexity.
WHAT IS THE SLOW BEAUTY MOVEMENT?
The Slow Beauty movement describes a fast growing sub-culture of facial therapists who have lost faith in the ‘quick-fix’, often invasive products and procedures that abound in the beauty industry and are drawn to a holistic approach to skincare with a focus on dermo-nutrition, wellness and genuine skin health from the inside out.
The Slow Beauty movement is following a similar trajectory to the Slow Food movement and reflects a similar shift in values away from short-term convenience towards slower, deeper and truer ideals.
The tides of change are well underway and there is now a new generation of beauty therapists leading the way in holistic, ‘slow’ beauty. I am proud to say I am one of them.
THE ART OF HEALING
At Facial Alchemy there is a true focus on healing, not just of the skin but also the whole person. A client doesn’t come to me for a quick fix, but rather a course of treatments that we embark upon together that can incorporate all manner of modalities. Treating the skin topically and internally is the first step in making an investment in your ‘whole self’ wellness, after which you will truly begin to see the benefits of a good self care practice.
One of the key treatment modalities that I like to incorporate into facials and also practice on its own is craniosacral therapy, which offers a gentle, holistic approach to assisting the way your whole body works. Derived from osteopathic origins, this natural healing wonder is very effective in releasing trauma from the body, be it from an accident, illness, injury, surgery or something of an emotional nature that a client is not able to resolve properly alone.
By palpating the skin, I am able to really tune into your body’s intrinsic movements, health, rhythms, pulsations and patterns of congestion, resistance and tension. Working with the natural and unique rhythms of your different systems, I can try and pinpoint and correct source problems, encouraging the nervous system and organs to balance and heal.
Some of the symptoms that may respond favourably to craniosacral healing are anxiety, digestive problems, facial pain and insomnia, as well as headaches, central nervous system disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder. It is the perfect add-on to any facial, aiding in the kind of deep relaxation that only a long time practitioner can bring to your treatment.
I can’t emphasize enough how much a quality touch, advanced massage skills and healing work can greatly benefit the whole system, so hence the skin. Every client and every skin is so different, and we all have so many stories to tell that have brought us to where we are today. I’m always learning, and getting to know each new client at a deeper level is a revelation, and a great challenge for me as a skin specialist. I have been taught incredible techniques that help me listen to a client’s body not only with my hands, but all my levels of perception and awareness. I am working not only with the human structure, function and anatomy, but also the emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing of each client to bring all these aspects into balance, alignment and harmony. This is a skill that has taken years to develop, and the longer I do it, the stronger it gets.