The Priory Room

WILL I BE TRYING RE20 IN KOREA? 🇰🇷

This is one I’ve been particularly curious about.

Not simply because it’s being talked about as one of Korea’s newer-generation skin boosters…

…but because of what’s actually inside it.

RE20 is made using human-derived dermal tissue.

And yes. That sentence deserves a moment.

RE20 also known as Elravie Re20 is an injectable based on human acellular dermal matrix (hADM).

In very simple terms, donated human dermal tissue is processed to remove the living cells, leaving behind components of the extracellular matrix the structural environment of skin, including collagen and elastin.

Rather than simply adding hydration or stimulating the skin to produce more collagen, the idea behind RE20 is to introduce components of that dermal matrix directly.

And scientifically? I find that fascinating.

Ethically? I think it deserves a proper conversation.

Because although acellular human dermal matrices have a history in regenerative medicine, using donated human tissue for an elective aesthetic treatment feels different.

And that is where some of the controversy around RE20 has come from.

Questions have been raised in Korea about the use of donated human tissue for cosmetic purposes, consent, how people feel about the eventual use of donated tissue, and whether something being technically possible automatically makes it something we should embrace.

The manufacturer has defended the technology and points to the stringent regulation and traceability surrounding human tissue.

So…

Will I have RE20 while I’m in Korea?

I genuinely haven’t decided.

And I rather like that I haven’t.

Part of this trip is about experiencing Korean aesthetics firsthand but it isn’t about collecting every new treatment simply because it is trending.

I want to ask questions.

Where does it come from?
How is it processed?
What evidence supports it?
What happens to the tissue during manufacturing?
How is donor consent handled?
And what does it offer that I cannot achieve with treatments we already have?

Then I’ll decide whether curiosity wins.

Because innovation should make us curious.

It shouldn’t stop us being discerning.

Would you try RE20?

Hanaà

BEAUTY ADVICE MY DAUGHTER HAS PASSED BACK TO ME 🤍

Apparently, raising a daughter means that at some point the student becomes the teacher.

After sharing the little beauty habits I’ve passed down to her, it seemed only fair to admit that she has taught me a few things too.

Some I have embraced enthusiastically.

Some she still has to remind me about…

Take your makeup off. Every. Single. Night.

She is religious about this.

And I realise, after spending most of my life working with skin, admitting this is almost sacrilege but occasionally I am simply too tired.

On those nights, a quick swipe of micellar water can be all I can muster.

She is horrified.

So I am trying to be better. And when I do it properly, She loves EVE LOM Cleanser⁠ and a warm muslin cloth. Although I think my daughter would happily stand over me at bedtime to enforce this personally. EVE LOM

Choose cotton feminine products.

Not strictly beauty advice, but one of those quiet changes she introduced me to that I haven’t looked back from.

I now choose unbleached cotton products where possible I like FLO⁠. Here We Flo

Not because we need to make frightening claims about conventional period products. I simply prefer knowing what I’m choosing for such an intimate area.

Lush Dream Cream.

This is her pot of magic.

Whenever her skin is particularly dry or eczema-prone, she swears by Lush Dream Cream⁠. LUSH UK

BEAUTY ADVICE I’VE PASSED DOWN TO MY DAUGHTER 🤍

Some beauty advice comes from textbooks.

Some comes from years spent working with skin.

And some is simply the little things you find yourself saying to your daughter so many times that, eventually, you hope they become second nature.

These are a few of mine…

Take your earrings out before bed.
Particularly heavy earrings. Years of weight, pulling and accidental snagging can stretch the piercing and gradually thin or elongate the earlobe. Give your ears a rest.

Those little bumps on the backs of your arms? Don’t scrub them into submission.
For her keratosis pilaris, I favour gentle chemical exfoliation rather than aggressive physical scrubs glycolic acid when tolerated, followed by a urea moisturiser to soften and hydrate.

Put your antiperspirant on at night.
Not just five minutes before you leave the house. Antiperspirants generally work best when applied to completely dry skin before bed, when sweat production is lower. You can still wash normally in the morning.

Your body lotion belongs on slightly damp skin.
After a bath or shower, pat rather than completely dry, then moisturise. You’re helping to hold onto some of that water rather than trying to put it back once the skin feels parched.

Wear your SPF. But don’t become frightened of daylight.
Protect your skin from excessive UV exposure. Seek shade, don’t deliberately burn, and use your sunscreen properly but I never want skincare to turn the sun into something she fears.

And perfume does not need to live on your neck.
Fragrance can irritate some skins, and certain fragrance ingredients can cause photoreactions when combined with UV exposure. I’d rather perfume clothes or less sun-exposed areas than repeatedly spray fragrance over the delicate, exposed skin of the neck and décolleté.

None of these are particularly glamorous.

No miracle serum.
No £300 device.
No promise to stop ageing.

Just small habits that, repeated for years, can make a difference.

And perhaps that’s the beauty advice I most want to pass down to her:

look after yourself, but don’t spend your life being afraid of getting older.

Although this isn’t entirely a one-way education

There are people in our community who spend most of their time caring, organising, holding things together or simply getting through a period that has asked rather too much of them.

I would like to give one of those people an hour in which they are not required to do anything at all.

A Quiet Hour is one complimentary 60-minute facial atThe Priory Room in Canford Cliffs.

This is not a content opportunity, and the person receiving it will never be expected to appear on my page, provide photographs, leave a review or explain publicly why they needed it.

If you feel that an hour of quiet care would mean something to you, send me the single word PAUSE by private message.

You do not need to disclose personal, medical or family circumstances. I will not ask anyone to prove that they are deserving.

If somebody came to mind while reading this, please send the post to them privately rather than naming them in the comments. The decision to put themselves forward should remain theirs.

Details

Open to adults aged 18 or over who can attend my treatment room in Canford Cliffs, Poole. One private message per person. Messages close at 8pm on Sunday 6 September 2026. One recipient will be selected at random and contacted privately by Tuesday 8 September. The facial must be booked and taken by 31 October 2026, subject to appointment availability, consultation and treatment suitability. There is no cash alternative and the appointment cannot be transferred or exchanged for another treatment.

This offering is provided solely by The Priory Room and is not sponsored, administered by or associated with Instagram. Full details are available on request.

After enough years, the hands begin to remember.

They remember the sequence, the anatomy and the pressure. They no longer need to pause between one movement and the next to ask where they should go.

But experience should not make the hands automatic.

However familiar the technique becomes, the face beneath it has never been encountered before.

Its structure is different. Its tension is held differently. Its response to being touched belongs entirely to that person, on that particular day.

This is the part of facial massage that cannot be reduced to choreography.

The hands arrive with knowledge but they must also arrive willing to listen.

Because the most considered touch is not simply performed upon a face.

It develops in conversation with it.

Things I Have Learnt Through My Hands

I BOOKED THE FLIGHT. 🇰🇷

A little while ago, I asked you what you wanted to see more of from me and from the treatment room.

I read every answer.

And somewhere between your responses, my endless curiosity about skin, and an idea I’ve been quietly sitting on for rather a long time… I booked a flight to South Korea.

This isn’t just a trip.

I’ll be spending time in Korean training academies, learning new techniques, exploring the treatments and technologies shaping Korean skincare, and perhaps my favourite part putting myself on the other side of the treatment bed and experiencing some of them firsthand.

Because I don’t want to bring something into my treatment room simply because it’s new, Korean, viral or beautifully marketed.

I want to understand it.

I want to see how it is taught.
How it feels.
What the skin actually does afterwards.
And whether it deserves a place at Intentions.

Some things may come home with me.

Some things almost certainly won’t.

That’s part of the adventure.

For me, continuing to learn is part of caring for the faces that trust me with their skin. And sometimes that means getting on a plane and going a little closer to the source.

So… Korea is officially happening.

I have a feeling there may be a few new intentions coming home in my suitcase.

Hanaà x

The most difficult advice to undo is not the obviously reckless kind.

It is the advice containing just enough truth to feel universal.

An ingredient may genuinely support one skin concern. A treatment may have credible evidence behind it. A creator may even be repeating information accurately.

But none of that tells us whether it belongs on this particular face, in this particular routine, at this particular moment.

By the time some clients reach my treatment room, they are not simply using too many products. They have become caught between competing instructions:

Exfoliate but protect the barrier.
Use actives but keep the routine simple.
Never block a pore.
Never allow the skin to become dry.
Introduce retinoids.
Repair the irritation caused by introducing retinoids.

The routine grows while confidence in the skin quietly disappears.

My role is not to replace one set of rigid rules with another.

It is to look at the whole picture: the skin itself, its history, what has recently changed, how products are being combined and what the person living in that skin can realistically sustain.

Sometimes I recommend a new product or treatment.

Just as often, I remove something, reduce the frequency or ask the skin to do nothing new for a little while.

The internet can give us information.

Discernment begins when we decide what not to do with it.

Notes from the Treatment Room

I don’t care… and I mean that in the most caring way possible.

I don’t care if your hair is greasy. In fact, I prefer it, it’s an open invitation to get properly into your scalp with the massage oils.

I don’t care if you have facial hair, whether you’re on your period, what you’re wearing, or whether you arrive in a full face of makeup or none at all.

Before some clients have even walked into the room, the apologies are already flying.

“Sorry about my hair.”
“Sorry about my skin.”
“Sorry, I haven’t shaved.”
“Sorry, I’ve got makeup on.”
“Sorry, I look a mess.”

You never need to apologise for arriving as a perfectly normal human being.

My treatment room isn’t somewhere you need to be polished, hairless or beautifully put together. You don’t have to prepare a more presentable version of yourself for me.

Come straight from work. Come feeling tired. Come with your skin misbehaving and your hair needing a wash. Come in whatever felt manageable that day.

And if you’re feeling uncomfortable, self-conscious or a little more vulnerable than usual, tell me. I’ll adjust what needs adjusting, make you comfortable and take care of the rest.

Come as you are completely unapologetically.

Once you’re here, you can exhale.

I’ve got you. 🤍

Some faces are simply more satisfying to massage than others and it isn’t for the reason you might think.

It has nothing to do with conventional beauty, symmetry or perfect proportions.

As a facialist, there are occasions when a treatment simply flows differently. My hands seem to settle naturally into the contours of the face. My fingers find the spaces beneath the cheekbones, around the jaw and through the temples without having to search for them.

The movements become almost instinctive. One leads quietly into another, the rhythm takes over, and for a while I’m no longer consciously thinking about the technique.

Every face has its own story in touch its own structure, softness, tension and way of responding. That is part of what makes facial massage so fascinating.

But occasionally, you find that one face where the architecture and your hands align perfectly. Like hearing exactly the right piece of music at exactly the right moment, you become completely absorbed in it and you don’t want it to end.

To my fellow facialists, massage therapists and skin professionals…

IYKYK. 🤍

My holistic therapy top five.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you’ll know I have one foot firmly planted in science… and the other occasionally wanders off somewhere with a singing bowl.

And I’m quite happy there.

Reflexology, sound baths, acupuncture, Reiki and somatic therapy are five practices I personally find fascinating albeit for very different reasons.

I don’t believe holistic wellbeing should mean abandoning critical thinking. Equally, I don’t think everything valuable about the human experience has to fit neatly into a clinical before-and-after.

Sometimes it’s the ritual.

The touch.

The permission to be still.

The feeling of being cared for.

And sometimes, perhaps, it’s simply allowing ourselves to be curious.

Now I want to know yours…

What’s the holistic therapy you absolutely swear by? And what’s the slightly woo-woo treatment you tried thinking “I’m not sure about this…” and ended up loving?

I’m tagging some of my favourite local practitioners too 🤍