Beyond Dry, Oily, Normal: How to Really Diagnose Skin

The old "dry, oily, or normal" skin classification is over 100 years old. Even astrology is more complicated. In this episode, I share the full professional skin diagnostic I've taught to practitioners in more than 30 countries, a precise, 7-step algorithm for building what I call a skin passport.

I walk through the whole process: how to use Dr. Leslie Baumann's 16 skin types, how to grade dryness and oiliness, how to score acne, sensitivity, and redness objectively, how to identify the different types of wrinkles (and why treating the wrong type wastes your time and money), and how to properly assess pigmentation with a real clinical index rather than a photo. Whether you're a beautician, esthetic nurse, or simply someone who wants to understand their own skin and have smarter conversations with professionals, this episode gives you the tools to diagnose skin with nothing more than your knowledge and your eyes, no expensive machines required.

Episode resources:

Dr. Leslie Baumann Skin Types

The Melasma Area and Severity Index (MASI)

Proposal for Cut-off Scores for Sensitive Skin on Sensitive Scale-10 in a Group of Adult Women by Professor Laurent Misery

Standard Evaluation of the Patient: The Merz Scale

The Investigator's Global Assessment (IGA) - Acne Grading Scale

The Skin Type Solution: A Revolutionary Guide to Your Best Skin Ever by Leslie S. Baumann

Learn more from the previous episodes: 

Understanding Wrinkles: Types, Causes & What Actually Works

Understanding & Treating Pigmentation Naturally with Sarah Drew

Skin Pigmentation: Causes, Triggers, and Treatments That Work

Understanding Acne: Myths vs. Science

Shop the skincare we talked about today:

Energy-Soin Revitalizing antioxidant serum

Red-Apax Active care serum for redness and rosacea

Hydra-Fill Mask Deeply moisturizing sheet mask

Myo-Fix Active care cream for mimic wrinkle control

Connect with us:

Meder by Dr. Tiina Meder

Meder Beauty Instagram

Meder Beauty Facebook

Meder Beauty TikTok

Meder Beauty LinkedIn

Meder Beauty YouTube

Listen to the Meder Beauty Podcast on Apple Podcasts

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

You want healthy glowing skin, but with all the products, trends and conflicting advice, it's hard to know what actually works. I understand. I am Dr. Tina Meder, former cardiologist and specialist in the skincare development and cosmetic safety expert. I've spent years studying the science of skin. Welcome to Matter Beauty Podcast, where we uncover what really matters, break down the science and give you real expert bug skincare advice. Whether you're looking to achieve ready and healthy skin, curious about anti-aging or want to understand what's really in your product, you are in the right place. Rooted in science and the truth about what your skin actually needs, we'll have in-depth conversations with leading dermatologists, medical experts, and skincare brand founders to bring you the latest innovations, evidence-based insights, and industry secrets that truly make a difference. We are so happy you are here. So let's go. Hello, I am Dr. Tina Meder and welcome back to the Skin Believe in podcast. Today I want to discuss the skin diagnostic. Probably you think that it can be actual only for someone working as a professional in the skin care industry. So for beauticians, aesthetic nurses, some other skin practitioners, even aesthetic doctors. And yes, it's one of the most important tools for all practitioners of the beauty industry because without the right diagnostic, you cannot prescribe home care, you cannot give a proper recommendation, and you cannot choose the right treatment for the person. But I think then even if you are not a professional, if you just love skincare or curious about skincare, how it works, or you are looking for some fashions or some aesthetic treatments, and you are not sure which one you should pick, and how to discuss about it with skin professionals. This episode can be for you. So let's start. What we uh do in the treatment room when someone is coming for the first time for consultation. And obviously, first of all, we say hello, nice to meet you, offer some coffee, but after we start the real conversation. And it is not only about what you want to change in your skin, what you are unhappy about, or what you're happy about. And unfortunately, many of these conversations are very much focused on some wrinkles or pigment spots, which clients or patients bring to Pratish. But the story is always deeper. The real personal story is complicated, so it is not enough to know that you have some dark spot on your cheek or you have wrinkles between eyebrows. We should understand much more about your skin. We should understand how your skin lives, what type of sebum production your skin has, how efficient is your skin barrier, how immune system of your skin works, and what type of wrinkles you have, because we have many types of wrinkles, and we have different types of pigmentations. If, by the way, if you are curious to know more about it, you can find episodes about pigmentations and wrinkles in the Skin Relief In podcast. I've been speaking about wrinkles for one hour, I believe, some times ago. But the uh consultation and the skin diagnostic, it is a precise algorithm. And me as an experienced educator, I educated politicians and skin practitioners in more than 30 countries of the world for more than 30 years. So I've been teaching thousands and thousands of practitioners during my life. And also I've been practicing myself for almost 20 years, running my own sound and my own clinic. So I created this algorithm of the diagnostic, which I absolutely share to be happy to share with everyone who is interested in it and happy to share with you now. So, what is the diagnostic? What we have as a traditional tools. Most of the time, when you Google or ask chat, GPT, or another AI tools about the skin diagnostic, you will have the simple question. Skin can have few types. Three types for some minimalistic point of view. So skin can be dry, skin can be oily, skin can be normal somewhere in between. Another story that can be four skin types if it includes sensitive skin, and sometimes you can see even five skin types. For some reason, redness can be seen as a specific skin type, additionally to the sensitive skin. Every time when I see these classifications, I want to say that it was created more than 100 years ago. Yes, it was actual, thanks to Elizabeth Arden, who created this first classification of skin types. It was amazing and it was very helpful to sell creams and lotions at this period of time. But if you think how our world changed in the last hundred of years, literally everything changed except for skin classification. Even astrology is more complicated. In astrology, at least we have 12 signs of zodiac. And with traditional skin classification, we are trying to split 8 or more billion people in the four uncertain groups. So the classification is more interesting, complicated, and much more scientific. I am using the classification created by uh Professor Leslie Bauman, who is a dermatologist working in Miami University. And Dr. Baumann created this classification and published it in the first time in 2005. I was lucky enough to buy her book, Cosmetic Dermatology and Skin Type Solution, in 2005, when it was published, the very first edition, in Paris during the international master class of anti-aging. And since that, I was so impressed. And I'm using this classification, and I always recommend to use this tool to all beauticians and skin practitioners, aesthetic narcissists, aesthetic doctors who are interested in the objective results and objective follow-up dynamics of all types of treatments and therapy which they offer. So how it works. Dr. Baumann offers a classification splitting everyone in 16 skin types, and these skin types are defined by four groups of questions. First question is about the sebum production, so you should know how dry or how oily the skin is. Second question, it's about skin sensitivity, sensitive or resistant the skin is. Third question, it's about skin can be pigmented or non-pigmented. And the last question, it's about wrinkles. So wrinkled or not. Everything is coded by the first letter of the answer. So we have D for dry, O for oily for the first group of questions. We have S for sensitive and R for resistant skin. We have P for pigmented and N for non-pigmented versions. And we have W for wrinkles and T for tight, non-wrinkled skin. And all these four letters, when you answer to these four questions, you put these four letters and the type, and you have 16 variations of skin types. It looks simple, but actually it's very clever. Because just looking at these four letters, you can literally see the person behind it. For example, you see letters like D, S, P, and W. It is someone with a dry, sensitive, pigmented and wrinkled skin. So I suppose it would be someone mature, maybe in the 40 plus or even 50 plus categories of clients. Maybe some nice sun lover who didn't use sunscreens enough during the last years. And as someone who experiencing some discomfort with the skin because skin is sensitive. So you have this full portrait of the skin. As opposite, you can see someone with letters O for oily, R for resistant, N for non-pigmented and T for tite. So oily skin, no pigmentation, no wrinkles, no sensitivity. Apparently, that someone young or extremely lucky. When you see letters which I call good letters, R, N, and T, you know that you have a few problems. If you see what I call bad letters, S, P, and W, you know that you have a work to do. So it clearly defines the combinations of the problem and also it helps to evaluate the efficiency of the treatment and the efficiency of the skincare this person uses. So if it is someone with all these bad letters and the first letter, for example, D, and we recommend to use some skincare routine builded for dry sensitive skin with some product helping to diminish visibly wrinkles and some brightening skin product. We suppose and it should work. So if in three months' time we see changes, at least in one letter, for example, the skin is not sensitive anymore. It became resilient, resistant, it would be great results and we will continue to work on it. But if we see then known of these letters changed, very probably we are not on the right trajectory, so we should change the strategy. But it is not enough to know only if the skin is dry or oily, if the skin is pigmented or not. To understand it deeper and to be able to prescribe the right type of treatment and right type of the skincare, we should evaluate the severity of these changes and decide if this condition should be addressed or probably not. Let's start from the first group of questions. Dry and oily. It sounds easy because who cannot recognize dry skin or who cannot recognize oily skin? Oily skin is shiny, pores can be enlarged, oily skin is easily inflammed, dry skin is opposite, pores are almost invisible, it can be tightened, it can be discomfortable, it can be easily irritated, and it can be thickening. But to understand how dry the skin and how oily the skin, we should use some grades of severity. In the dryness and oilness assessment, I always suggest then we split everything in four levels. First level, the mild dryness and mild oilness, it is completely normal because it's not such a thing as a normal skin. Everyone has a tendency to uh of seabung glands to be slightly overactive or to be slightly underactive. That's not such a thing as the perfect Sibong lens working perfectly all your life. And we are born with these types of activity, it's genetically predisposed. So if you've been born with your skin being oily, you will keep this oily type of the skin during all your lifetime. It can be compensated. If it's not addressed properly, it can be worsened. Same for the dry skin. But when we classify it as mild, what does it mean? Then most of the time you feel comfortable, your skin is healthy, it is not inflammed, it's not bringing you any discomfort. But under the stress, you feel some discomfort in the ways that you genetic predisposed you. For example, you are traveling, you take a long-distance flight. People with a predisposition for the skin dryness, they will feel like their skin is dried off during the flight. People with a predisposition to the oilness, they feel that's uncomfortably shiny and oily, and maybe slightly inflammed if they suffer from period acne or stress-related acne or something like this. But most of the time it's perfectly normal. And actually, it's no need to address it, it's no need to treat it. Enjoy your skin is healthy. Speaking about moderate level of dryness or oilness, it can be uncomfortable under some conditions. So when your skin is moderately dry, you very probably you love moisturizers. People, even with moderately dry skin, they are using moisturizer without any reminders. They love to use them because naturally, following the circadian rhythm on the skin, our skin is less hydrated during the night time. So if you have a tendency to the dryness and if it is moderate, you will wake up with the dry skin and you want to apply the moisturizer. Same for the evening time, because during the after-lunch and evening time, your uh water evaporation will naturally increase. For the oily skin, the timing will be slightly different because uh normally, once again, following circadian regulation, our skin produces more sebum starting from the late morning, like about 11, 11:30 a.m. and coming to the peak at the lunch time. And after 3:30 p.m., our sebum glands are starting to deactivate. If your skin is slightly shiny during the midday, it's absolutely normal. But if your skin starts to be shiny earlier or stops to be shiny later, if this glow and this excessive oiliness is discomfortable during the day, that means that your skin is moderately oily, so both conditions can be addressed with a proper skin care. Good moisturizers for dry skin and some sebum controlling, slightly mattifying products, some weakly care for an oily skin. But it is still healthy, it's no need for specific treatment. Skin care works perfectly in this situation. If your severity of dryness and oilness is more noticeable, they call it marked uh stage three, then it would be uncomfortable and it would be very difficult to find the proper skincare which can control both of these conditions. People with marked dryness, they are constantly looking for the new moisturizers, they have a tendency to wire moisturizers and different kinds of product, and most of the time they're still unhappy as well. They spend fortune on moisturizer. If you recognize yourself now, so you have grade 3 skin dryness. For people suffering from the grade 3 oilness, they very probably suffer from acne. And if they perform under the stress, if they are exposed to the air pollution or to the ultraviolet, very probably the skin condition is worsening, and they feel like their skin is too oily and too shiny during the whole day, not only during the midday. And finally, severe dryness and severe oilness, very uh often there are signs of dermatosis. So if the situation is uncontrollable, if your skin is so dry, then it's flaking all the time, it's inflammed, you have some fissures and some severe cases, it can be painful, very itching, and even bleeding may occur. You should see a dermatologist and you should be treated properly because it's very probably it's a serious skin condition behind it. If you suffer from acne, if your skin is constantly uncontrollably oily, if you see some symptoms of separate dermatitis like very pronounced shine, and possible redness, inflammation, greasy scales, especially in the hairline, once again, you should see dermatologist. Why it's so significant for skin professionals and for everyone who is interested in finding the right skincare, you should understand that with the biotein moderate level of dryness and toiliness, it's perfectly normal. It can be addressed with skincare. At the level three, there are specific treatments which can help the skin. You very probably you need some intense, more serious approach to your skin, and professional treatments like MEDER biofacials can help a lot in this situation. And finally, if it is really severe, dermatologist is your answer. Additionally, uh, to that, in case of oily skin, we always add the acne evaluation for patients and for clients with marked or severe skin oiliness. To evaluate acne, we are using so-called investigators' global assessment of acne IGA acne severity scale, when we have five different groups of people. Group zero, the skin is clear, so there are people in the remission of successfully treated acne. Group uh grade one, there are people with very mild form of acne, so few comedons, not prominent inflammation. Group two, it's a mild moderate form of acne. Then you have dozen until 15 comedons and one or two inflammed elements like papules or prostose. In the moderate grade of acne, grade three, you notice more than 15 commodons, and the process is not unilateral, so you see it on the right side of the face and left side of the face. Also, you can experience the acne on the body, on the shoulders, back, maybe the breast area. And you can experience by some painful nodes as well. And finally, severe, very severe acne, grade 4, multiple lesions, multiple ailments, uh prominent inflammations. Uh, in 90% of cases, the acne spread on the body as well. So this grade should be addressed properly, and that's only great when official acne guidelines suggest systemic therapy, including systemic retinoids. So retinoids which should be taken orally. All the rest is treated topically with the use of topical treatments. In the grade three, they can be used some energy assisted treatment like weizer, but suffering from acne, you should remember that you cannot treat acne in one night. That's a chronic skin condition based on the many, it's mul the multiple factors behind acne. If you're interested to know more about an acne, please listen to the acne episode, uh, which we registered in one of in the previous season. And you should give at least eight weeks before you evaluate an efficiency of the treatment. It is impossible to say how efficient the treatment is in three or four days. You should give it a time. And in the same time, you should address the skin oilness in the first place as well. So, okay, we answered the first question. D or O, dry or oily, and how severe this dryness or oilness is. The question two is Shakespearean. How sensitive is your skin, if even sensitive. So, sensitive or resistant, that is the question. Fortunately, we have some objective uh tools to evaluate the skin sensitivity, and it's kind of tricky because it's not objective diagnostic. Even histology, even biopsy of the skin doesn't give you a proper answer, is it sensitive or not? Because the skin sensitivity is very much related to the status of the nervous system, because the nervous system is very related, it's closely related to the skin. Embryologically, they are twins. Until the fifth weeks of the embryo development, nervous system and skin were the same organ called ictoderm. So they continue to communicate and to interact every second, every moment of your life. And it is difficult to diagnose with instruments, but it is possible to diagnose with objective questionnaires. And the best one was developed by the professor Laurel Misery. It is well known for the last 20 years. It's called SS10 Sensitive Skin Scale. And all you need to evaluate your skin sensitivity is rate each symptoms from 0 to 10. And you should remember then each symptom should occur in the last three days. So it can be irritability, stinging, burning, heat sensation, tightness, itching, pain, skin discomfort, flushing, and redness. And you simply evaluated it from 1 to 10 when zero, that's nothing, you didn't experience the symptom at all. And 10, that this symptom was so intense you couldn't forget about it for a minute during the last three days. Actually, in the average, people experience even with sensitive skin, they experience five or six symptoms from 10. And fortunately, most of the time, it's moderate, so it doesn't disturb your sleep and it doesn't really affect your life quality badly. If it happens, that your skin is very sensitive. When you rate each symptom, you simply add 10 ratings and you get a total score. From zero, which never happens, to 100, which I never seen in my life, fortunately. How we evaluate the sensitivity of the skin based on the score? If the score is lower than 20, your skin is resistant. Congratulations, you can do whatever you want. And obviously you can irritate your skin as aggressive skincare or some treatment and change the category, but for now you are good. You are in the good place. If the score is from 20 to 40, your skin is mildly sensitive. So your choice of skincare should be carefully strategic. I always recommend to switch for sensitive skin cleanser and sensitive skin moisturizers and basic skincare in this situation. If your score is in between 40 and 60, your skin is very sensitive, and you are very discomfortable, very probably. So your skin care should be exclusively designed for sensitive skin, and you are very limited in the choice of any types of aesthetic treatments. Literally nothing we can do from intense treatment in this situation. So your skin sensitive, your skin should be calmed down, and less is more, so we try to quiet this inflammation and irritation. And finally, if your score is over 60, you should see dermatologists and maybe even general practitioners because there are a lot of hidden conditions behind this skin sensitivity, especially if it appears from the blue sky and if you started to experience it suddenly. So you should be careful and you evaluate your sensitivity skin score. And after using some skincare routine for a couple of months, you can re-evaluate it again, and it is a good sign if your sensitivity score is decreased. If your sensitivity score is increased, so you are not in the right way, you are not in the right trajectory, and you should be very careful about the strategy. It can happen if, for example, you've been prescribed retinol or retinal derivative, but you should understand that this irritation has some price. So, me as a practitioner, I always try to calm down the irritation because the inflammation is one of the most powerful hallmarks of aging. And if your skin is irritated, red, and uncomfortable, be sure your microbiome is not balanced as well. Happy microbiome means happy skin. And microbiome disbalanced is also hallmarks of aging. So the chronic skin irritation accelerates skin aging. If your skin is red, in the professional setting, we are using specific redness score, which is numeric guide, to evaluate how red is your skin. To evaluate your skin redness, you should know three parameters. You should evaluate the redness intensity subjectively, just evaluate by yourself when 4 is very red. 0 is not red at all, and in between the variation of the redness. Second parameter, it is an area affected. Zero area means then you have no redness at all on your face. Score 1 means then your midface is red or just the part of the face is red, for example, forehead. And grey score 2 means then the full face is red. And the last parameter is the teleangea or cupirosis, spider bands. If you don't have a tall spider bands, the score is zero. If you have up to three, five spider bands on your face, the score is one. If you have more than five spider bands, the score is two. And you simply add these three scores to each other. For example, you have moderate redness two, only mid-phase is affected, plus one, and you have three elements of spider fans of cuberosis from Dufess, plus one. So the number is four. If the redness score is four plus, your skin needs special attention and probably special skincare. There are a lot of anti-redness skincare now, and in MEDER we offer redapaks skincare routine for everyone experiencing skin redness. If your score is higher than six, your skin needs medical attention because it means that you are in higher risk of development of rosacea or you are diagnosed or should be diagnosed with rosacea. If you don't experience any redness, great. Question 3. Dr. Baumann asked about pigmentation first. I prefer to ask about wrinkles first because pigmentation takes the most difficult mass work. Wrinkles are quite easy. First of all, we should understand the type of wrinkles. So once again, listen to the episode about wrinkles. It is interesting. We have different types of wrinkles, expression wrinkles, which are developed because of the active mimic expressions. They are located mostly in the upper face area. They can be some static wrinkles, age-related wrinkles, for example, nasolabel fold, wrinkle development because of the gravity changes. They can be so-called crinkles, they are superficial chaotic wrinkles related to the skin dryness and dehydration. And finally, they can be fold and lines created by age-related changes in the body. They are characteristic of the mature and aged skin. Each of these types of wrinkles needs a specific treatment. There's no point to treat another label of folds with Botox injections or with peptide-based product designed to diminish and eliminate expression wrinkles. And same for expression wrinkles, it's no point to use hyonic acid-based fillers for the treatment or to use moisturizer in the hog to eliminate them. So for each type of wrinkles, you should choose the appropriate types of treatment, which can be topical skincare, or can be injectable or energy assisted. And to understand what type of treatment and what intensity of treatment you need, you should understand the score of your wrinkles and severity of your wrinkles. Once again, it's quite simple. We have four grades of severity, from zero, no wrinkles at all, to fourth when wrinkles are very severe. In the group first, mild wrinkles, when your face is resting, you cannot see wrinkles at all, but when you are speaking, when you are emotional, you can see some lines. Moderate score two wrinkles can be seen at rest, but they are very superficial and not so visible, easy to come off with different types of makeup. If your wrinkles look more or less similar at rest and in the active expression, we are thinking about severe grade 3 type of wrinkles, and finally, if you have very deep and prominent wrinkles, which doesn't change at all when you sleep and when you are relaxed, you have very severe wrinkles. Why it is important to understand? Because if you have mild wrinkles or moderate wrinkles, no need to use some injectables, honestly, no need to go for razor reserfacing or dermobrasion or whatever it can be. Proper, efficient, modern skincare will help you enough. For example, for expression wrinkles in MEDAR we have myfix peptide-based active cream, five peptides, you're using it for five, six weeks, and your wrinkles will be well controlled and very visibly diminished or even eliminated. If you have some wrinkles, mild or moderate, appropriate hydration, moisturizer in matter, it would be a hydrophil treatment, you will be great. You will see no signs of them in five or six weeks. But if your wrinkles are severe or very severe, that's a place for injectables, that's a place for energy-assisted treatments. But I always suggest give your skin a first couple of months with skincare, because you will create the healthy foundation, restore the proper hydration for your skin, restore the barrier function, calm down the inflammation. You will be surprised how better your skin will look and how will your wrinkles changes, change? Because your wrinkles can be transformed, they can be twice diminished using the skin, aiming the halsification of your skin. If you want to score your wrinkles properly and objectively, you can use the MERT scale. It is the official dermatologist anesthetic scale used by aesthetic doctors, dermatologists, and plastic surgeons over the world. You can easily find it online. If you are practitioners, very probably you have your tools, you have your atlas of the MERT scale. And finally, coming to the pigmentation. We should understand what type of pigmentation you have if you are unhappy and find some pigment disorders in your skin. Speaking about the hyperpigmentation, the most common is melasma, also called chloasma. And the specific type of melasma, it is a pregnancy mask. But also it can be H-related cineolentigo, it can be different types of pigmentation. Dermatologist, aesthetic doctor, the best specialist to diagnose the specific type of the pigmentation. And to uh we can score the severity of the pigmentation using the special melasma area and severity index. It is a scale which is abbreviated or is MASI. It is a clinical tool to score how severe facial hyperpigmentation is, largely used by plastic surgeons, by dermatologists, and I believe it should be used by everyone because photo is not enough to evaluate the pigmentation. Paradoxically, photo, even standardized photo, can be less clear than this numeric index. Yes, it takes a little bit of time and a little bit of work, but everyone is equipped with a calculator now. If you have a phone, you have a calculator. So what you should know to calculate your MASI score. First of all, the area. We split the face in four zones for head, right cheeks and left cheeks, and the chin. Chin takes about 10% and all the rest takes by 30% of your face. We should evaluate each zone separately. So you go through each of four zones with three questions. First question is how big is the involvement of this zone? It's called A area. Score zero when it is no involvement. For example, you don't have any pigmentation, you write check zero. If it's less than 10% of involvement, score is 1, 10, 30% score is 2, 30, 50% 3, 50, 70%, 4, 70, 90% 5, and if everything is covered by the pigmentation, the score is 6. Second parameter is darkness. It's a bit subjective, so it is important that the same person should evaluate the patient following the treatment to evaluate the efficiency of the treatment. And darkness, we grade in using four scores. Zero, nothing, normal skin color, one, barely visible pigmentation, two mild pigmentation, three, moderate pigmentation, and four severe, very dark pigmentation. And the last parameter is homogeneity H. If there's no evidence of hyperpigmentation, it is zero. If you have just some specks of involvement, the grid is one. If there are small patchy area in the zone, the score is two. If the patches are more than two centimeters in diameter, score is three. And finally, if it's uniform skin involvement, score is four. Remember you should go all four zones with each of these three parameters. So you just you evaluate and you put the number in the list on your phone, in your client card. And after you take a formulation. So you should calculate the score for each zone separately. For each zone, you add darkness to homogeneity and you multiply the results on the A in area involvement. And this result you multiply with a coefficient related to the zone. It would be 0.3 for the forehead and both cheeks and 0.1 for the chin. And now you have four numbers, and you simply add these four numbers all together, and you have the file number, the MIC score. If you want, you can keep these four numbers separated for following dynamic. But for score, when you add everything, it is important because that's how we evaluate the severity of the pigmentation. Actually, it's used in all, as I know, efficiency clinical research of the pigmentation in clinics over the world. It is from 0 to 48. Zero is nothing, no pigmentations at all. If your level of the severity of pigmentation by this grade is lower than 12, no treatment is needed. Live happily ever after. Very probably they are just some freckles. It can be some spot of lintigo, which can be addressed with a laser, which is golden standard of the treatment for this type of the pigmentation, but that's no need to treat it with some intense program. If your masescore is in between 12 and 24, you will benefit a lot from the skincare. Specific brightening skincare, if you're looking for brightening in nether, it would be luminoderm range and energy cleanser and energy antioxidant serum reach a nice namet to help luminoderm range to give you best results. If your score is in between 24 and 36, you continue to use appropriate skincare. But you should understand then in two or three months of the topical skincare treatment, uh, the rest of the pigmentation should be eliminated with the laser treatment, which once again gold standard of the pigmentation treatments, or probably some other treatments like chemical kills. I prefer laser. If it is in between 36 to 48, apparently the pigmentation is very prominent. So I will suggest that you use the brightening skincare for at least three or four months, and you'll definitely need energy-assisted treatment, and very probably a few sessions of energy assisted treatment. And every time, every two or three months, we reevaluate the pigmentation to see what is the trajectory of our treatment and our therapy. So the skin diagnostic algorithm at maximum is the diagnostic of seven steps: dry or oily, how dry and how oily is your skin. If needed, acne score, sensitivity score for everyone, absolutely essential. If the skin is red, we are using the specific redness score. If you are worried about the wrinkles, we evaluate the type of the wrinkles and severity of wrinkles with METS scale. And if you notice some disturbance of the pigmentation on your face, we diagnose the type of the pigmentation and severity of the pigmentation. And according to all this diagnostic, we can choose the proper professional treatment. We recommend, suggest, and prescribe the individualized, personalized home skin care routine. And we can use it once again for all follow-up, we do this reassessment to evaluate how efficient our approach is. As you can see, it takes time. The first consultation takes at least 30 minutes, maybe until 40 minutes, but it's absolutely worth it. And now you are well equipped and you understand that even if you don't have any specific instruments, any expensive tools, if you have your brain, your knowledge, and your observational tools, you are good. You can diagnose your skin and the skin of your passions. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comment. You can visit our YouTube channel to watch the specific workshop about the skin diagnostic and the professional choice of MEDER biofashals. And please subscribe to our podcast. Follow us on the socials Matter Beauty when we share every episode. And share this episode with all your friends who are looking for the proper skin diagnostic. Thank you for joining us today on the Matter Beauty podcast. If you found this helpful, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an expert skincare team. Have a question or topic you'd like for me to cover? Send me a message at podcast at MetherBeauty.com and let's keep the conversation going. Also, you can visit MatherBeauty.com and discover Mether Skincare which I created. And if you enjoyed the show, I'd love if you left the review. It helps us refine the podcast and keeps us growing. Until next time, stay healthy, stay closing, and take care of your skin.