Mala McAlpin 
Owner and founder of Melbourne based HÜD skin+body, Gry Tømte, shares with SPA+CLINIC why she loves Enzyme Therapy treatments:
I still remember vividly the first time I ever heard of Enzyme Therapy. I was at the Sydney Beauty Expo several years ago when someone proclaimed to have seen a “really crazy treatment being done where veins were visible everywhere.” I found it obscurely fascinating but never actually got to see the treatment. At the time I was a single operator with a home based clinic. With my own personal and painful history with acne and melasma, I had only just started focusing on skin, moving away slowly from other beauty services. Since my little boutique skin clinic saw mostly acne cases come through the doors, and most clients presented with overexfoliated, barrier-impaired and subsequently inflamed skin, I started researching everything I could to expand my knowledge of skin, which led me to the research of Dr Kilgman, the ‘grandfather of corneotherapy’. Everyone was so busy peeling off those ‘dead’ cells they didn’t realise the long term inflammation that comes with it. I felt there was a lack of real therapist to client education around long term skin health and really wanted to change that. After six years on my own it was time to think bigger. With more people on my team we could change a lot more skins than I could on my own. So I found an old derelict building in a ‘not- so- glam’ area in the neighbourhood and took the plunge. My husband and I donned overalls and sledge hammers for months – and after eight months of blood sweat and tears we opened Melbourne’s first three-level Scandi style skin clinic, HÜD. It turned out to be the perfect location as well with the area now home to some cool stores and young startup companies.
Fueling Cells With Enzyme Therapy
About a year after opening, DMK once again came into my life and it was love at first sight! It was exactly what I had been searching for all these years. A full system which had the perfect balance of removal of redundant cuticle AND rebuilding skin function by working with the body’s own chemistry. We introduced DMK into our clinic and the team’s passion was contagious! Soon our clients felt the same excitement for this system that we felt, and the results started coming in thick and fast. We successfully educated our clients that peeling off the things you don’t like on the surface isn’t going to change the new cells constantly dividing and migrating up to the stratum corneum. The skin would be right back where we started unless we change the health of those new baby cells. Enter the DMK Enzyme Therapy. Today Enzyme Therapy is our number one treatment at HÜD by a long shot.
What is Enzyme Therapy
Enzyme Therapy was created in the 1960s by the incredibly talented and passionate bio chemist, Danné Montague King. Having suffered terribly from acne during childhood and adolescence, he was determined to find a way to effectively treat his own skin – and others around the world. Rather than focusing on the “how” he focused on the “why”. His research led him to the understanding that all skin disorders are the result of disharmony in the skin – a lack of homeostasis. When the skin is made to function the way it is meant to function, those disorders will resolve. The answer to this problem was Enzyme Therapy. Think of the skin like a factory where sick or sluggish factory workers produce less than great finished goods. The Enzyme Therapy is the catalyst that brings much needed fuel to those factory workers (cells and systems) to make them more productive and produce the best product (skin) possible. Fresh nutrients delivered via the blood leads to healthier cells. The treatment itself encompasses two parts in most cases (in cases of barrier impairment we may only use the second part); Removal (a range of peels and alkaloids) to address the epidermal tissues, followed by the signature enzyme mask to rebuild the skin. It addresses the structure and functions of the skin, flooding the tissue with fresh oxygenated blood and nutrients via the lymphatic system. It then creates a reverse osmosis, a back flushing of stagnant lymph, dead protein and toxins in and around the cell walls, which then all gets drained out by the major lymph ducts in the root of the neck. After the skin is held in stasis for 45 minutes homeostasis is achieved and function is restored. The result is increased hydration, oxygenation and circulation. The constant downward pressure also stimulates increased collagen production. My favourite part of Enzyme Therapy is the plasmatic effect. It is so exciting to see the roadmap of lymphatic vessels dilated after the mask is concluded. It’s an incredible thing to be able to visually see the uptake of fresh nutrients.
What about combination therapy?
In addition to being an incredible standalone treatment, we also use Enzyme Therapy in combination with medical needling, injectables, peels, laser and IPL. I think it’s important to remember that just cauterising vessels with laser or IPL is a band aid approach and should be followed up with education about what are the causative factors and what can be done to prevent growth of new capillaries. Often, the lack of oxygen to the tissue is dismissed, vessels are cauterised and off the client goes only to come back a few months down the track. Enzyme Therapy can also help strengthen the skin and restore healthy function for clients undergoing Roaccutane treatment or before surgery or resurfacing laser treatments. It can even be used to successfully treat bruising after injury, surgery or injectables. In fact, one of our clients, a brilliant kidney surgeon, came to us after having fallen down a set of stairs whilst in Europe – half her face was black with bruising. And this was after one week. Being a doctor she was sceptical when I suggested Enzyme Therapy – as she was thinking it would dilate the capillaries even more and make matters worse. After I finally convinced her, we used a product before the Enzyme mask designed to open pinched blood vessels and move the stagnant blood, thereby flushing it through the lymphatic system with the Enzyme mask. Two days later she called me in absolute disbelief, letting me know the bruising had completely broken up and turned a light green. Safe to say she is a convert.
What skin conditions can it treat? What can’t we treat with Enzyme Therapy? At HÜD we see a lot of acne clients – mostly because I had acne myself as an adult for a good 10 years, and I think you attract the kind of client you resonate with, but any kind of concern can be treated very successfully in so many different ways. Two examples of how DMK’s system works to treat dysfunction in the skin, and concerns we see often, are Age Management and Rosacea/Acne. When treating an aged skin with heavier cuticle buildup, a 6-layer peel or an RP (remodeling procedure) is incredible. Also Enzyme mask number 2 and 3 is designed specifically to be used to strengthen face and neck muscles and remove excess lipids. It’s also important to remember as we age not to add to the ageing process by constant ‘inflammageing’ from excessive peeling. Rebuilding the skin and keeping it functioning properly becomes even more important than ever. For women especially, the drop in oestrogen levels leads to thinning tissue, compromised barrier function due to decreased oil secretions and a reduction in Glycosaminoglycans (GAG), and ultimately separation at the dermal junction, leading to the typical sagging mid face. This is when most turn to fillers to plump things up again. But without a good strong ‘scaffolding’ and enough GAGs, fillers will not only look terrible but also not last. So it’s important we keep our factory working optimally. When treating rosacea we have an incredibly powerful tool called Alkaline Wash, which, at a PH of 12 kills the demotex mites responsible. The old thinking of “let’s calm the rosacea skin down” is gone. Danné’s words come to me and I always giggle – he famously said: “Why do we need to calm it down? It’s not a mental patient.” The Alkaline Wash is also a game changer in treating acne, as it softens the skin, spirals right into the hair shaft and kills the acne’s bacteria and dissolves any excess debris. Writing this article I am reminded of just how much we can achieve in our clinics with the right tools and the right minds. A big part of HÜD’s incredible success is commitment to training and true passion for what we do and belief in the system we use to do it. The best part of our job as skin therapists is that we get to change people’s lives every day. What an incredible gift.
Gry Tømte is the owner and founder of Melbourne based HÜD skin+body.
