Just over three years ago, the land where The Skin Health In­sti­tute now sits was derelict; an aban­doned res­i­dence in des­per­ate need of TLC. Many would have writ­ten it off, but its po­ten­tial caught the eye of Dr Rachael Eck­el - an award-win­ning cos­met­ic doc­tor whose vi­sion has trans­formed Port-of-Spain’s vis­age, as well as the skin health of its clien­tele. In part­ner­ship with ar­chi­tects and in­te­ri­or de­sign­ers from La­gu­na Beach, Cal­i­for­nia, the build­ing has been con­vert­ed in­to a beau­ti­ful, mod­ern space, with crisp lines and nat­ur­al el­e­ments - per­haps an echo of the skilled work that takes place there. When you walk through the doors, you in­stant­ly feel the sense of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and glam­our that the space brings, and know that your skin is in safe hands.

Since the clin­ic’s launch in Oc­to­ber 2016 it has grown sig­nif­i­cant­ly, as Dr Eck­el has made it her mis­sion to of­fer on­ly the best and most in­no­v­a­tive prod­ucts to her pa­tients. It has long been her vi­sion to cre­ate a glob­al­ly-recog­nised fa­cil­i­ty, right here in the heart of Trinidad, and with that she has sought to bring the lat­est Hol­ly­wood trends and tech­nol­o­gy, as well as a first-class ser­vice, cut­ting-edge treat­ments, and of course, the best pos­si­ble re­sults. The Skin Health In­sti­tute is now the go-to aes­thet­ic prac­tice in Trinidad - and the Caribbean - for the very best in skin health and cos­met­ic ex­cel­lence.

One such ex­am­ple is the re­cent­ly launched crys­tal mi­cro­der­mabra­sion treat­ment - straight from the red car­pet of the MTV VMAs to Port-of-Spain. As the name sug­gests, the treat­ment is the lat­est Hol­ly­wood must-have, leav­ing pa­tients with that pol­ished, red car­pet-ready glow. Dr Eck­el has such faith in the ben­e­fits and re­sults of this treat­ment that she in­vest­ed in a num­ber of ma­chines to meet the an­tic­i­pat­ed de­mand of both Trinidad’s res­i­dents, as well as the in­ter­na­tion­al clien­tele that trav­els to The Skin Health In­sti­tute for its ex­per­tise, in­clud­ing Hol­ly­wood roy­al­ty and First Ladies the world over.

Dr Eck­el her­self is an in­ter­na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tor for cos­met­ic doc­tors and fre­quent­ly trav­els the world to teach and find the hottest trends, from Bev­er­ly Hills to Rus­sia and Dubai, and bring them home to Trinidad. Thank­ful­ly, she now has a large team to be able to im­ple­ment these new treat­ments and tech­nolo­gies quick­ly - and safe­ly.

From on­ly three staff mem­bers at clin­ic launch to 30 to­day, the team in­cludes three doc­tors, three nurs­es and three aes­theti­cians - all of whom are med­ical­ly-trained and high­ly skilled in their re­spec­tive ar­eas. In fact, this pow­er­house has over 120 years’ med­ical ex­pe­ri­ence com­bined, which not on­ly means they can de­liv­er the best re­sults, but pa­tient safe­ty re­mains at the fore of all they do.

As med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, Drs Eck­el, Man­na and Hill pro­vide high­ly de­tailed, per­son­alised con­sul­ta­tions us­ing the best tech­nol­o­gy. This in­cludes in-depth pho­tographs of the skin, as well as de­tailed vi­tal signs and met­rics. Their com­pre­hen­sive 90-minute con­sul­ta­tion pro­vides a roadmap for each pa­tient to en­sure they look their very best both now, and in the fu­ture.

They help their pa­tients to achieve their goals through their col­lec­tion of cut­ting-edge treat­ments, in­clud­ing ac­ne scar re­vi­sion, laser hair re­moval (to treat all hair and skin types), deep and su­per­fi­cial peels, and the ZO Skin Health line of prod­ucts, which is one of the lead­ing med­ical-grade skin­care brands in the world, and ex­clu­sive to The Skin Health In­sti­tute in Trinidad.

Us­ing the range of over 60 serums, creams and peels on of­fer, the In­sti­tute can cre­ate be­spoke med­ical fa­cials which, when com­bined with one of the 30 med­ical de­vices housed in the clin­ic, cre­ate glam­ourous, long-last­ing and out­stand­ing re­sults. It is in­no­va­tion such as this that has grown Dr Eck­el’s de­mand among both pa­tients and pro­fes­sion­als. The re­sults she and her team have been able to achieve for dark­er skin tones in par­tic­u­lar are some of the best in the world, not to men­tion the in­cred­i­ble re­sults achieved for ac­ne, large pores, un­even skin tone and melas­ma.

In ad­di­tion to the keen eye-for-de­tail on of­fer for skin health, the clin­ic al­so boasts the on­ly CoolSculpt­ing de­vices in Trinidad. CoolSculpt­ing is the num­ber one body con­tour­ing tech­nol­o­gy glob­al­ly, de­vel­oped by sci­en­tists at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty. Not to be con­fused with cry­olipol­y­sis, CoolSculpt­ing works by gen­tly cool­ing tar­get­ed fat cells in the body to in­duce a nat­ur­al, con­trolled elim­i­na­tion of fat with­out af­fect­ing any of the sur­round­ing tis­sues. The fat cells, which shrink and dis­ap­pear on cool­ing, are nat­u­ral­ly flushed from the body, slim­ming down those stub­born pock­ets you thought would nev­er go, as well as tight­en­ing the skin.

Dr Eck­el’s pas­sion for skin health and her mis­sion to cre­ate an in­ter­na­tion­al cen­tre of ex­cel­lence in her home of Trinidad are in­fec­tious. It is clear that her team love what they do and have bought in­to all that The Skin Health In­sti­tute rep­re­sents. From the in­stant you en­ter the clin­ic, you are tak­en on a jour­ney of style and lux­u­ry that stays with you long af­ter you have left. It’s no won­der that the team is so in de­mand - they be­lieve their pa­tients de­serve the very best, and they won’t set­tle for any­thing less.