Dec 2019, Guide

Esty Experience with Nerida Joy

December 1, 2019 | by LNE Magazine

Her experience studying esthetics at Ella Bache school in Australia

Where did you first study esthetics?

I trained at Ella Bache in Australia, where I graduated in 1978.

Did you enjoy your esthetics studies?

I always felt that it was such an honor to be there. It was a very professional environment and European-based trained. It was very different from schools here in the U.S., having visited many myself since I’ve been here.

How was the learning environment different than at Beauty Schools here in the U.S.?

It was a different experience over there because there was a big emphasis on professionalism. It was actually very strict. We had to wear a certain uniform, have your hair tied back, your nails a certain way and wear certain shoes. There was a big emphasis on having a clean presentation in the way you looked.

““There was an enormous emphasis on massage.”

What did your training emphasize?

We spent a lot of time on treatment. Of course technical skill was important but a huge percentage of our time was on treatment and doing different treatments on clients and understanding the flow and massage. We didn’t spend as much as on sterilization like school do here, but that could be because it was 41 years ago before the AIDS epidemic, etc.

Technology is also an important part of esthetics training. How much emphasis was there on the use of technology during your training?

There was a lot of machine training. In Australia, you can use machines that you can’t use over here unless you are a nurse or a doctor so that was huge benefit to us estys.

You are also a big proponent of massage, both facial and body, and frequently speak about massage in your educational videos. Were you trained on massage in esthetics school?

There was an enormous amount of emphasis on massage. Body massage was also a part of our training. Our training is longer – mine was a year. It was full time five days a week. So we also learned nails and body massage. Even though it was Swedish massage, the course as a whole was a little bit broader. There was also a lot of emphasis on hands on treatments.

How much client interaction did you have as a student?

Skin analysis and how the body and the skin work together was a big part of our training. We performed a lot of treatments to learn the flow and become more fluid. There was a lot of emphasis on how you react with your clients and learning how to talk to your clients and how to represent yourself.