Distinguishing Aesthetician & Esthetician: Key Differences

Whether you are considering a career in beauty and skin care or just interested in keeping yourself updated with beauty trends, you must have come across two very confusing words – aesthetician and esthetician. Both terms refer to the same skin care specialist. You are not alone if you have been puzzled by the two variants of the same word. Let us take a closer look at the difference, if any, between an esthetician and an aesthetician.

Aesthetician
Aesthetics happens to be a type of philosophy that deals with the beauty aspect of things, whether natural or manmade. The sense of beauty is termed the aesthetic sense of a person, but this does not make him an aesthetician. The origin of the word aesthetician lies in the dissertation presented by Alexander Baumergarten under the subject of Philosophy as a science of how things are to be seen by means of one’s senses. He later described aesthetics as an art of thinking beautifully. Today, the word aesthetician is applied to a person skilled in the art of giving beauty treatments to make a person’s skin more beautiful and appealing. However, the basic definition of the word still remains to reflect the philosophy that looks at things finer in taste and senses.

Esthetician
Esthetics is a growing field of skin care, and individuals who take up training to become estheticians are involved in giving beauty treatments to others to improve the quality and texture of their skin. An esthetician makes use of different equipment and cosmetics to beautify the skin of his clients. These treatments include, but are not limited to, skin facials, makeup, microdermabrasion, and other regimes of skin care. This is a field that also includes body spas, polishes, wrapping, reflexology, aromatherapy, shaping of eyebrows, and so on. Waxing is an integral part of the field of esthetics which also makes heavy use of laser treatments. The thing to remember is that, despite all the treatments at the disposal of an esthetician, he is just a cosmetologist and not a doctor to suggest a cure for a medical problem.

Key Takeaways

• While the words aesthetician and esthetician are today synonymous and are used interchangeably for a skin care specialist, aesthetician comes from the branch of philosophy that looks at things that are pleasing to our eyes and other senses.
• Esthetics and aesthetics both draw from aesthetisch, which is a German word, and esthetique, which is a French word. Both these words, when translated into English, mean a sense of beauty.
• One can use either of the two spellings to refer to a skin care specialist without being faulted. It is the training that counts and not the spelling of the word in this world of beauty.