TRISH 

Hello, listeners. It’s Trish Hammond here from the Transforming Body’s podcast. And tonight, I’m joined by Mike Clague. Now Mike Clague is actually the CEO and founder of Face Coach, or he’ll tell us a bit more about that as we go along. Consultant, speaker, and author, and he’s a nurse.

Now, I actually met Mike a few years ago at a conference where he was discussing the face coach app and what is it? It’s so interesting, so intriguing. And I had looked through all the, you know, the things that he had on offer there. So it really intrigued me about meeting him. And then last year, I heard him speak at ASDC?

 

MIKE 

ASCD. Yep.

 

TRISH 

I yeah. So it’s strange. Because many dermatologists, I always get that around the room.

 

MIKE 

Yes. Yep.

 

TRISH

 And I was like, I would love to interview. So thank you so much for joining me here today.

 

MIKE

 Not a problem, Trish. You’re also an icon of the industry. Very well known, so a pleasure to be here.

 

TRISH 

Awesome. I hope that it’s known for good things.

 

MIKE 

Yeah. Yeah. Nothing.

 

TRISH 

Yeah. So tell me, first of all, how long have you been in the aesthetics space?

 

MIKE 

Well, I was trying to work it out the other day, so I started with Allergan as a BDM and sort of the Victoria Postmedia sort of Botox trainer. I would have been about twenty three or four years old. So looking at me last year then. But No. No.

So I think I’m in my 21st or 22nd year in the industry, so I’ll be one of the first people in. I’ve seen it change True story. It’s actually cute. Gavin Chan, and Gavin’s a great mind of mine. And I mean, that Gavin got started and I got him his first, like, five BD salons to inject from.

And now Gavin’s surgeon, and he’s got a great business. And anyway, he’s in the Temple Store there. So Gavin, I remember telling him, I know it’s risky, but maybe don’t do yellow pages ads because I think these search engines will be big. And Google had a market share of 3% at the time and Yahoo search was 97% and look here we are today. Yeah.

It’s like but I remember that’s how long I’ve been in the industry that we were talking about yellow pages then. And I remember it was a struggle back then now that we’ve lost the term anti wrinkle injections and stuff like that. I moved away back then the TGA was telling us to sort of use the term matrix interactions and make sure that the word didn’t appear in the yellow pages because, of course, it was printed every six months. So yeah. That’s how long.

So I think twenty one years, something like that. So it’s gonna change a lot.

 

TRISH 

Especially in regards to what you’re talking about the regulations and stuff like that. Hey. That’s just really clicked on its head. Like, we’ve gone crazy now. We can’t, it’s a secret.

Yeah. It’s gonna be a secret.

 

MIKE 

Yeah. I think it’s interesting. There are some parts to new guidelines I quite like. I really do like actually consenting the patient every time. I think that was a sensible decision.

I think sending them a copy of the consent form was sensible. Knowing, giving them the way to complain about us, I guess, to HCC or to AHPRA. I think that’s not bad. So some of it’s quite good. I think the loss of the before and after is probably not great.

I’m finding more and more people showing me pictures from Brazil, like of the perfect jawline, a snatched jawline that obviously to me is not achievable.

 

TRISH 

Mhmm.

MIKE

 And so it’s a lot of a lighting trick with the before and after. And that they’ve also, obviously, they could be using something like plastic. But short, it’s gonna give you a very sharp jawline, but it also could give you thirty years of complications that you cannot fix without surgically removing that thing, whatever it is silicate or or, you know, one of the, you know, more serious fillers. So I mean, it’s got its pluses and its minuses. But, yes, there’s some bits that are good and some bits that are bad.

I am on the board of the Cosmetic Nurses Association sort of in charge of education with Jessica. Max, our President, Shirley, Noop. And we’re happy with, I guess, it was started by the lead guys from Olivier and Dennis McKie. We’re happy that we’re key stakeholders at the table, often meeting with our prior meeting with the TGA and at least being involved in feedback on the changes whether or not it gets through sometimes. But at least we have a voice for our members and we are there, you know, to try and sort of shape the way things go.

But, yeah, it’s a shifting landscape. But I hope that you know, stuff doesn’t get pushed underground, and there is too much regulation. Like Professor Goodman and I, you know, he started Face Coach a long time ago. And the idea that I wanted to start that was because I realized that all of these new injectors were being trained in hyaluronic acids. And yet none of the companies because I used to work, what do you say, around the training at Allergan for four years.

They’re not learning how to dissolve it. Mhmm. In an emergency Yeah. Because the usage of that product as the antidote is off label use. And so therefore, you know, it’s how the run of days is used for eye surgery to spread anesthetic.

It’s not used to dissolve fillers in its truest sense. So I wanted to start the safety courses so that we can at least teach the community, the injecting community, how to dissolve in an emergency if they could include an artery or have undesirable effects. So that’s why we started it. But recently, I’ve seen someone injected in a house by a non-medicine with a very powerful copy of a botulinum toxin from a Chinese website. They’ve ordered it at Scott three customs somehow, and then they’ve treated a person whose whole face is paralyzed quite severely.

And she’s having trouble swallowing. Got on the phaser, this phaser. And we’ve been caring for her for the last week. This is really fresh. So I’m wondering, you know, sometimes you get over regulation, you push some stuff underground, and people start, you know, it’s like I it’s like I imagine with the vaping, what’s going on, probably, is they pushing it through the pharmacies, but now there’s other people getting involved that are, you know so so so I hope that the the the regs have that good intentions and and it works the way they want it to.

 

TRISH 

Yes. Yes. And I’m I’m kind of thinking that maybe, you know, they’ve gone like from from here to a hundred and maybe they’ll come back to about seventy five or something and just, you know you know, we just I guess we’re not gonna know until I don’t

 

MIKE

 I honestly don’t think the TDA (Transdermal Application) will change your position whatsoever because I think that a lot of what’s come about for them is, you know, yeah, they said anti wrinkle injections were okay. They said dermal failure injection was okay. The word injection was the problem. And I think that’s come about through the weight loss injection craze. Yeah.

So what’s happened is that it’s blown up and became something that they needed to really regulate and bring down. And so we kind of were collateral damage. In it because we were using the word injection, which implied usage of a schedule for medication. Mhmm. And that’s why.

So I don’t see that one changing. I don’t know. There are two drafts still active with Afra right now. It’s still waiting on that. It’s to come back so maybe.

Yeah.

 

TRISH

 Yeah. Watch his space. Hey. Yeah. And and, you know, while we’re on that, I think as well, when I was actually doing some study on it, the I think the cannabis industry as well kind of

 

MIKE 

Yeah.

 

TRISH

 A big thing for them, like, they are just virtually had their arms chopped off, and I think it it I wonder whether they were targeting them or they were they’re targeting the aesthetics industry or, you know, like it’s  Ithink it was sort of the cannabis and the weight loss stuff probably kicked it off.

 

MIKE 

Mhmm. We were just in the background. But now, because we were doing what we were asked to do, which was to use those terms. Yeah.

But then the terms went away when it was obvious that, yeah, maybe that might be recommending a medication via an injection. But then you got weed stuff like Rejurin is classified as a class three medical device. And even though it’s an injection, now it’s the only one anyone could promote every man and his dog is slamming their Instagram with Rejurin.

 

TRISH 

Because that’s all they can do.

 

MIKE 

That’s all they can do. 

 

TRISH 

But, I mean What Is recurring? What are we allowed to say that it is? No. No.

 

MIKE 

You can say whatever you like. It’s a polynucleotide. It’s polynucleotide. The other reason, like, who is, like, I’m still, I guess, everyone else. There’s a lot of people trying to collaborate.

I’m still on the fence about traveling and speaking. I was in London last year speaking at the SCMAC Conference, which is the Complications Management Action Committee. They are a great group. They handle adverse events for a membership fee, sort of like AMET here. Okay.

And and but they do the US and and Europe. And, obviously, in London, you have people who can inject that. Mhmm. So it’s the total opposite of here. But that conference, by the way, if that one’s looking for an excellent, excellent academic conference, I’m back there in October this year.

It’s so good. Like, it’s so good. It’s no pharmaceutical money. And all the speakers are at the top of their field. You know, we only shall keep Tom De Cartes, like, you know, Jillian Murray, Stephen Harris, like, just some of my absolute idols.

So it’s a really good one.

 

TRISH

 Mhmm. Just London and UK and the USA.

 

MIKE 

Yeah. But they have the Italian  polynucleotide, and they weren’t enamored with it, to be honest. Ours is a South Korean salmon sperm derived, injectable. So the polynucleotide. The funny thing I find is I’m my first degree I did biomass science.

And I’m published now on my tenth paper, Peter Lee. Mhmm. Four international awards too, which is called, for original sort of thinking. And I don’t know. For me, there’s not quite enough data there yet.

For me to start selling it to my patients, I’m a very conservative person. My personality shows I’m probably more like I look like I’m merely a doctor in marketing terms, but I’m actually a laggard. I’m probably one of the last people to try anything because I wanna see data publish data. And I just think with some of your head.

 

TRISH 

You’re a real Yeah.

 

MIKE 

I mean, I’m a full head. I love to read. I love to write and publish. I’m working on 2  more at the moment. Yeah.

So I just for me, the return thing, it’s an interesting line. It says that the only reason I was like, because I was like, because they yeah. Everyone’s using it. Everyone’s saying it’s a game changer, but I’m like, but what study are you reading? Like, I’ve read them and you know, some of them have an n of five, like five people where you’re comparing people in their thirties and forties to each other.

That’s three in one group and two in another, you know. Yeah. So I’m still waiting for someone to really explain the mechanism of action to me really, really clearly and give me some solid data. 

 

TRISH

 Okay. Well well, while we’re on it, what’s it supposed to do?

 

MIKE

 Exactly.

 

TRISH 

Okay. Because all…So it  sounds really bad.

 

MIKE

 I was just at the end of SEM, and I heard a speaker say that it is, you know, thickens the fiberglass activity. But, you know, you can get fiberglass activity from saline injections. It’s stretching the skin. I’ve actually read two papers on that and I’ve done it with the proper guidance after some steroid injections hollowed out an area with the loss of the adipose tissue anyway. And it gets a bit of blood flow and a bit of collagen and it’s just like this cure all, like, you know, but it’s Yeah.

That’s what I’m like. Yeah. You know, we’ll see. Time will talk.

 

TRISH 

Yeah. Yeah. Fine. Well, on that, how do you mean, you say you’re related to doctors. So how do you determine, like because obviously, you’ve got a whole bunch of clients that, you know, love your encounter of the time.

But how do you determine what you’re going to, you know, offer your clients? Like

 

MIKE

 Well, I think I did as I was teaching the other day for Gilderma, and I was asked in the room actually how long is your initial consultation.

 

TRISH 

Mhmm.

 

MIKE 

And I was very shocked to hear that most people were around that. Sort of fifteen to thirty minute mark. Now my initial consultation is an hour Mhmm. Because I need to get to know you what your goals are. 90%t of the time, the patient is actually completely off the mark.

Mhmm. So they have decided they want their lips to shine. Yep. Now let’s say you’ve got really hollow temples, you know, your gym fit. You look like your gym fit.

You know, you let’s say you come in and you say to me, one of my lips is my kind of say, Well, Trish, we go to talk about the facial shape first.

 

TRISH 

Mhmm.

 

MIKE

 I think really good clinicians in aesthetics understand that facial shape is where you start your injectable journey. Mhmm. Yep. And so I will talk about the tempos, you know, the preclarity, the jawline, and the chin and those things. And actually Professor Goodman published a really interesting paper called The Beauty Clock, and he measured some of the most attractive women in the world into camp or distance.

And then from a circle or an oval like the hands of a clock, everything should sit on that oval. Now all things with taste obviously, but it’s a good way to sort of think of facial shape first, samples out, cheeks on the right place, chin in the right place, jawline, then you can start to work inwards. And so that’s how I would do the treatment plan for the injectables. I also think there’s an evolution that’s come in the last two years. People that I admire and and and and, you know, myself, we’re working more on the skin stuff.

 

TRISH 

Yeah.

 

 

MIKE

And so I think you saw me do a bit of a talk about I just got flying to Las Vegas to talk about skin enabling topical insulin.

 

TRISH 

Mhmm.

 

MIKE 

Now if anyone’s listening, not injected insulin, you kill somebody. Okay. Topic. Topical rabbit skin. Yeah.

After treatment. Also, there is no shortage of that. It’s in a big bottle. It’s not like a diabetic shortage like an Ozempic or anything like that but that gets you forty six percent more collagen. So, you know, I like to work on, you know, lasers and skin healing and things like that as well as part of the treatment plan.

So typically, there would be three components to your treatment plan, skin muscle, which relaxes, and then volume loss, which is your fillers. And then if there’s loose skin refer off for surgery. Yeah. You know, I’m sick of seeing people in our industry try to fit the square peck in the round hole. Yeah.

If there’s loose skin, don’t try to fill it.

 

TRISH 

Yeah.

 

MIKE 

That is the wrong answer. Send them to the surgeon, get a consult. And then if surgery’s off the table, it’s too expensive, but it’s not in their zone to talk about the solutions. But if they’re truly coming to you with big saggy gels, don’t fill the marinets up and try and, you know, you just can end up with a pumpkin head

 

TRISH

Yeah. No. I’m good. Okay. And as a patient, it’s really funny because I’ve been in a situation myself where you go in there.

He’s like, oh my god. Just like this is what I want. I look so bad. Can you just, you know, fix my lips actually scare me. So it’s much harder to have normal, you know, like because my lips are wiped in, but I’m just to get them done over there.

Yeah.

 

MIKE 

Yeah. Yeah. Well, like a mic a mic isn’t when I’m teaching over mic isn’t here, and now I would say lips go last.

 

TRISH

 Yeah. Right.

 

MIKE 

When you treat them with a plan, lips go last, dead dead lost. Yeah. Because starting that way out is just wrong.

 

TRISH

 Yeah.

 

MIKE 

Well, chances of you achieving facial harmony And and people forget, you know, the good start principle of design is that, you know, that some of the parts makes up the whole. You are as an artist, if you wanna take the job seriously, you’re going to make sure that when you you treat one area, you will impact the other six next to it. Mhmm. So by walking outside in, that’s not an issue. Top to bottom, outside in versus lip, you know, instead of lips with the saggy baggy around it, it Yeah.

It screams that it’s off.

 

TRISH

 Yeah. That’s correct.

 

MIKE 

So it is an art to me and I’m passionate about that. And I do think that all of us, the ones who take the job seriously, we don’t listen to the patients as much as you might think. I’m not saying that’s a pushy thing. That’s a I will say no thing

 

TRISH 

Yeah.

 

MIKE 

Before I will do something that I know will make you look worse because my job is to make you look better. Yeah. You feel more confident and happy. It is not to have your friends laugh at you, but or have you seen a cafe with big sausages on your lips and hollow temples and sager checks Yeah. Because it doesn’t make sense to the eye.

 

TRISH 

Of course. And as a patient, I think, like, more and more people were looking for practitioners like you. You know, I mean, we wanna line ourselves with someone who’s going to actually help us on our skin health journey. Yeah. Well, it’s actually all about well-being now because I know Yeah.

Myself, you know, like, if I feel like I look good, I exercise more by the way, I’m impressed with the fact that you still have, like, a gym jacket here.

 

MIKE 

You look like that.

 

TRISH 

So oh, thank you. That’s because of my brachial party surgery.

 

MIKE

 Well, you know,

 

TRISH

 feedfold. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s true with like, I find that the average consumer because that’s how I got to the industry through consumers like some online Facebook group with a lot of, you know, people looking for things to get done over time. Mhmm.

But we want to align ourselves with someone who does not take well, takes control, actually.

 

MIKE 

We would advise.

 

TRISH 

Not the right people. Yeah.

 

MIKE 

Yeah. Yeah. And that’s why, like, I’ll be honest, you know, I’m expensive. And the reason I am is because that’s you’re getting twenty years plus experience in terms of when I create your treatment plan, yeah, that’s going to be a plan for you that’s bespoke to you. And nobody else.

And so that takes time, it takes planning, and that’s why you might pay a little bit more. But If something’s really cheap in this world, trust me, run away. Like, there’s a reason. And also, if you can just wander into a place and get your lips done, you know, I might be booked out for four weeks. If you have to wait a little bit, that’s good.

 

TRISH 

Yeah. Yes. I did. The day of instant gratification is slow.

 

MIKE 

Another thing on that, that you said that the holistic thing, like, I think that the skin is making a mess of comeback. Like, you know, everything to do with lasers and yes, systems and and and, you know, the skin boosters and all these things revive both like, there’s a lot of products coming through now that are about the skin. And I’ve really drifted back to really slowing down and the ISAB startup from last year’s International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. You should read it every year for someone like you. It’s a gold mine of info.

The last one showed that hyaluronic acid fuels were down about eighteen percent and like but the biostimulators like sculptron radius, they’re up, like, nearly two hundred percent. And that’s probably because some of them used that hyper diode, they’re just forming the skin. They’re not really creating a bulky, puffy look. So I think that’s gone a bit out of fashion. I mean, there’ll still be people doing that, but I think they’re more artistic.

We’ve gone back to skin. And I will always recommend some kneading, some laser, you know, good medical grade skincare. The skin’s just as important. Yeah. As the injectables, and I think that we lost sight of that for a few years back in the past.

But in the last three or four years, I feel like the really knowledgeable clinicians are really going, hey, hey, don’t blow your money on injectables. Yeah. Let’s make sure your skin is good.

 

TRISH

 I’ve definitely noticed that too. I’ve said anything just by going to comfort and just seeing people like.

 

MIKE

 I think what’s changed for me is the fact that you can see people are really looking at their skin.

 

TRISH 

And that is what makes that I think that’s what makes all the difference. Like, it’s always it’s all it never used to be about the sunblock as much as it is now. Like, it’s all about your sunblock what you put on your skin and Yeah. Rather than what you’re doing to your face kind of thing. Yeah.

 

MIKE 

Yeah. Exactly. And so I think that that natural look is finally coming back. I mean, I’ve stayed there. I never wavered.

I’m more or less in a natural camp Mhmm. To my detriment sometimes. I don’t care. I think you should have your values. I have my corporate values written down on the wall and for the patience to save my you know, and and I guess because I’m a corporate ex pharma, I think, a little differently.

But I do have them written down so that people can walk in one of those values, these natural looking results. Yeah. Therefore, all of my team, they get trained in that, you know, and any that wants to enter the building, you know, efficacies another one that I have. Mhmm. And so, again, when someone a rep brings in a new product, they could approve the efficacy before I even try it.

 

TRISH 

Yeah.

 

MIKE 

Because I’m not gonna put it in my patients unless I understand exactly what it’s gonna do, how and and the safety, but then the performance.

 

TRISH 

Yep. And you don’t wanna be providing something out there that ends up being crap. So

 

MIKE

 Exactly. And I’ve missed one train and I’m happy . 

 

TRISH 

Yeah. I won’t I won’t know that, but I’m going to say, which one? Which one?

 

MIKE 

No. I don’t know. Yeah. No.

 

TRISH 

No. No. No. That’s fine. So tell me, you know, going back to when you first started, what made you because obviously, you started in this business as a nurse.

Specifically straight in cosmetics? Or where did you So

 

MIKE

 I started in a science grade, and then I’d worked for at Allergan, we launched Botox. Then I was in charge of the launch of the Givaudamortonortoplas. And then I left, and I worked in Singapore and Malaysia for them, and I did some extra study to go back I already had the Biomaid Science degree and I did some nursing study as well. And then went back to work in in aesthetics, you know, big thanks to Chris Green, my boss at the time. She was very supportive of everything.

And then I guess kicked off work with doctor Man parking, Sydney for a bit, then moved back to Melbourne to start with Professor Kootman at the dermatology Institute. So that’s sort of my journey, if you like. And then from there, yeah, we started, I guess, got to be bored just injecting and doing treatments. I wanted something else. So we started face coach dot com, which was sort of off label training for areas that you couldn’t get from the companies because I realized that was a gap.

And then the other thing was during the course on how to dissolve filler. I realized that the safety courses were a gap, and that’s one of our most popular courses now is to fill a safety course. Every year, we run it, every couple, you know, every six months, just like CPR. Clinicians will come and study with us on how to handle a nodule, you know, how to handle an ischemic event. If they do hit an artery, how to handle blindness, even, you know, I’ve published a couple of papers on this stuff, and that’s why I was in CMF last year in London.

So, you know, we basically go through the full gamut of what can happen and how to handle it if it does so that then they just like CPR, they can practice.

 

TRISH

 Yeah.

 

MIKE 

And then if something goes wrong

 

TRISH 

Yeah.

 

MIKE 

The skills to deal with it. Yeah. So I’m really proud of that. That was, you know, trying to I’m always trying to lift up the industry. Professor Gumensa great mentor for me, and he’s told me that, like, give, give, give.

 

TRISH 

Yeah.

 

MIKE

 Yeah. No. I’m a big believer. But, yeah, that’s sort of where I started off and how I got to hear.

 

TRISH 

Okay. And, like, years ago, it sounds like, you wrote a book for patience kind of thing. Mhmm. So tell us about that gonna are you gonna

 

MIKE 

The skincare one?

 

TRISH 

The same pattern.

 

MIKE 

The skincare one?

 

TRISH 

Yeah. The the

 

MIKE

 Yeah. Seven steps. I will. it’s actually funny that you caught onto that. So when you know me well, you know, I sometimes just do things to see if I can do them. Yeah.

It’s kinda how my brain works. It’s annoying, and I’m sure that I’m impossible to date because of it. But anyway, I’m just like, oh, I need to do this. So I was doing this brand of course and gosh. It must have been fourteen years ago.

And e publishing had just started with the Kindle and iBooks and everything else. And I wonder how hard it would be to write and publish a book within twelve months. Mhmm. And so I sat down and I started just thinking about, okay, well, what’s one of my passions was skincare? Actually, this led to me making my own skincare too.

 

TRISH

 I didn’t mind.

 

MIKE 

Then I learned to formulate a great mind skin care line, which I now have Face Love Skin.. Anyway, so I was like, I’m gonna learn everything I can about the main ingredients that have published data. Mhmm. Right? And then the myths that are told by marketing companies, and that’s why it’s called seven steps already in skin.

The skin care guide, the marketing execs don’t want you to ring. Yeah. So I can’t offer a few things there. For instance, like, the concept of angel dusting. So you’ll see that gradually at some of the big, and I won’t name them, they’ll kill me.

Some of the big skincare houses started to catch on that, you know, medical grade things like retinol of vitamin c or hyaluronic acid, were important. And now they just flash the word. Yeah. But the concentration isn’t discussed. Yeah.

And let’s say vitamin c, for instance, yeah, you could have, like, twenty percent, but, you know, is it stabilized? If once it goes in, if it’s in a jar and you open it in the air, it’s gonna oxidize and turn brown like a banana. That’s no longer active. Your vitamin c is dead. It’s not gonna fade your pigment spots or whatever claims they’re making.

 

TRISH

 Wow. You know, so once it goes brown, if it comes when you start using it and it starts there, then once it goes brown, that means it’s dead.

 

MIKE

 A lot of vitamin c’s in jars. They’re not stabilized. As soon as you open the jar, if it’s not vacuum pump Mhmm. You’ve killed it.

 

TRISH 

Yeah. Right.

 

MIKE 

Yeah. And then there’s other things like you see some of them come out early in the past. They’ve changed a bit now, but they’d say things like retinol or have retinol. But let me tell you the concentration. You know, and some of the really big ones, like, they use baby doses of retinal vein back so that there’d be no adverse event, but it was like a little bit of a change in your skin.

Mhmm. There’s a classic one that it is. I think I can say it because it’s on the Internet, you can see it, but there was Boswellox back in the day. BOS WELO X, Dowd, b o n o X at the end. Sounds like a major muscle relaxer. Anyways, that was sold as the Boswellia plant extract.

That helps to reduce wrinkles. And I think there was not a lot of studies on that.

 

TRISH

 Okay.

 

MIKE

 And there were some court cases. Anyway, so I wrote it and put all that in there. And then each section just goes through vitamin c, retinal peptides, niacinamide vitamin b. Sunscreens, that physical, chemical. And it just goes through.

 

TRISH

What is it?

How does it work? Why do you need it? Mhmm.

 

MIKE 

And it’s referenced. So anyway, it’s sold on Iboards on Apple and on Amazon, and I still sell copies all the time. It’s oh, no. I booked it. It’s funny.

You can see where it’s sold.

 

TRISH 

Okay.

 

MIKE 

And a true story: I had a patient who was from Luxembourg. She purchased the book. Then she worked out that I’d started my own line. She bought the skincare And the only reason I noticed was it was odd to get an order from, like, Luxembourg. And then she’d asked her, anyways, she is later.

She turns up at Professor Goodman’s for a filler treatment.

 

TRISH 

Oh, wow.

 

MIKE 

She just happened to be in town. She works for a famous company. Anyway, and she came to have an appointment with me, and I was like, your name’s really familiar to me. Love my brain and hate it sometimes. What’s your name’s really she goes, yeah.

Yeah. I buy your skin care. I said, but your accent is like, yeah. I’m from Luxembourg going, get out. Heidi.

So how’s that, like, tracking all the way from a sale on items?

 

TRISH

 Yeah.

 

MIKE

 You know, seventy.

 

TRISH

 So tell me about your skincare because I even know you did skincare. So what what Well,

 

MIKE

 I guess, because I haven’t, like, I have enough on my plate without really going after this to be anywhere selling at all, you know, such as through my own clinic. But, yeah, basically, Australian made speaking friendly. The concentrations are all sort of designed by me. When I go away to speak at conferences, I look at what’s current and much new. And I have a really good look, so you can get this skin care on facebook dot com dot a e.

Things like it’s a simple range. It’s like vitamin b. So, like, people typically don’t tell you the percentage concentration. Why is it listed right on the front in terms? And then I’ll add in a sort of peptide like that one that has an anti-inflammatory peptide in it.

So I read what’s current, what’s really good and people don’t realize but a lot of people say the peptides or other things that big companies say they own. They don’t own it. Yeah. And it’s like only three or four big big production houses in the world. And if you have a good manufacturing and a formulator, you can say to them, I want you to go and find that for me.

And they come back and they get it for me and then I can add it to my skincare. So it’s very effective. No BS like me. Mhmm. I’ll send you some.

 

TRISH

 I might say no.

 

MIKE

 Have a play with it. But, yeah, like, the beze is amazing, the peptide serum is amazing. Yeah. And I’ll just look at what’s going really well. I’m lucky that I got a present.

I mean, this year alone I’ve done, you know, Vegas. Now, I’m about to go to San Diego to speak, and then London again. And then when I get out, I just sort of look at the ranges that are going well, look at some of the ingredients, and then I start to copy them and then up concentrations.

 

TRISH

 Yep. Okay. So how does someone like a not like a paper? I don’t know why I’m calling myself a normal person, but that is a normal person like me, and I’m far from normal. But, you know, someone who’s not educated in aesthetics.

Like, how are they gonna like, how do we kind of navigate our way to, number one, find someone that we can trust that we know has got our best interest at mind and Mhmm. And, you know, give us a good product to use. Like, how do we where do we start?

 

MIKE

 It’s a tough one. I mean, look, is it you know what? There’s a myriad, isn’t that? Like, the problem is now you’ve got you can have a billion good Google reviews, but they could be bots or, you know, like, it’s really hard. I think word-of-mouth is probably really important.

A lot of us come from word-of-mouth. The other thing is, like, if you look at your friend and they look sensible, and, you know, the reason I get a lot of word-of-mouth is they look beautiful or handsome. And if friends like, I didn’t know you did stuff and they’re like, yeah, you know. So I think the word-of-mouth component is a big one. And then you can look us up on the ARPA website too and see if, you know, they’re registered.

As I said, there was someone being injected down the coast there. She’s not registered so you could easily look up and see. But also, like, if it’s if it seems too good to be true price wise Yeah. Just check your gut.

 

TRISH

 Yeah.

 

MIKE

 Yeah. Your gut’s probably gonna tell you, no, this is not good.

 

TRISH

 Yeah. Actually, I had a girlfriend saying, oh, I can get Philip for three dollars, fifty or something like that.

 

MIKE

 Yeah. Like, no. Yeah. And, like and and, also, when there’s incentives to buy, so when it’s, like, bundle things, like, you know, get three meals for this price. They’re not obviously got your best interest at heart because I don’t know what you need yet.

 

TRISH

 Yeah.

 

MIKE

 So why am I having a package for three months at twenty percent off? Like, it it I’m clearly trying to sell you something.

 

TRISH

 Yeah.

 

MIKE

 And the other thing too is, like, go for a couple of consults and then go back. Like, don’t just go and do you think?

 

TRISH

 Yeah.

 

MIKE 

I had a lady the other day. She was adamant. She was gonna have treatment on the die. And I said, you know what? And then she said, why?

And I said, because you’re kind of alive the Like, she was sort of like, I want this. I want that. Showing me pictures of this now, and I said, we might not be a good fit. So what I’m gonna give you is this information. We’ve gone through it all.

Here’s an info pack. Here’s all the consent forms. Here adverse events can occur. Here’s what I can do. Here’s some of my before and after that I’m allowed to communicate in person not online and go and think.

Right. And he was like, oh, you’re bossy. And I was like, yeah. Because of your reputation? It’s my reputation.

Like, just because you saw some great jawline. She was the one with the jawline picture. And I said, just because you saw that, I can tell you that watching it is not real. And if your expectation is that I don’t wanna trade you today. I’d rather you go and think about it.

So, yeah, like, word-of-mouth, look at the before and after as well, ask them to show their before and afters in the one on one Yeah. If they don’t have any, if they don’t care.

 

TRISH

 Yeah.

 

MIKE

 You know what I mean? I’ve got hundreds. Yeah. So I could match them to your age, your needs. The other thing is, are they asking you enough questions about you and your life?

So, like, you know, I’ll ask you, you know, what’s going on in your life, Trish? Like, what’s you know, like, what do you do, done with that? There’s because a lot of that is also tied into your aesthetic Mhmm. And who you are. And one of my mentors, doctor Abraham, she’s in LA.

She’s imagining she came up with this concept called the signature feature. Everyone has something that’s really beautiful about themselves. Can they see that? And do they understand that, you know, this is my job. You know, I’m head of the PTA.

I’m doing this. I’m but or maybe I’m, you know, see or what, like, that is another important part in coming to understand the person and their goals in their entirety. So that would be, you know, that’s a long winded answer. I know, but it’s

 

TRISH

 Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s like I’m not it’s not just a quick

 

MIKE

 That would be the best answer. Don’t go quick and Yeah. 

 

TRISH 

Yeah. It’s  not just like a pick up night, you’re gonna pick someone up for the night, whatever’s the relationship thing.

 

MIKE 

And some time talking, getting to know them, see if the vibe’s on, if not, go to another one, but don’t do the treatment on a whim. And understand exactly what you’re doing and getting. And if it’s too cheap, don’t don’t do it.

 

TRISH 

Yep. And, you know, on that understanding exactly what you’re getting, the amount of times that I’ve gone had shit done and then don’t know what it is.

 

MIKE 

And what if you

 

TRISH

 I don’t know. I had some filtered photos, but I don’t know what I’m wearing and I don’t even know what got done.

 

MIKE 

And I feel like that’s probably the new guidelines will help prevent that, which is great because you get your consent from email to you. You’ve got the cat. You’ve got the kid. You’ve got your after k sheets. So, you know, it’s really clear what you’ve done.

Yeah. Yeah. And now it’s actually emailed to you as well. Yeah. Exactly what you had at how many units or how many meals or and the name of the product.

 

TRISH

 Yep. So tell me a bit about your clinic. So who likes, how many have you gotten your team?

 

MIKE 

We have three RNs and practice manager’s my business partner. We work with the doctors fresh there and only two days a week there. And then two days a week with Professor Goodman at the Geomatology Institute of Victoria, we have 5 or 6 germs there. So I might Okay.

 

TRISH

 Is that your favorite bet? Is that amazing? Like, doing the derm?

 

MIKE

 Yeah. Like, I like I as you can tell, I don’t do anything for more than two days because it’s just my brain. But Tuesday is academic day. Publishing, writing, authoring, I also do pharmaceutical consulting. I just spent two days with Gilderma helping them with some staff.

I’ve helped ZaiTai, and I remain grateful. A lot of the companies have actually done consulting work and training of the sales reps or training of the trainers like all sorts of stuff creating materials. So I guess I’m really well varied. But the dermatology institute is really good because obviously my mentor profs. He’s probably one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met.

And he pushes me to be better.

 

TRISH 

Is this professor of equipment?

 

MIKE 

Greg Guignan. Oh, up. And he’s Honestly, like, you’ll never meet someone so humble.

 

TRISH

 Yeah.

 

MIKE 

And can he genuinely pleasure elevating everybody around him all of the time? And I’ve never met anyone like that, to be honest, so I just heard nothing but respect for the guy. I’ve known him for 21 years now. And it’s funny like I’ll be his Botox rep on our skinny little kid. And here we are now, we own a face coach together and I’ve published with him and yeah.

We’re working on some other stuff. I can’t talk about the night. Hopefully, it comes off soon, but it will be really good for the industry as a whole. But, yeah, I love working now and stuff. And he lets me kind of play with stuff too.

Like, I’ll say, hey. I’m thinking I wanna try this again. You’ll come, you know, I was reading about topical metformin in the last month. This new paper came out showing. And I said, can I ever play with that with the Alma machine that does infusions with ultrasound?

And he’s like, yeah, going alright. Let’s do ten split faces. Like, he helps my brain, you know, do that. I just published a paper on Botox and scars. And, you know, he was my et al on that, so I was the lead on the paper.

And it was just nice. I’ve taken my girls, my rMs from Facebook along that journey as well, so to get them published you know, up, sort of, ten or twelve years after he helped me get published. It was a, you know, pay it forward kind of thing. Yeah. So, yeah, I’ll always be working with him.

He’s just a great guy, and that’s why I’m still there. When I said, you own your own place around the next two days? I said, yeah. About, like, two days of the derm practice. Also, you know, things like rosacea and and, you know, I’m working with a girl.

She’s sort of a really bad keloid at the moment. And you know, using the laser plus the mechanical, the infused with the sonophoresis. Like, it’s the complicated part of my brain who likes the

 

TRISH

 Yeah. If you know what? I was gonna ask you this question. I was like, you seem to have, like, done everything. Like, what actually, you know, where to next, but I think you kind of I mean, you can answer this one, but I think you kind of make every day something like like you can like like you like you like to experiment in in a mix big stuff around, which keeps it fresh for you because, like, twenty let’s be honest, twenty threes is really freaking long times, baby.

 

MIKE

 It has been a long time. I guess I genuinely love it too, which again when I hate I get upset when I see people reporting other people for stuff just because Okay. And I wish that was stopped. I wish you knew, like, if someone is genuinely dangerous Sure. But but the reporting people just because stuff that really upsets me.

So, no, that’s the only thing that bothers me. Everything else I love about the industry, I care about it. I wanted to keep growing. And, yeah, I’m lucky I guess I love all those components. I’m looking more and more on the academic beat as I get older.

I’m forty eight. I see. But, you know, but, like, it went last the other day, it’s like, you’ve done so much. I’m like, yeah. But, you know, so we’re actually trying to do some work at the moment with the university and I can as I said, I don’t wanna talk about it.

But, you know, I’m hoping that that would be more like long term legacy stuff. And I’m working on two new publications. So and, also, I think, like Yeah.

 

TRISH

 You think?

 

MIKE 

Sorry? You sleep? Yes. It’s, like, six and a half hours a night. No.

I might look at the resting person. Well, I’m neurodivergent, I guess, or the term that gets flown in. But it’s I know. Yeah. I don’t mind the new debate.

 

TRISH

 Fifteen percent. Yeah.

 

MIKE

 Like, I can handle my trial website that much kinda I’m aware of. But I have to be interested or I won’t. So I have a really good team around me. I’ve made sure for years, you know, Connor McQuoy, he’s my business partner there. He ran the skincare company for years.

And then, like, if someone’s really good for me, I haven’t been buying to the clinic. Like, you know, and he now we’re running the skincare is going out, doing some stuff. We’ve got an Irish thing coming like, you know, there’s a lot I let people buy in and they’re all executors. Right? So I’m not a strong executor.

I’m very good with ideas. Yeah. And I’m good to a point, and then I mean to have someone finish the admin. Yeah. So I like that.

 

TRISH 

Oh, what do you know what I mean? You’re not like, yes. I’m great. I can do this in the New Year.

 

MIKE 

Your own brain. Yeah. I suck I suck at execution on the end bit. I can execute to a point and then I’m like, I’m done now. That’s so boring.

Help me finish it. And so I surround myself with people like that. And it’s no. But I guess because I love it, it’s fun, you know. And I and I think too with injecting, if you love it and it’s an art for you, you actually don’t stop learning.

Yeah. That’s what I love.

 

TRISH 

And things change all the like, there’s new stuff to learn all the it’s like, yeah.

 

MIKE

 You know? And then, like, new products, I like to research them and understand them. And then I guess and then I’ve worked now for, I don’t know, nine or twelve companies. And I tend to only work with products that I like in these companies.

Sometimes people say, oh, I well, so many it’s hard. Like, it’s like, well, no. Only work for products I’d like. I haven’t necessarily worked with the entire range for that company. Yeah.

They might know not to put me on stage. Of that. But I will say bad things about the product, but I’m not, like, another four. Man, and I’m proud of that. I’m not, like, the average sort of person in k o that gets on stage and just says, yeah, everything’s great.

Like, I’ll tell you which ones I like, which ones I don’t and why.

 

TRISH 

Yeah. Yep. No. That’s so true. I could talk to you all night, seriously.

 

MIKE

 They give you

 

TRISH 

I need to have a drink. Yeah.

 

MIKE 

I do talk a lot.

 

TRISH 

Oh, so why. So why? And I’m gonna perform Perfect. Alright. I’m gonna like, I just wanna finish up with them.

I’m just asking the small questions. So, like and it comes back to this. You’ve done so much. Like, so what like, I know you said you’ve got a couple of exams, something exciting with doctor Goodman or Professor Goodman, and you’ve also about the premise regarding stuff like that. But what like, is there something that you like, how else is the magic?

Like, where to next?

 

MIKE

 I honestly don’t know. Yeah. And that’s part of the fun and the magic, isn’t it? Like I said, I hope that you know, she continues to grow even then with this sort of extra regs coming in. I hope that people continue to support each other and stop and not stop each other for nonsense.

And I hope that it becomes a positive environment that patients can trust us and can see that we will help them. It’s always going to be yeah. Like, I’ll never be able to just inject, like, full time or week.

 

TRISH 

 I know that. So I guess my next bit would be more easy and worse, really.

 

MIKE

Yeah. No. Like, I could do it, but and I love it, but I’d probably lose a bit of my passion. And also, you can get a little bit jaded days when people are pushing you. Like like I was saying the other day, I finished this day, and I don’t know why I had this run of like six people that I had to say no too strongly.

Yeah. And imagine thirty minutes. Of someone begging you to have sex with them. Yeah. Like like, Trish, have sex with Trish.

Have sex with Trish, and you go, no. And I go, but what if?

 

TRISH

 Yeah.

 

MIKE

 You know, and I’m like, so, like, do my lips. No. They won’t match your face. Here’s the reason. But what if this, Mike?

No. We’re not doing it. Here’s the reason. When you do that for twenty five minutes

 

TRISH 

Yeah.

 

MIKE

 And they leave kind of pissed at you Yeah. But you’ve done them a favor. If that happened four or five times in a day, I’m upset as in, like, I’m I’m I can’t be a big jaded with the job, and that’s why I can’t do it all of the time because I’m that honest and ethical that I’m saying no a lot and that drains you. But then when I get somebody to just do a thing, I love the treatment plan. Let’s do it, and they look amazing.

Cool. That’s a great day. But, yeah, I think the next step for me is to really work into the academic space, right, fully. And then the travel for me has been escalating and speaking overseas. I want to do some more work on safety courses in the US and in Canada and the UK.

So that’s probably, yeah, the next bit, but I don’t know, you know. I’m a really evolving person, not constantly.

 

TRISH

 Yeah. And you’ll just go with what’s coming here. You’ll just go wit hthe shop

 

MIKE

 Yeah.

 

TRISH

 How about that? What starts when are you?

 

MIKE

 I’m an Aries, and I’m a dragon in the Chinese horse, guys. So an Aries dragon, apparently.

 

TRISH 

Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Thanks.

 

MIKE 

That’s what it

 

TRISH

 Yeah. Oh, look. I gotta say thanks. I mean, we’ve been trying to do this for so long, hey.

 

MIKE 

Yeah. 

 

TRISH

 Yes. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this with me tonight.

 

MIKE

 No problem, Moe. And I was really looking forward to it, and I’m glad to finally get it done. And, yeah, anytime that you could’ve got something you wanna come back and ask me, let me know.

 

TRISH

 I definitely will. I definitely let’s do this again.

 

MIKE 

Yes. Definitely.

 

TRISH 

Thank you so much. So listen, look, if you wanna check out my clay, just check about like, you can just go to Mike, mikeclague.com.au. Yeah. And there’s a whole bunch of stuff there to read about it. And watch the other websites.

 

MIKE 

FaceLove.com.au and div.net.au  Right. And that’s everything at the moment. So yeah.

 

TRISH

 A little bit of light reading.

 

MIKE 

Yeah. Okay. I get the book. I’ll read the book if you want. It’s okay.

It’s okay. Iqing’s on Amazon. You can read on the Kindle. It’s seven steps to read in the skin by my click.

 

TRISH 

Yeah. Fantastic. Oh, thanks so much for joining me tonight, Mike.

 

MIKE

 No problem.

 

TRISH 

Have a great one.

 

MIKE 

Thank you. Bye now. Bye.

 

TRISH 

Yay. Thank you.