How Kerry Hanaphy got our skin ready for Platinum VIP Style Awards

Everyone wants to look their best in the run up to any big event – and the celebrity guests attending the Platinum VIP Style Awards were no different. Gorgeous, glowy skin was top of the wish list and the Kerry Hanaphy Aesthetic Clinic – who also sponsored Look of the Year – ensured that happened!

Ahead of the big day, we teamed up with Kerry and her team for a day of pampering. Our gorgeous nominees and guests were offered a chance to try out the Bespoke Glow Package with treatments tailored for specific skincare needs of each individual, and well, didn’t they all look fab?!

Here Kerry Hanaphy shares her top skincare tips and tricks to ensure your skin is always red-carpet-ready, whatever the occasion!

Kerry, when it comes to getting ready for any big event, how far in advance should we start prepping our skin?

It depends on your natural skin. You’d need to come in about six months in advance to address any skin issues, and we can create a plan. Treatments such as IPL are great for pigmentation, rosacea and acne. If it’s just a standard treatment you’re after – Botox, Profhilo, a chemical peel or micro-needling – then we’d say come in a month before the event.

During our beauty prep day, some of our gorgeous guests got to try out the bespoke package which includes dermaplaning, mesotherapy or the oxygen-infused facial. Can you talk us through each one?

Dermaplaning is very good for prepping your skin. We use a little blade which goes over the top layer of skin to get rid of all the peach fuzz so your makeup and tan glides on better. We did it in the clinic two weeks before the awards.
Mesotherapy is when you insert tiny little needles into the skin and with each insertion, you’re pushing in peptides and vitamins into the top dermal layer. You get instantaneous glow to the skin but after a week it really stimulates the cells so they become more hydrated. You should try to do it two-three weeks before an event.
With the oxygen-infused facial, we put some serum on your face and have an applicator which puffs oxygen and pushes the peptides into your skin nice and gently. That treatment could be done the day before an event and it’ll just plump up your skin and give a nice glow. There’s zero downtime for that.

What other treatments would you recommend for an event or a wedding?

We do tonnes of prep for weddings. A lot of brides want Botox so we’d suggest doing that six months before the wedding, and on the same day, we’d do a Profhilo treatment. It’s an injectable which stimulates your collagen and is really good for anyone who is 30 plus. At five months you’d have a second Profhilo, and on the month before your wedding, you’d come in and we repeat the Botox and Profhilo again. It’s a €1,200 package for aesthetic prep. Then we have skin prep with our Glow Package where we’ll do dermaplaning, a chemical peel, mesotherapy and an LED mask. It’s a lovely treatment and takes an hour and a half. You could do that twice before the wedding but leave at least three weeks before the big day.

What do we need to include in our own skin routine?

We have our own range here in the Clinic and there’s a Glycolic Wash, Overnight Rejuvenator, Degreasing Cleanser, Firming Hydrator, Lip Complex and a Lip Plumper. When it comes to a night-time prep, we suggest cleansing your skin in the shower, then you use the degreaser which will unclog your pores and then just before you go to bed, pop on the serum which will rejuvenate your skin overnight and some moisturiser. Then add some lip balm and off you go. If you do that every night, two or three weeks before an event, even if you don’t get a chance to come in for a treatment, it’s fantastic.

What’s the number one thing people should avoid before their big event?

Don’t drink alcohol the night before any treatment as you’re more prone to bruising. Sunbeds are a killer! People think it’ll give a nice glow but, alongside the severe health risks, it dehydrates the skin. Remember to have loads of water, use moisturiser and SPF to protect your skin from the sun and just general healthy living will all add to your skin health.

VIP’s Bianca and Rebecca tried out a few treatments and here’s how they got on.

Bianca’s Dermaplaning

If you’ve ever had a full face thread, you’ll know all about it. I have to brace myself even for an eyebrow thread! And, I’m barely brave enough for the lip! And then the breakouts after, I’m not sure threading is worth it. No wonder dermaplaning is a revolution to me.
In this painless treatment, facial hair or ‘peach fuzz/vellus hair’ (sounds prettier!) is gently bladed away with the tiny scrape of a scalpel. Dermaplaning also removes three layers of dead skin cells, all of which can contribute to making your skin look dull or uneven.
I was honestly dying for this treatment at Kerry Hanaphy’s.

I was desperate to get rid of any facial fuzz, I wanted dead skin cells gone, I wanted my skin soft to touch, I wanted my makeup to glide on. Half an hour later, after this feel-good exfoliating skin rejuvenating treatment, I walked out fresh-faced! I was Bianca reborn!

PS. Dermaplaning is not like shaving your face, because it goes deeper than shaving and it effectively kickstarts cell regeneration. And yes, it’s a myth hair will grow back thicker or darker. Hair does grow back, but it won’t change its colour or thickness.

Rebecca’s Sofwave

To help me get red carpet ready, I tried out Sofwave – a revolutionary non-invasive treatment that is quite literally making waves across the beauty industry. Kerry Hanaphy is the first ‘High-Street’ clinic in Ireland to introduce this treatment, which not only tightens your skin but reduces the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles on your face and neck. This new FDA-approved treatment uses high-intensity ultrasound technology to produce heat targeting the mid-dermis of the skin, which stimulates new collagen and elastin production.

So it’s basically like getting a facelift without having to go under the knife and there is no downtime after the 30-45 minute session
is complete. With the ”snatched” jawline being one of the biggest trends of the moment, I was dying to try this out, as Sofwave is perfect for targeting that double chin area that is just impossible to shift! As a round-faced gal, I have tried many treatments that claim to tighten your jawline and honestly, this is the first one that gave me instant results and was practically pain-free!

The skin continues to tighten for a further 12 weeks, so you just continue to look better and better over the following 3 months. And, to ensure I was looking my absolute best, I also had a glow facial.

The product range includes