Medically reviewed by Scott Bradley Burris, MD. Reviewed June 2026.
Physician-directed Medical-Grade Skin Care in McKinney, TX
What Is Medical-Grade Skin Care?
Medical-grade skin care refers to topical skincare formulated with active ingredients at concentrations meaningful enough to produce real biological effect on the skin. These are products that, used correctly under the guidance of a medical provider, can change the actual condition of your skin over time, not just temporarily mask its appearance. Many medical-grade products require provider supervision because the actives can produce harm when used incorrectly. Others are available without prescription but still benefit substantially from professional sequencing and a regimen designed around your specific skin.
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At Hartwater Aesthetics, medical-grade skin care is treated as a service, not a retail transaction. Our providers build a custom regimen for each patient, monitor how the skin responds, and adjust over time. Skin care at Hartwater is positioned as the entry tier and foundational layer of Pillar One (Skin Quality) work, supporting every other treatment we perform.
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Medical-grade skin care at Hartwater is led by Stephanie Robertson, CLT and Tiffany Byres, LMA, CLT, our two skin care experts. Tiffany's Licensed Medical Aesthetician (LMA) credential is specifically relevant to skin care regimen design, which falls squarely within the medical aesthetician scope of practice. Both providers also teach skin care protocols to providers from other practices through Hartwater's affiliated provider-training organization, the CARE Institute. When skin care is being integrated into a broader treatment plan that involves injectables, lasers, or energy-based devices, our Clinical Manager Lindsey Burris, RN coordinates the regimen with the overall Three Pillars strategy.
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WHY MEDICAL OVERSIGHT MATTERS
Medical-grade skin care is meaningfully different from drugstore or designer skin care, but the strength of the active ingredients is also the reason oversight matters. Some products in the prescription-adjacent product categories, including prescription-strength retinoids, hydroquinone, certain acid combinations, and some peeling agents, can cause real harm to the skin if used incorrectly. Over-application, wrong sequencing, or combining products that should not be combined can produce irritation, persistent inflammation, post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, or damage to the skin barrier that can take months to repair.
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Most practices that sell skin care simply sell the products and send the patient home. The patient receives the package, reads the printed instructions, and is left to figure it out on their own. That works fine for some products. For the categories where it matters most, that approach falls short.
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Medical oversight closes the gap. At your consultation, your provider learns about your skin condition, your goals, your daily routine, what you have tried before, what worked, and what did not. They design the regimen with the right products at the right concentrations applied in the right sequence. Over the weeks and months that follow, they check in on how your skin is responding and adjust as needed. If your skin is showing signs of irritation, the regimen scales back. If your skin is tolerating the actives well, the regimen advances. This is the difference between buying skin care and being on a skin care plan.
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DRUGSTORE VS. DESIGNER VS. MEDICAL-GRADE SKIN CARE
Skin care broadly falls into three tiers, each with a different value proposition. Understanding which tier you are buying into is the first step in deciding what is actually right for your skin.
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Drugstore skin care is accessible, mass-market, and broadly safe to use without guidance. Active ingredient concentrations are kept low so that the products can be sold without supervision. For patients with healthy skin and no specific concerns, drugstore products can adequately handle the basics of cleansing, hydration, and sun protection. What drugstore products cannot do is meaningfully change the condition of your skin over time, because the actives are simply not concentrated enough to do so.
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Designer or luxury skin care is what you find at department store cosmetic counters and high-end specialty retailers. These products are sold on brand prestige, packaging, and marketing investment. In a meaningful number of cases, the underlying formulation is comparable to drugstore product with substantially higher price markup driven by brand positioning. Designer skin care can be excellent or it can be ordinary, but the price you pay is no longer correlated to what the product can actually do. Many of our patients spend more on a single designer cream than they would on a complete Hartwater regimen, and the Hartwater regimen produces more measurable results in less time.
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Medical-grade skin care is what we provide at Hartwater. These are professional product lines formulated at active ingredient concentrations that can produce real change in the condition of your skin, sold through medical practices specifically because the actives are strong enough to benefit from medical oversight. The investment is targeted: you are paying for product performance, not for packaging or brand marketing.
WHY SKIN CARE IS THE FOUNDATION OF EVERY TREATMENT YOU RECEIVE
This is the most important section of this page, and the most strategically distinctive thing we will tell you about skin care at Hartwater.
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Every cosmetic treatment we perform, from a chemical peel to Botox and Dysport, dermal fillers, Sculptra, Morpheus8, IPL photofacial, laser resurfacing, or surgical lower face and neck rejuvenation, rests on the foundation of your daily skin care. Your skin care is what protects the result, sustains it over time, and allows the next treatment to build on the work that came before it.
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The clearest way to demonstrate this principle is with a simple example. Imagine a patient invests several thousand dollars in laser resurfacing or a Morpheus8 series to address sun damage, fine lines, and skin texture. The treatment performs beautifully and the patient leaves the clinic with measurably better skin. Then over the next year, the patient skips daily medical sunscreen. The freshly resurfaced skin is more vulnerable to UV damage than the pre-treatment skin was. The cumulative sun exposure undoes much of the work in less time than it took to perform it. The patient has spent thousands on advanced treatment and undercut all of it by neglecting to wear a $30 sunscreen every day.
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This is not a rare scenario. It is the single most common reason results from professional treatments fade faster than they should, and it is preventable. Skin care done right does three things for every other treatment you receive at Hartwater:
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It protects the result. Daily medical sunscreen, appropriate barrier support, and the right active ingredients prevent the damage that would otherwise erode the work.
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It sustains the result. Treatments produce a step-change improvement, and skin care holds that improvement steady between sessions and over months and years.
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It amplifies the next treatment. Skin that has been on a strong regimen for several months tolerates active treatments better, heals faster, and responds more completely. You get more from each subsequent treatment.
If you are investing meaningfully in professional treatments and you are not on a medical-grade skin care regimen, you are leaving real results on the table. This is true regardless of which other treatments you are pursuing at Hartwater.
THE HARTWATER APPROACH TO CUSTOM SKIN CARE REGIMENS
There is no single skin care regimen that is right for every patient, and we do not try to fit patients into pre-built protocols. Your regimen is built around your skin, your goals, and what is realistic for your daily routine.
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At your consultation, your provider will assess the current condition of your skin, talk through what your top skin care priorities are (improving texture, fading sun damage, controlling acne, slowing visible aging, brightening, hydrating, or some combination), and learn what you are doing now. From there, they will design a regimen with the products that fit your specific situation. A first regimen typically includes a cleanser, an active treatment for your primary concern, an appropriate moisturizer or barrier support product, and medical-grade sun protection. Additional products are added or sequenced in as your skin builds tolerance.
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Regimens at Hartwater are not static. Over the months that follow, your provider will check in on how your skin is responding, adjust concentrations or product selections as your skin tolerates more active ingredients, and integrate skin care guidance with the other treatments you are pursuing at the clinic. Most patients evolve through several iterations of their regimen over the first year before settling into a maintenance routine that works long-term.
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Your provider will recommend specific products from the lines that best fit your regimen. You do not need to pick the line; that is part of what the consultation is for. Patients with established Hartwater regimens can also shop products online for convenient reordering between visits.
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SKIN CARE CONSULTATION
Skin care at Hartwater starts with an in-depth skin care consultation. The consultation is a discrete appointment that takes approximately 30 minutes, and you do not need to be pursuing any other treatments at Hartwater to book it. Patients can come in for skin care guidance alone, leave with a custom regimen, and decide for themselves whether to purchase the products at Hartwater or simply take the recommendations and source them elsewhere.
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Most practices bundle skin care into a broader treatment consultation. At Hartwater, we have chosen to make the skin care consultation a standalone appointment because we want patients who care about their skin to be able to access professional guidance without any barrier, regardless of what else they are pursuing.
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During your consultation, your provider will assess your skin, talk through your goals and routine, and recommend a regimen built specifically for your skin. If you decide to purchase, products are available in-clinic at the time of your appointment or online through our shop at any time afterward.
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WHICH PILLAR OF AGING DOES SKIN CARE ADDRESS?
Hartwater Aesthetics organizes facial aging into Three Pillars: Skin Quality (Pillar One), Skin Laxity (Pillar Two), and Volume Loss (Pillar Three). Medical-grade skin care is the foundation tier of Pillar One (Skin Quality) work. It addresses the daily condition of your skin, including hydration, barrier function, surface texture, tone, and the slow accumulation of sun damage that drives most visible signs of aging.
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Skin care is also the substrate underneath Pillars Two and Three. The collagen-stimulating effect of a Morpheus8 series, the long-term volumization of Sculptra, the muscle-relaxation result of Botox and Dysport, the soft-tissue support of dermal fillers, and the surface rejuvenation of chemical peels, IPL photofacials, and laser resurfacing all rest on the skin care foundation. The stronger that foundation, the better every other Pillar treatment performs.
MEET YOUR MEDICAL TEAM
Medical-grade skin care at Hartwater Aesthetics is led by Stephanie Robertson, CLT and Tiffany Byres, LMA, CLT, our two skin care experts. Tiffany's Licensed Medical Aesthetician (LMA) credential is specifically relevant to skin care regimen design and oversight, which falls within the medical aesthetician scope of practice. Both providers also teach skin care protocols to providers from other practices through Hartwater's affiliated provider-training organization, the CARE Institute. When your skin care plan is being coordinated with broader treatment work, our Clinical Manager Lindsey Burris, RN ensures that skin care, injectables, lasers, and energy-based treatments are sequenced together for the best result. Every Hartwater treatment plan, including skin care regimens, is reviewed and approved by our full-time on-site Medical Director, Scott Bradley Burris, MD.
HOW TO GET STARTED
There are two ways to engage with medical-grade skin care at Hartwater.
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If you are new to medical-grade skin care or you want professional guidance on what regimen is right for your skin, book a skin care consultation with Stephanie or Tiffany. You will get an in-depth analysis of your skin and leave with a custom regimen designed for your unique skin type and needs.
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If you are already on a Hartwater regimen and simply want to reorder products, shop products online. Our online shop carries the full range of lines we offer in-clinic, with the same pricing and product selection.
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If you are pursuing other treatments at Hartwater, your skin care regimen can be discussed and integrated into your existing treatment plan at your next consultation or follow-up.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Serving McKinney, Prosper, Frisco, Plano, Allen, Celina and Collin County
Hartwater Aesthetics is located at 7200 W University Drive, Suite 110, McKinney, TX 75071, and provides medical-grade skin care guidance to patients from across the greater Collin County area, including McKinney, Frisco, Allen, Prosper, Celina, Anna, and surrounding communities. Skin care at Hartwater is led by Stephanie Robertson, CLT and Tiffany Byres, LMA, CLT, with full-time on-site Medical Director oversight from Scott Bradley Burris, MD. The skin care consultation is available to any patient who wants professional guidance on building a custom regimen, regardless of whether they are pursuing other treatments at the clinic.
