The year is 2016. Kylie just introduced her liquid lipstick line. I’m still wearing skinny jeans, but considering making the switch back to mom jeans. It’s a Vibe.

My client most likely just came from a tanning bed and doesn’t even know that you need to wash your face BEFORE you put on products, and I’m trying to explain to them why they NEED to add a moisturizer to their routine! Like C’mon!! Get SOMETHING on your face, please!

Really though, when and WHO decided that we didn’t want visible pores? It can feel like I truly don’t understand beauty standards for someone who has made an entire living within the beauty community.

We have these little (sometimes large) oil factories working for us every single day to do a very important job, and we are all like “Nah, let’s get rid of that. How can we get rid of that?” I can think of a lot of body parts that we prefer bigger (ahemm. . .), but why, when it comes to the body’s natural self-lubrication are we just like “No Bro, you’ve gone too far.”

Whenever I think about the term “anti-aging,” I think of the movie Death Becomes Her from the 90s (if you haven’t seen it, you should). I’m not sure if it holds up because I watched it when I was twelve, but it’s one of those movies that stuck with me. Looking back, the draw was probably foreshadowing my future career.

The year was 2016. It was a time before TikTok influencers had us all putting potatoes on our faces and using butt lotion under our eyes. Clients usually came in with a pretty simple routine. Maybe they cleansed 1-2 times a day, some had a moisturizer, and some didn’t. But dear god, EVERYONE had a toner.

I showed up early to the beauty party. Go figure, since I ended up making it such a huge part of my life. I was fortunate to have a mom who said yes to pretty much everything… I had a lot of room for self-expression as a child, and boy, did I use it! 

I have literally made a career out of studying skincare ingredients, learning how to effectively combine them in routines, and explaining to my clients why they work and what they do. 

There was a time in my early career when I was so overwhelmed by the types of acids, retinoids, and antioxidants that I would keep a note on my phone to jot down key ingredients I wasn’t familiar with, so I could Google them in my downtime.

Our faces mark our identities. It’s the first thing about us that people see. It’s how we’re identified in a crowded room. We spend endless amounts of time decorating ourselves with makeup to tell a story or accentuate an image we envision, while gazing at mirrors and pictures to check that all is “as it should be”. So it’s easy to see why trusting our skincare provider is so important.

Hydrafacials, lunchtime peels, microneedling, laser therapy - the list of advanced aesthetic treatments continues to grow at such a rapid pace that sometimes I feel like I need to hang on for dear life. One of the things I have loved most about being an esthetician for almost an entire decade has been watching an industry I love grow, flourish, and evolve with time.