A licensed esthetician on staff is the best hire choice. They have the skincare and ingredient knowledge and training.

There is a fundamental difference between a cosmetic consultant (Re: skin care specialist) vs. a physician in that one specializes in customer service and the other specializes I medicine. A physician, more specifically a dermatologist, can determine issues with the skin and assess root cause. Typically, physicians aren’t aware of the all of the products that are approved for market unless they’ve been approached by sales people, are active in participating in conferences, have been involved in clinical trials, etc. A cosmetic consultant may know more about the products that are available to make beautiful skin possible. It would depend on the issue. Have a physician assess the issue, then hire a cosmetic product professional (i.e. a consultant) to provide options to the patient/candidate.

I would hire a product knowledge expert to partner with the physician. In this regard, the Physician possesses the medical knowledge while the product knowledge expert is best suited to match the diagnosis and treatment protocol assigned by the physician to the products which have the best ingredients which will best achieve the goals and results that the physician as outlined in the care plan.
While skin care/product knowledge experts are typically well trained in customer service...their primary function is to match products to client needs. Thus, ingredients and efficacy are first priority.

I suppose the answer depends upon the skin condition to be treated, and whether there is an underlying disease state, such as psoriasis or rosacea, versus a more routine and superficial issue.

I agree with last comment, a physician or a specialst consultant should deal about a disease, but a skin care/product expert could advise about products and their application. In any case there are a lot of skin care products used for dayly care not subjected to physician prescription or consultation.

For the most part, dermatologists self-segment as primary medically focused or primarily cosmetically focused. In the cosderm's office, they do a great deal with direct dispense products and the physician is often the one doing the counseling because that is their focus, along with procedures such as Botox and fillers. They also tend to have significant markup on those direct dispense skin care products and best understand how to complement other procedures they may conduct (eg, lasers).

I tend to agree with the trend of comments in the thread where more than 1 person is needed.
At retail however, its mostly a non-MD as evidenced by the succes in pharmacies for 50+ years and most recently by Walgreens now with the Boots Alliance.

First of all, it would purely depend on the biggest factor "time". Globally, it varies from Physician to Physician. In my perspective, the Physician has to explain it to the patient rather than hiring a consultant or product expert. We will have to drag in a little bit of Doctor-Patient relaionship put in writing by reowned dcotors like Susan Dorr Goold. Skin care products are very critical these days as beauty and appearance is an important consideration and they have to be carefully explained to the patient as trust is a very fragile factor. The more time a physician spends with patient regarding any skin care products, the better scientific knowledge the patient will gain and can avoid any mistakes with dosage or applications.

Post diagnosis will determine the severity of the conditions i.e. cosmetics or medical conditions. If it is the domain of cosmetics treatments a cosmetic consultant more than enough to handle the situation, otherwise physician involvement is required.