Hi, I’m Monika.
Esthetician. Educator. PhD. And someone who asks a lot of questions.
I’m Monika Sadar, PhD, an esthetician and educator based in Slovenia, Europe.
I created Skinstetika Academy because I believe estheticians deserve education that goes deeper than protocols, product claims, and device marketing.
My goal is simple:
Make science useful in the treatment room.
I didn’t start questioning microneedling because I thought it didn’t work.
Quite the opposite.
I saw how much potential the treatment had. But the more I worked with microneedling, the more questions I had.
I had learned the settings.
The depths.
The passes.
The basic treatment sequence.
But real clients didn’t always behave the way a protocol predicted.
One client had thin, reactive skin. Another healed quickly. Another developed much more inflammation. Another had a higher risk of pigmentation.
And suddenly, knowing the “correct” depth wasn’t enough.
I wanted to understand why.
So I started looking beyond the protocol.
I went back to the biology.
Wound healing.
Inflammation.
Skin anatomy.
Collagen remodeling.
Pigmentation.
Barrier function.
Healing capacity.
Scientific research.
And the more I understood what was actually happening inside the skin, the more my approach to treatment changed.
I stopped seeing microneedling as:
device + depth + passes
and started seeing it as:
assessment + controlled injury + biological response + healing
That shift changed the way I practice — and the way I teach.
Teaching has always been part of my work.
Before creating Skinstetika Academy, I taught cosmetic subjects and practical professional skills.
My academic background also taught me something that became incredibly important in the way I educate today:
Knowing information is not enough.
You need to understand it well enough to use it.
That’s why I don’t want my students to memorize scientific terminology simply to sound more professional.
I want them to understand enough science to make better decisions when a real client sits in front of them.
What my PhD adds to my work.
My PhD is academic, not medical.
I hold a doctorate, and my academic research strengthened the way I evaluate information, read scientific literature, and think critically about claims.
That perspective is incredibly useful in an industry where a new “revolutionary” treatment, ingredient, product, or device seems to appear every week.
I don’t want to teach what sounds impressive.
I want to teach what makes sense.
A European perspective. Universal skin biology.
I’m based in Slovenia, Europe — and you’ll hear that in my accent.
But skin biology does not change at the border.
My education combines a European approach to aesthetics with scientific literature and practical treatment experience.
For my U.S. students, I also emphasize one important distinction:
Science may be universal. Scope of practice is not.
Professional regulations vary by state and jurisdiction, and every practitioner is responsible for working within their own legal scope of practice.
What I believe about esthetic education
I believe…
Estheticians deserve to understand why.
Not just be told what setting to use.
A device should never replace clinical thinking.
More aggressive does not automatically mean more effective.
A protocol is a starting point — not the skin in front of you.
Great education should make you less dependent on the educator, not more.
And most importantly:
The more you understand the skin, the less you have to guess.
Why Skinstetika Academy?
Skinstetika Academy is the educational home for my professional trainings.
But the philosophy behind it is deeply personal.
I created it to offer independent education that is not built around selling a specific device or product line.
My priority is the treatment.
The skin.
The evidence.
And the practitioner learning how to connect all three.
If this is how you want to learn too…
I’d love to have you here.