By Erika Sheyn and Duey Xu
Medical aesthetics has long centered on injectables, neurotoxins and dermal fillers as the twin engines of a booming industry. That picture remains partly accurate. But a close reading of 2025 transaction data across thousands of U.S. medical aesthetics practices and med spas tells a more nuanced story, one in which professional-grade skin care has emerged as a central pillar of the patient experience rather than an afterthought at the checkout counter.
At Guidepoint Qsight, we track patient-level purchasing data across the medical aesthetics channel and have been documenting this shift in granular detail. Our findings point to a category that is simultaneously driving new patient acquisition, supporting cross-category bundling and building long-term loyalty, all while generating $2.3 billion in patient spending at U.S. medical aesthetics practices in 2025 alone.
A Destination, Not a Detour
In 2025, 54% of visits at U.S. medical aesthetics practices where professional-grade skin care was purchased did not involve any additional procedures or treatments. Patients are not picking up a moisturizer on the way out after a filler appointment. In more than half of cases, skin care is the primary reason for their visit.
That data point reframes how practitioners, and observers of the broader consumer health and beauty market, should think about medical aesthetics practices. They are no longer purely procedural destinations. They have become trusted retail environments where consumers seek out products they cannot easily find elsewhere.
Medical aesthetics clinics, with their deeply knowledgeable staff and results-oriented culture, offer the element of human counsel that goes beyond the algorithm. And there’s a clear analogy here to retail pharmacy, where the pharmacist has become a trusted advisor to patients and consumers alike.
An Accessible Entry Point for New Patients
Skin care’s role is not limited to serving established patients. The data shows it’s also playing a meaningful role in bringing new patients through the door. In 2025, 31% of all first-time visits included either a professional-grade skin care purchase or a skin tightening or skin rejuvenation treatment, a share that rivals neurotoxins as a patient gateway into the broader aesthetics category.
More specifically, professional-grade skin care products were purchased in 15% of all first-time patient visits in 2025. For a new patient, a skin care purchase represents a relatively low-stakes introduction. The financial and psychological barrier to entry is lower, and the tangibility of a product to take home provides a sense of immediate value.
This matters beyond the transaction itself. Patients who enter through the skin care door are establishing a relationship with a practice. Our data shows that nearly 40% of patients who purchased professional-grade skin care in 2024 returned to the same practice in 2025 for another skin care product purchase.
Integrated Into the Treatment Ecosystem
Beyond stand-alone skin care visits, the Qsight data also documents the category’s tight integration with in-office procedures. Approximately one-quarter of microdermabrasion, mechanical microneedling, hydradermabrasion and chemical peel visits in 2025 included a skin care purchase. Skin care has become a standard element of treatment planning, not an optional add-on. For practices, this integration carries a revenue dimension as well: Patients purchasing professional grade skin care last year spent an average of $160 per visit on such purchases, which can represent a more than 30% uplift on total spending during visits for procedures such as neurotoxins.
The broader bundling picture in medical aesthetics reflects a patient population increasingly oriented toward holistic outcomes and professional input. 50% of dermal filler visits also include a neurotoxin procedure, reinforcing the traditional pairing of those two injectable categories.
Atcthe same time, GLP-1 weight loss medications have entered the mix: 11% of all visits at medical aesthetics practices offering compounded GLP-1 in 2025 involved the purchase of that medication, and nearly 30% of GLP-1 patients in 2025 also purchased an injectable, energy-based device or skin rejuvenation procedure that year. Patients are assembling personalized wellness programs rather than seeking out isolated procedures.
A Stable Growth Engine in a Volatile Market
The resilience of the skin care category is particularly significant given the uneven performance of medical aesthetics more broadly in 2025. Non-surgical body contouring faced significant headwinds, with patient spending falling approximately 17% year over year. Demand for hyaluronic acid fillers has been softening for several years, with the share of neurotoxin visits that include a dermal filler procedure declining from 21% in 2017 to 13% in 2025.
Against that backdrop, skin-quality treatments and professional skin care products have held firm. Nearly all skin rejuvenation segments posted strong growth in 2025, with mechanical microneedling spending increasing 33% year over year. With growth continuing well into 2026, these are not numbers that suggest a trend at its peak.
What It Means for Retail Pharmacy
The consumer who is purchasing professional-grade skin care at a medical aesthetics practice is, in many cases, the same consumer who shops at a retail pharmacy for everyday health and beauty needs. The question worth asking is whether these two channels are diverging, or whether there is an opportunity for convergence.
The medical aesthetics channel has earned consumer trust by pairing product recommendations with clinical credibility. Retail pharmacy already occupies a position of health authority in communities across the country. The pharmacist, like the medical aesthetics provider, is a trusted advisor on product efficacy and ingredient safety.
The rise of professional-grade skin care in the medical aesthetics channel is also a signal about where consumer expectations are heading. Patients who have experienced the results of a prescription-strength retinoid, a growth-factor serum or a post-procedure barrier repair product are unlikely to trade down willingly.
The Skin Health Consumer Has Evolved
The medical aesthetics patient is no longer defined primarily by a desire for procedures. Increasingly, they are defined by a commitment to long-term skin health and are willing to seek out and pay for products that support that commitment in settings they trust.
That behavioral shift has embedded professional-grade skin care into the connective tissue of the modern aesthetics practice — a category that brings patients in, keeps them coming back and weaves naturally into whatever else they choose to pursue. For brands, practitioners and retailers alike, understanding that dynamic is no longer optional. It is foundational to serving a consumer who has made skin health a genuine priority.
Erika Sheyn is senior vice president of aesthetics, and Duey Xu is senior data scientist at Guidepoint Qsight, a provider of medical aesthetics data and analytics. They can be reached respectively at esheyn@guidepoint.com and duey.xu@guidepoint.com.
