Irene Ratliff

How I think about this work

I own this practice and I hold the needle. That is not a marketing line, it is the reason the schedule looks the way it does. There is one of me, so appointments are longer and there are fewer of them in a day.

I would rather spend twenty minutes explaining what a treatment actually involves than sell you something you did not understand when you agreed to it. Most people arrive with a phrase they read somewhere and a picture on their phone. We start by taking that apart and talking about what the treatment is, what the appointment feels like, and what the days after look like.

I work from evidence. When something new appears, I want to see what has been published about it and to have been trained on it properly before I offer it to anyone. That is slower than the alternative and I am comfortable with that.

The part clients seem to remember is that I will tell them no. If what you are asking for would not suit your face, or if I do not think I can do it well, I will say so in the room and we will talk about what makes more sense instead. Nobody has ever thanked me for a treatment I talked them into.

How I run a consultation

A first appointment is a consultation, not a treatment slot. It runs about thirty minutes. I take your history in person, because that conversation belongs in a room and not in a form on a website.

Then we look at your face in good light and I tell you what I see, what I would do, in what order, and what each part would involve. If a treatment needs a series to be worth starting, I will say that before you commit to the first one, not after.

You do not have to decide that day. You can leave with the plan written down and a price, think about it for a week, and book when you are ready. If there is time and it suits you, we can treat the same day, but nobody is pushed into that.

What I will say no to

I will say no to a treatment that would not suit the face in front of me. Faces are not interchangeable, and a plan that worked beautifully for the person who recommended it to you may be the wrong plan for you.

I will say no to anything I cannot do well. There are treatments I do not offer, and there are days when the honest answer is that you should see someone else for a particular thing. I would rather refer you than work at the edge of what I know.

I will say no to more than is sensible. Some people arrive wanting everything at once. Usually the better answer is less, spaced out, with time to see how the first thing settles before we decide about the second.

None of this is a judgment on what anyone wants. It is how I decide whether a treatment is appropriate, and that decision happens at a consultation, with you in the chair.