The aesthetics consumer, finally on the record.
Volume I of the Axiogen Aesthetics Sentiment Atlas — a census-grade, longitudinal record of U.S. medical aesthetics consumer voice. SSR analysis across 25 validated sentiment domains.
Contents
Part I: Core SSR Analysis
Standard 25-domain Semantic Similarity Rating across 124,705 ingested consumer reviews
1. National Dashboard
With a 4.84 average star rating and 80.1% of reviews mentioning at least one SSR domain, the national dataset confirms that sentiment nuance lives in the review text, not the star ratings. Reviews average 3.5 domains mentioned per review.
2. Domain Averages
Highest-Scoring Domains
| Domain | Score | Reviews |
|---|---|---|
| Expectations | 4.39 | 28,516 |
| Health Concerns | 4.37 | 14,354 |
| Social Media | 4.24 | 12,174 |
| Provider Loyalty | 4.23 | 21,795 |
| Biostimulator | 4.18 | 885 |
Lowest-Scoring Domains
| Domain | Score | Reviews |
|---|---|---|
| Dermal Filler | 3.63 | 10,059 |
| Unnatural Results | 3.47 | 6,905 |
| Needle Fear | 3.35 | 3,656 |
| Permanence | 3.32 | 4,328 |
| Web Search | 3.12 | 3,051 |
3. Star Rating Analysis
| Rating | Count | % |
|---|---|---|
| ★ | 4,011 | 3.2% |
| ★★ | 659 | 0.5% |
| ★★★ | 524 | 0.4% |
| ★★★★ | 1,193 | 1.0% |
| ★★★★★ | 118,318 | 94.9% |
94.9% of reviews are 5-star, typical of public consumer review platforms in medical aesthetics. This extreme skew makes text-level SSR analysis far more informative than star ratings alone.
4. Score Distributions & Place Comparison
5. Domain Correlations
6. Keywords & Co-occurrence
Most Frequent Keywords
| Keyword | Frequency |
|---|---|
| recommend | 26,667 |
| amazing | 25,311 |
| great | 24,354 |
| experience | 23,747 |
| dr | 18,999 |
| results | 18,244 |
| professional | 17,209 |
| friendly | 14,686 |
| botox | 14,096 |
| love | 13,891 |
7. Owner Response Analysis
84,376 reviews (67.7%) received an owner response — the richest owner-response dataset in the project.
8. Review Quality
Average word count: 47 words. 106,168 reviews with text, 18,537 star-only ratings.
Part II: National Deep-Dive
Review-platform metadata analysis — geography, categories, reviewer quality, temporal trends
9. Geographic Analysis
Top States
| State | Reviews |
|---|---|
| FL | 21,788 |
| CA | 11,967 |
| TX | 10,521 |
| NY | 9,965 |
| AZ | 7,785 |
| IL | 5,227 |
| NJ | 5,117 |
| UT | 4,910 |
| GA | 4,190 |
| PA | 4,109 |
Reviews by Region
| Region | Reviews |
|---|---|
| Southeast | 39,840 |
| West | 24,705 |
| Northeast | 23,256 |
| Southwest | 19,320 |
| Midwest | 13,968 |
| Mid-Atlantic | 3,616 |
State-level sentiment variation reveals which markets have stronger patient satisfaction and where concerns are more prevalent. Operators can benchmark their state against the national profile.
10. Business Category Comparison
| Category | Reviews |
|---|---|
| Medical Spa | 75,503 |
| Plastic Surgeon | 12,755 |
| Plastic Surgery Clinic | 10,061 |
| Dermatologist | 6,587 |
| Skin Care Clinic | 5,591 |
| Medical Clinic | 2,685 |
| Laser Hair Removal Service | 1,787 |
| Cosmetic Surgeon | 1,555 |
Medical spas, plastic surgeons, and dermatologists each attract different patient populations with distinct concern profiles and satisfaction patterns.
11. Owner Response Deep-Dive
Response rate by star rating, response time distribution, and sentiment impact analysis.
12. Reviewer Quality
23,631 reviews (18.9%) come from tier-elevated reviewers (verified high-trust contributors).
Tier-elevated reviewers tend to be more critical and detailed. Reviewer experience (total reviews written) also correlates with sentiment patterns.
13. Temporal Trends
Sentiment evolution across 1,300 days of review data.
14. Location Ranking
Top 5 Locations
| Location | Reviews | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Signature Image Atlanta | 68 | 4.24 |
| Dr. Bouyarden Center | 42 | 4.19 |
| VIVA Wellness | 139 | 4.17 |
| NzuriMonada Aesthetics - Post OP Lymphat | 78 | 4.17 |
| UR Royalty Med Spa | 58 | 4.16 |
Bottom 5 Locations
| Location | Reviews | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Aesthetic Center | 121 | 2.92 |
| Young Skin Dermatology | 36 | 3.02 |
| Dorset Street Dermatology | 31 | 3.08 |
| Beverlys Med Spa | 366 | 3.20 |
| Natalie's Skin Solutions | 52 | 3.21 |
15. Review Helpfulness
Part III: Advanced Analytics
Research-grade methods — MDS perceptual mapping, propensity score matching, BERTopic, spatial analysis
16. Competitive Perceptual Map
Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) projects 640 micro regions into a 2D strategic landscape based on their consumer sentiment profiles, then K-Means clustering identifies strategic groups.
The perceptual map shows how patients perceive different micro regions relative to each other. Clusters reveal strategic groups — micro regions that share similar sentiment profiles compete most directly with each other.
17. Causal Impact of Owner Responses
Propensity Score Matching (PSM) corrects for selection bias, then measures the true causal lift of responding to reviews. With 84,376 responses, this is the strongest causal analysis yet.
PSM controls for the fact that businesses may selectively respond to certain types of reviews. After matching, the remaining difference is the true causal effect of responding.
18. Latent Trends (BERTopic)
BERTopic (UMAP + HDBSCAN) discovers emerging topics in "residual" text that the 25 SSR domains don't capture.
With 99.8% of reviews captured by existing SSR domains, only 0.2% of text falls into "residual" territory. This confirms the domain set is comprehensive for medical aesthetics.
19. Spatial Analysis
Geographic distribution and hotspot analysis across 45 states.
