Skincare is The Skin Games’ flagship competition path, and the one most people picture when they think of this event. It’s also the most misunderstood: it isn’t one category, it’s nine, each judged on the same foundation (an eight-week, documented client case study) but built around a completely different kind of work. Here’s what each one actually asks of you.
Full season details, dates, tickets, and every competition path, are in our 2026–27 season guide. [LINK: Everything You Need to Know About The Skin Games 2026–27 Season]
How Skincare judging works, across every subcategory
Every Skincare subcategory shares the same format: an eight-week client case study, documented with before-and-after photos, eight videos across the treatment window, and written documentation of your process. What changes subcategory to subcategory isn’t the format. It’s the clinical problem you’re solving and the client you’re solving it for. If you haven’t built one of these before, our full walkthrough covers exactly what the judges need to see.
Acne
Working with active breakouts, inflammation, and the product or protocol choices that actually calm a face that’s fighting itself. This subcategory rewards a documented, consistent protocol over a single dramatic before-and-after; judges are looking for a process that held up over the full eight weeks, not a lucky week three.
Age Management
Fine lines, elasticity, firming, the work most people assume “skincare” means by default. Because it’s the most familiar territory, it’s also the most competitive subcategory to stand out in; a case study here needs a genuinely specific protocol, not a generic anti-aging routine.
Compromised Skin
Barrier-damaged, sensitized, reactive skin: the client who’s already tried three other things that didn’t work. This subcategory is as much about restraint as it is about results, since the wrong product choice on compromised skin can set a client back instead of forward.
Holistic
A whole-person approach to skin health, treating what’s happening on the face as connected to what’s happening everywhere else: stress, sleep, nutrition, lifestyle. If your protocol looks beyond the treatment room, this is the subcategory built for that work.
New Esthetician
Built specifically for competitors early in their career. You don’t need a veteran’s résumé or a decade of case studies behind you to enter here; you need one real client and eight weeks. This subcategory exists because The Skin Games doesn’t think a first-time competitor should be judged against someone with nine seasons of experience.
Open
The subcategory for a case study that doesn’t map cleanly onto Acne, Age Management, Pigmentation, or the other named concerns. If your client’s results don’t fit a single label, this is where that work gets judged on its own terms.
Open Medical
For medical-adjacent and clinical-strength protocols, the work that sits closer to the treatment approaches used alongside physicians and dermatologists than to a standard spa facial. If your practice operates in that space, this is the subcategory built for it.
Pigmentation
Hyperpigmentation, melasma, uneven tone: results here are visually dramatic when they work, which makes documentation discipline (consistent lighting, consistent angles, real before-and-after conditions) matter even more than usual.
Classic Esthetics
The strictest subcategory on the list, by design. Classic Esthetics brings the work back to its purest form: hands, professional products, and clinical thinking, with everything else off the table. No devices, no machines, no treatment tools, no shortcuts. LED, microcurrent, radiofrequency, ultrasound, extraction implements, rollers, gua sha, dermaplaning blades, none of it is allowed, in-treatment or in the homecare protocol you send your client home with. What is allowed: your hands, your products, cotton and gauze, warm towels and compresses, and a magnifying lamp for analysis and extractions.
Same eight-week format as the rest of Skincare (one client, one fully customized corrective protocol, documented start to finish), and the same $195 entry fee. What’s different is what the judges are actually scoring: advanced skin analysis, ingredient mastery, and a visible transformation achieved entirely through professional skill, no equipment doing any of the work for you. You’ll also present your case live at the show, where the panel evaluates your clinical reasoning and protocol decisions directly, not just the documentation. If you’ve built your reputation on your hands rather than your equipment list, this is the category built to prove it.
Choosing your subcategory
Most competitors already know which one fits, because it’s the work they’re already doing for clients. If you’re between two, the honest test is which client relationship you can document most rigorously over eight straight weeks, not which title sounds most impressive. Entry is $195 per subcategory, and nothing stops you from entering more than one if your practice genuinely spans multiple concerns.
See the full 2026–27 category lineup → · Register your entry → · Build your case study →