If We Could Go Back and Redo Our Own Early Aesthetic Choices…

Ask an aesthetic expert what they would change about their own skin care and you get a unique perspective from those that are performing aesthetic treatments every day. It's a different kind of question. Not about a patient. Not about a protocol. About themselves, and what they wish they'd known when they were starting out.

The people who guide people towards the right types of treatments didn't always get it right for themselves in the past. Their regrets are personal, specific, and — if you're trying to make better choices — more useful than almost anything else they could tell you.

Start with who, not what

When Dr. Tess Peters thinks about what she'd tell her younger self, the answer isn't a product recommendation. It isn't even a specific treatment. It's about who she would have gone to.

She's watched what happens when patients treat aesthetics like a commodity — the same treatment performed by different providers can have meaningfully different outcomes. In her experience, the gap between the results is wider than most patients expect.

I don't regret any specific treatments. But I do wish I had trusted the experts from the beginning. It's worth doing your research — finding physicians with advanced training, dermatologists and plastic surgeons who have dedicated their careers to advancing the science. These are medical treatments. They carry real risks. If it means waiting a little longer or driving a bit further, it's worth it.

The advice sounds straightforward. It rarely is. Just because every clinic markets the same treatments it's important to understand that you won't necessarily get the same results.

The skin I left in the sun

Jennifer Puleo, a nurse practitioner, gives the most specific answer. She doesn't talk in generalities about UV exposure or the importance of SPF. She names an actual place, an actual habit, and a regret she can trace directly to both.

She grew up near Erie, Pennsylvania, where gray and overcast days were the norm. Sunny days were rare enough to feel like an event. She went outside for every one of them. When she moved to Florida, that instinct followed her. The tanning bed habit from college had already done its part.

If I could go back — every sunny day we had, I'd go outside and work on my tan. I spent time in a tanning bed in college. Now I understand exactly how much sun protection matters, how much it slows the aging process. I wish I'd figured that out a lot earlier.

She knows now, in precise clinical terms, what that accumulated exposure will cost her skin over time. The knowledge arrived well after the choices were already made.

The biology you didn't know to protect

The third answer comes from a different angle. Dr. Shino Bay doesn't name a particular habit or a missed specialist. His version of what he'd do differently is about what the field itself took too long to understand — and what that means for the choices patients are making today.

What I began to realize over time is that we were often demanding collagen from aging cells without helping those cells recover, regenerate, or function in a healthy environment. We were asking cells to work harder while ignoring the biology of the tissue itself. Beautiful outcomes should never come at the expense of tissue health. The future of the field is not just stimulation — it is regeneration with intention.

The cells you're asking to produce results need to be in a position to respond. Starting with tissue health is not a soft preference. It is the reason some results last and others don't.

What all three answers share

None of the regrets here are dramatic. No botched procedure, no single decision that changed everything. What these three stories share is quieter than that.

The choices that created regret felt low-stakes at the time because they didn't have immediate consequences.

Prevention isn't just something practitioners recommend to their patients. It's something the people who know this field best wish they had applied to themselves — earlier, and more seriously, than they did. That's a more useful thing to know than any specific product recommendation. Who you go to, how you protect your skin, and what you understand about the biology underneath — none of these feel urgent until they are. With all the decisions that you have to make in your life each and every day, there are very few where the outcomes are already known. These ones are.