©2022 Saratoga Photographer.com
By Jill Nagy
Memories of teenage skin problems were part of the motivation for Andrew Kelly to become an aesthetician specializing in skin care. He recognized the need to de-stress and take time for self-care and the importance of diet in treating skin problems.
Today, he is the proprietor of Skin by Ask, a new medical spa at 29 Church St. in Saratoga Springs.
Kelly has been in business as an aesthetician for six years. He has clients in the Saratoga area and in New York City. He has also continued offering virtual treatments, something he developed during the COVID lockdown but has continued for clients who prefer to do their own care under his guidance.
He terms his business a combination of a day spa and a medical spa. He offers facials, nonsurgical facelifts, laser treatment, skin tightening, microneedling, and other treatments. In microneedling, a matrix of tiny pulsating needles are intended to stimulate the production of collagen.
Two common problems Kelly deals with are hyper pigmentation, a skin discoloration, often following pregnancy, and rosacea, a condition that causes the skin to redden, especially on the nose.
Kelly worked as a publicist after college but, he found, “I wasn’t passionate about it.” He signed up for the Christine Valmy School to train as an aesthetician. Subsequently, he undertook further education to become certified for laser, microneedle, and chemical peel treatments.
Currently, he is in the process of becoming a registered nurse. “It’s all about learning and growing,” he said. The RN license will allow him to add more invasive treatments like Botox injections to his repertoire.
Kelly worked for almost 11 years in New York City before moving to Saratoga. He has had his own business for two and a half years. He does all the treatments and his mother, Barbara Kelly, keeps the business running. She answers the telephone, makes appointments, takes care of orders for skin care products (more than 100 shipments a month, he said), and generally acts as office manager.
The products on sale include a line of skin care products from Biologique Recherche in France, for which he is the exclusive area distributor.
Skin by Ask is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. The spa is closed on Sundays.
Further information is available on the website SkinbyASK.com. The telephone number is 518-886-1007.