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A hybrid, Ofqual-regulated pathway spanning VTCT Levels 2 to 6, built piece by piece to take a total beginner to a fully qualified, fully insured, fully booked aesthetic skincare professional. It isn’t just a qualification. It’s everything you need.
Meet some of our 500+ graduates ↓
See it for yourself
Photos only tell you so much. Press play for a proper look at the academy, the cohorts and the way we teach, then come and see whether it feels like your kind of place.
The destination comes first
Aesthetic Skincare For Beginners is an Ofqual-regulated pathway spanning VTCT Levels 2 to 6, but the qualification is only the start. Inside it sits a bespoke route, built around your starting point, your life and your career objectives, that takes you all the way from complete beginner to a fully qualified, fully insured, working skincare professional in the UK, and as far up the levels as you want to go.
That’s the deliberate difference. Most courses hand you a certificate and wave you off. We give you everything you actually need to build a career, and we stay with you while you do.
01
Ofqual-regulated VTCT qualifications and the hands-on skill to treat real skin, safely, from day one.
02
A network of MSTA-trained professionals you train alongside and keep for the life of your career.
03
Regular coaching and group calls that keep you moving, so you actually do the thing, not just learn it.
04
Pricing, marketing, insurance and your first 100 clients: we get you trading, not just qualified.
05
100+ trainings and monthly masterclasses in our community, so you never plateau after you graduate.
Kirsty Stevenson · Founder, MSTA
From the founder
When I was 21, I qualified through one of those quick-fire beauty courses. Six months of theory, a handful of treatments, off you go. I was charging £25 for a facial and felt rich whenever someone tipped me a fiver.
The problem was I had no idea why I was doing what I was doing. I’d been taught the treatments, not the skin. So I’d put a client in the chair, do whatever they’d booked, and hope it worked. Most of them didn’t come back.
Then a girl called Sophie walked in. Lovely girl. She’d had bad acne for years and tried everything. She sat in my chair and asked me what I thought she should do. The honest answer was, I had no idea.
That night I went home and went down the rabbit hole. Skin physiology. Hormones. Ingredients. Treatment sequencing. I bought medical textbooks. I started DMing aestheticians in America. I sat in on every advanced training I could afford. Sophie’s acne cleared up in 11 weeks.
She told everyone she knew. Within six months I had a fully booked clinic, a waiting list, and the beginnings of what became Model Standards. A few years later, girls in the industry started asking me to teach them what I was doing. That’s how MSTA was born.
ASFB is the programme I’d have given my 21-year-old self. The proper foundation, taught properly, and the support to actually use it.
Lots of love, Kirsty Xxx
The MSTA difference
A skincare professional doing a relaxing facial. That’s a treatment. Client comes in, feels nice, leaves. Maybe books in again in six months. £30–50 per session.
An aesthetic skincare professional doing a proper consultation, identifying their client’s actual skin issues, prescribing the right protocol and treating it over weeks and months. That’s a transformation. Client comes back every four to six weeks. Tells every friend she has. Pays £100, £150, £200 a session and considers it a bargain.
When clients can SEE the change in the mirror, they don’t quibble about price. They don’t shop around. They book in for the next six months and drag their sister and their mum in too.
That’s the corner of the market we train you for. The intersection of skincare and aesthetics, where lives change and careers compound.
We don’t just ‘do’ treatments. Consultation first. Treatment-plan second. Then execute. Assess. Diagnose. Prescribe. Treat. This is how you get results as a skincare professional.
The MSTA Student Community
Every month we bring the people shaping international aesthetic skincare into the MSTA community to teach our students directly, on top of 100+ trainings already waiting for you inside. International aestheticians, the founders of the brands you’ll use daily, and our own graduates running six-figure clinics.
Past & recurring guests
100+ trainings on tap
A growing library of masterclasses and trainings, yours to work through at your own pace, for the life of your career.
Live monthly calls
World-class educators, brand founders and MSTA graduates running six-figure clinics: live, with Q&A, recorded and yours to keep.
Accountability & coaching
Group coaching and the people you trained alongside, keeping you moving long after the certificate lands.
The pathway
ASFB is engineered so each phase prepares the next. Theory before treatment. Treatment before launch. And then the support that makes the career stick.
Phase 01
Before you touch a single client, you learn the skin underneath. Biology and physiology, consultation, ingredient theory, treatment sequencing, contraindications. The foundation every other phase rests on, and the bit most courses skip.
Phase 02
Hands-on, supervised practice with active medics. Peels, microneedling, dermaplaning, mask peels, advanced facials. On real clients, in real clinic conditions. Your first regulated VTCT qualifications are awarded inside this phase, the foundation of a bespoke pathway that can carry you all the way to Level 6.
Phase 03
Qualifying is half the job. This phase gets you trading. MSTA Business School, pricing and positioning, marketing, your insurance application, and your first 100 clients, with real one-to-one mentorship the whole way.
Phase 04
You don’t graduate and go quiet. Four months of post-course coaching plus lifetime access to the MSTA community: monthly calls with world-class educators, twice-yearly in-person student events, a community of MSTA-trained professionals you keep for the life of your career.
Where it takes you
Aesthetic Skincare For Beginners is designed to take a total beginner to the furthest qualified point a skincare professional can reach in the UK in regulated qualifications. You start with Levels 2 and 3, as standard. Then, when you’re ready, move up to Level 4. And, if you have the ambition and desire, choose to go all the way to Level 6.
Level 2 & 3
Where you start
Foundations & first VTCT qualification, included in ASFB.
Level 4
Advanced practice
Peels, needling, dermaplaning. Included in ASFB higher-level pathway.
Level 5 & 6
Specialist mastery
Highest level peel & needling education, for those looking to stand out from the crowd.
Level 7
The furthest point
The highest qualified rung an aesthetic skincare professional can reach in the UK. Coming soon to MSTA.
Meet your educators
Every educator on ASFB is an active practitioner running their own clinic or working in the NHS. You’re taught what actually works on real clients today, not what worked when the textbook was written.
Kirsty Stevenson
Founder & Training Director
Clinical lead. Trains every cohort personally.
Jemma Hesketh RN
Lead Training Educator
Active Registered Nurse · NMC-registered.
Keji Sadiku BSc
Skincare Clinician
HCPC-registered Biomedical Scientist & Healthcare Professional.
Georgia Rigby
Skincare Clinician
Active midwife · NMC-registered.
Loved by graduates
ASFB has launched 500+ graduates, and they don’t go quiet afterwards. Here’s a small sample of what they say.
“I honestly cannot recommend the MSTA course enough. The trainers genuinely want you to pass, and you can feel how much they care about every single student.”
Tara Lynch
Owner, Nuyu Skin
✓ Verified MSTA Graduate“Changing my career and life with this new skill and business has changed my life for the better.”
Hayley Williams
Founder, Haylo Skincare
✓ Verified MSTA Graduate“My only regret in this entire experience is not doing it sooner.”
Hannah Nelson
HN Skin Solutions
✓ Verified MSTA Graduate“It has truly changed my life for the better.”
Sophie
The Glow Skin Co.
✓ Verified MSTA Graduate“The course genuinely changed me and my life for the better.”
Ami
SKNN by Ami
✓ Verified MSTA GraduateAccreditations & partners
ASFB sits on the most credible footing in the industry: Ofqual-regulated, medic-led, and partnered with the clinical brands MSTA actually uses in practice.
Ofqual
Awarding-body status via VTCT iTEC
VTCT iTEC
Regulated skincare qualifications, Levels 2 to 6
CPD
MSTA Business School + CPD certifications
Medic-led
All educators are active medical professionals
Insurance ready
Guided application for fully insured practice
Product partners
Dermaceutic, Circadia, SkinPen, Dermalogica
Upcoming cohorts
We open three intakes a year. Cohorts are deliberately small so every student gets clinical time with the lead educator.
FAQs
If your question isn’t here, ask it on a discovery call. We’d rather you got the real answer from a real human.
No. ASFB is built for total beginners. It's in the name. Phase 01 starts you on skin biology and the foundations of consultation and hygiene, and we scaffold up from there. If you've worked in beauty or wellness before you'll move faster through the early modules. If you haven't, you'll be carefully walked through them.
ASFB is a bespoke, Ofqual-regulated pathway that can take you across VTCT Levels 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, built around exactly how far you want to go. As standard you'll hold your Level 2 Certificate and Level 3 Diploma, plus MSTA's own CPD-accredited Business School certificate and MSTA professional certification. From there the pathway is designed so you progress smoothly into Level 4, and on to Levels 5 and 6, the furthest qualified rung in the UK, at your own pace and when you're ready.
Because they're different careers, with different ceilings. A skincare professional doing relaxing facials charges £30–50. An aesthetic skincare professional doing proper consultations, prescribing protocols and treating real skin issues over months charges £100–£200 a session, and has a waiting list. ASFB trains you for the second one.
We don't price ASFB off a menu. The investment depends on the pathway we design with you: where you're starting from, what you want to specialise in, and how far you want to take the qualifications. That conversation happens on a free 30-minute discovery call. No hard sell, and if it isn't the right fit we'll tell you straight.
Yes. We walk you through the insurance application personally in Phase 03, so you're insured for the treatments you're qualified in the day your certificates land.
The pathway is hybrid and bespoke (typically 4–12 months) with intensive in-person blocks in Liverpool and ongoing portal work, supervised practice and coaching calls between them. Exact week-to-week shape gets built around your life on the discovery call.
Around 80% of our students travel for their in-person blocks. We help you plan the trips and stack them efficiently; the rest of the pathway runs online + supervised practice. Some of our best graduates are nowhere near Liverpool.
Four months of post-course coaching, then lifetime alumni community access: monthly community calls with world-class educators (Savanna Boda, Michael Razzano, SkinPen, Mesoestetic, Dermaceutic, MSTA graduates running six-figure clinics), twice-yearly in-person events, and the people you trained alongside. You don't graduate alone, ever.
Your turn
We don’t price ASFB off a menu. Your investment depends on the pathway we build with you: your starting point, the specialism you want to grow into, and how far you want to take your career. That conversation happens on a discovery call. Free, 30 minutes, no hard sell. If ASFB isn’t the right fit, we’ll tell you straight.
Start & grow the career of your dreams in aesthetic skincare. Properly. With us.
