Ep. 90 Leah Corrin

On this episode, I am joined by Leah Corrin. Leah owns the award winning Essence of L Medi Spa in White Rock, British Columbia. As a child Leah suffered from cystic acne which lead to experimenting with makeup and dealing with embarrassment and bullying. After dealing with cystic acne for 15+ years, she focused on studying medical skin care in depth, accessing all relevant training in her field, and keeping herself informed with the latest industry research. She graduated as a Certified Medical Esthetician from the renowned Blanche Macdonald Centre with honours and continued her extended medical education and training. 

Main Home - Award Winning White Rock Spa, Essence Of L Medi Spa (604) 619-4959
Leah Corrin (@eolmedispa) • Instagram photos and videos
Essence of L Medi Spa – EOL Skin Shop (glowskinshop.ca)

Ashley ~ Filled Up Cup podcast (@filledupcup_) • Instagram photos and videos
Filled Up Cup - Unconventional Self Care for Modern Women

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Filled Up Cup podcast. We are a different kind of self-care resource. One that has nothing to do with bubble baths and face masks, and everything to do with rediscovering yourself. We bring you real reviews, honest experiences, and unfiltered opinions that will make you laugh, cry, and most importantly, leave you with a filled up cup.

Ashley: 0:31

I am so excited today. I have Leah Corrin joining me. She's the founder of the Essence of El Medi Spa in White Rock. BC, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. Can you lemme know what was sort of the path to wanting to open up Essence of El Medi Spa?

Leah: 0:50

Absolutely. It definitely started with my own personal journey with cystic acne. My mom used to be a nurse at Children's Hospital, so she just has so much care and attention and she wanted to be able to heal me, and of course she couldn't. So I went the route of going through the doctors and prescriptions and Accutane and just nothing was working for me, and it just stemmed my own. Process for learning more about skincare and the food that we put in our body and how everything is interconnected. And then the more I learned, the more excited I got. And then as I started to clear my own skin up, then I wanted to be able to share my success story with other people,

Ashley: 1:27

which is so lovely when it comes like not lovely that you had to go through that, but lovely. When it comes from a passion project or that there is that heart and that reason instead of like, oh, I just decided to open a business.

Leah: 1:40

Absolutely.

Ashley: 1:41

What age did you start suffering from cystic acne?

Leah: 1:45

It started when I was around 11, and then it really started to mature when I was around 13, 14, and then my hormones, of course, started to. Interact and play a role. And then I didn't have a regular cycle, so I went on birth control early on to try to regulate that, thinking that that would clear up my acne and it didn't, which again, just kind of stemmed the need for more education. But it started really young for me,

Ashley: 2:11

which must have been really hard'cause those are such awkward years for us developmentally already where it must have had. Not only sort of the physical challenge of people being able to see it, but maybe like a mental health aspect of feeling like helpless or feeling just extra awkward during that phase.

Leah: 2:31

Yeah, that was definitely something that I struggled with and I had a very happy childhood and it was hard for me because I'm a happy person. I'm lucky go nature, and then all of a sudden, you know, I started having these breakouts on my face and then I had breakouts on my back and I was also a professional gymnast at the time, so, you know, being in tight leotards and having your back exposed, it was hard. And then of course, the teasing and the bullying started and it just. It's very, very hard on your confidence, especially at that age when you're still trying to figure out who you are as a person.

Ashley: 3:02

It's so hard with with kids that age too, because it's like words really do matter, but especially not having your frontal cortex fully formed, it can be so hard to really understand the full aspect of making a comment or saying something really awful that, you know, 5, 10, 15 years later can really still have that impact.

Leah: 3:22

Absolutely. And of course I carried that with me into my teenagers as well. I would wake up and the first thing I would do is I would go to the mirror and I would look to see, you know, if I had a new pimple and even before I would leave my bedroom, I would do a full face makeup with that old CoverGirl compact. It's just, it's not healthy for the skin. It's full of pore cloggers. But I was so ashamed of my skin. I didn't even want my own family to see it. And then of course, that led into, you know, hanging out with other friends after school. And on weekends, I would never let anybody see me without a full face of makeup on,

Ashley: 3:52

which must have been a lot more pressure. And like you had said, clogging pores without really realizing it. So you're kind of adding to the problem without feeling like there's a solution.

Leah: 4:03

Yeah, and I didn't know, you just, you go to the drugstore with your mom or whoever is able to take you and you just are walking the aisles and whoever, the sales people there, they're there to help you, but they don't know any different, you know, they're just, this one's on sale, or this one has a great promo. You get a blush when you buy the foundation or a mascara. You know, there's really no reasoning behind what I was picking other than I just wanted something that was gonna cover it and hope for the best.

Ashley: 4:28

Oh, absolutely. And the commercials, back when we would've been teenagers, it's like it had the cool celebrities and say like the Neutrogena, where it's like you're smashing your face with water and it's like everybody wanted the products that we saw everywhere. Absolutely. I am really happy that nowadays there is so much more knowledge and we are so much more aware of the cause and effect of certain things, of knowing, like if we're using a certain brand and. It has different chemicals or different minerals or anything else. I just, I like that there is more information out there so that we can make a more informed decision.

Leah: 5:03

Yeah, definitely. It does get a little bit challenging now though, because unfortunately we're in the era of influencers, so some of the information that our youth and you know, the decision makers are getting, it's not. Scientifically based or medically backed. So it's a little bit challenging right now to make sure that you're getting the correct message on what's affecting your skin, what is contributing to your acne, what actually causes acne, because there's so many influences out there. They don't have any training and they're getting paid by the brands to do a video, and then now they're going viral on TikTok. People are just buying whatever is trendy and not actually having any education or direction on what they're using,

Ashley: 5:47

which is a really fair point. And I think so many influencers, aren't always great about legally disclosing whether it's a paid or gifted. So you think that they just love this product because it's great and not really knowing that that video could be the only time that they wore it and they wore it because they got paid to do so that it is deceptive advertising practices for sure, and I think that we're seeing that more and more there's this big viral thing on TikTok with ten-year-Olds going to Sephora and picking out like retinol products and things that is really damaging to their skin, but it has a cute package, so they think it's fun to use.

Leah: 6:23

And that's part of the sad part too, is right now, you know companies, they know that the children and the TikTokers, they're the ones that are the decision-makers. They're going to their parents and say, mom, you know, I saw this on TikTok, or I saw it online, and they go to Sephora or. That's just the one that's being highlighted right now. But there are other companies in the states as well and internationally that are the same principle, and they're just going there looking for a specific product. Like you said, I want a retinol, or I want glycolic acid, or cellophilic because they've heard it trending and they don't need it at that age. And the hard part is now is we're not gonna see the damage that we're doing to our youth for another 10, 20, 30 years. So even though, you know, they might be being bullied or they're trying to fit in with their social circle. To be trending right now, they're actually causing so much premature aging at such a young age that they're gonna be dealing with this 30, 40 years from now, or really gonna start to see the damage. Then

Ashley: 7:18

what advice would you give parents that are kind of stuck in a position where their kid wants a certain product or wants to even potentially mirror what they're putting on them? What's something that would be, I don't know, like an. Not that they should necessarily have an entryway into skincare and makeup and all of that kind of stuff either, but what would be more gentle products to use on skin? Like should they be gearing them towards maybe like a sunscreen moisturizer that would be potentially beneficial? Or would there be something that is like a middle ground?

Leah: 7:54

Absolutely. I think the best thing to do is to encourage the. Educational aspect of it. You know, really encourage a child like, that's great. I'm so happy that you're showing an interest in creating a skincare routine. But let's find a professional or where you're getting your influence from isn't from other teenagers that are getting it from social ads. Let's find a medical professional in our area, like a medical esthetician or in the states, the reference is master estheticians. Somebody who's gone to school that has advanced training that can really guide them through that process and guide them from there. Teen years to their early twenties and their thirties and you know, and so on from that point, because then you have somebody in your pocket who's. Educationally based, that's selecting these products for you, and they can explain to you why they're picking specific products and why they're good for you versus other ones that are not good for you, and how that affects your skin short term and in the long term. So for our younger clientele, what we're doing right now is recommending some type of skincare routine. So you know, they fit in with their peers. It's gentle for the skin, but it's also protecting the skin. So they just need a really simple, gentle cleanser. They need a very simple moisturizer and sunscreen. Those are the best things that they can do now, and I just tell my parents to say, introduce this like you would with your oral hygiene care. You know, flossing is great. Brushing your teeth is great, but why are those things important? So if you include that now at a young age, they don't know any difference. It's just built into your routine and then they have that health and awareness. So that they're preventing precancerous skin lesions, and they're not gonna have to necessarily have cancer cut off their nose or their cheeks in their forties and fifties, you know? Same with the tanning bed generations. I grew up in that generation. My GP used to tell me from my acne, go into a tanning bed three to five days a week. So I did that because I thought, you know, when I was 11 that this was gonna be clearing up my skin, and now that I'm in, you know, my forties, now I have all the sun damage and premature fine lines and wrinkles that. I shouldn't be experiencing at this age, but that's what I was exposed to.

Ashley: 9:57

Well, and I do appreciate the tanning beds that I know in Canada anyways. I'm not sure if it's the same in the US but you can't go into them before you're 18 anymore it is a lot more stricter.'cause it was one of those things you'd go sit in the tanning bed with those like really? What I would describe as tacky now, either like the heart or the Playboy symbol and it was like just trying to give yourself essentially like a,

Leah: 10:20

reverse tattoo. Yeah.

Ashley: 10:23

That it is so funny how with the more information that we get, how things like that change, but we really were given such bad advice with the knowledge that they knew then. I think for parents even thinking about sort of what we had touched on earlier with words matter. I think if you are somebody who maybe has low self-esteem or is really harsh where you're talking about like your wrinkles or you're talking about, I don't know, just the way that you're aging or how you look, it's important to remember that little ears essentially will copy you. So it's like if you're talking about how awful you are, then they're gonna start looking for things that they also could see as awful. That in thinking about skincare and thinking about our health, is just sort of remembering that aspect of it that. We don't wanna make our issues, their issues.

Leah: 11:12

Yeah, I see a big trend right now with social drinking. Starbucks, for example. Not to throw that brand out there, but just people are very aware with that brand. But any type of coffee house where our younger girls, you know, are in their pre-teens, even as young as, I probably saw a three-year-old today. I was leaving my gym from my workout and there was a mother daughter, you know, sharing a coffee. It was cute and endearing, but I'm thinking like here you are giving a three or four-year-old. This liquid sugar and you're coaching and teaching them, this is a social thing, but they're using it as a lunch. They're using it as a breakfast. Like this is not a meal source. And the chemicals and the fillers and the preservatives are that are in these drinks are destroying our gut health and our brains and our skin functions. But again, you know, it's that trendy thing to do. Let's hook up with a girlfriend and we'll go for coffees. You're slowly poisoning your body when you're doing this and. It's gonna start showing up more and more. I mean, I don't know if you've noticed over the last three years since. covid Took effect on the world, but the depression rate is escalating right now. And because everybody went online to connect during covid, people are pulling back from those social connections and they're afraid to go out and they're getting more acne and then the acne, they're wanting to hide from that and hide behind their screens. And I just, I see it all the time with our clients. I see the emotional toll that it's taking. Confidence isn't as high as it was, you know, five years ago, and it's really sad to see these. Becoming social norms.

Ashley: 12:46

Oh, I definitely agree with that and I think as great as it is to be able to have that, I guess, instant satisfaction of being able to, message somebody on Instagram or message somebody through whatever social platform and have that instant connection. You miss the importance of like actually sitting down and connecting with people and sharing information and it becomes this. I'll just quickly tell them this, I have this moment, or I'll quickly send this voice note, but it's like that divide and nothing can really replace having that community around you where you are taking the time to put your device down and actually connect into the person. And it's so good for not only our depression and anxiety, but just even our attention spans. That. It's like if we were to have like, an internet pause for the day, it's like you don't wanna feel like you don't have people that you can turn to, or it's like even remembering people's phone numbers anymore because that's such a underutilized app on our phone. Absolutely. Like who actually calls people anymore or who. Answers the phone just willy-nilly to see like, oh, who's calling me? Like, that's the worst. And I am back that too because I actually hate. But just having that piece of it, it's like it really is so important to us. Mm-Hmm.

Leah: 14:05

Yeah, I'm definitely noticing a shift right now just personally with social media. I need it for my business. It's how I connect to a broader audience and. Our skincare line has gone global over the last two years, and it's an easy way for me to connect with other countries, but yet on the flip side of the scale, I'm really feeling this intuitive pull. To draw back from social media because I find it so fake now, and everybody's using filters on their skin and then they're using editor apps to shrink their thighs and their stomachs. And it's like what they're presenting to the world isn't even real anymore. And it's creating this false identity. And people, if they feel like they don't fit in with that, then they're at a loss, you know? So either people are buying apps to edit it or they're filtering and. People that are maybe at home and they're struggling and they're seeing all these pretty perfect people all the time, they pull into their shell because now they feel like, well, they're not that pretty happy person who's posted on social media, but that might, in reality, they might be going through a divorce, they might be having health issues with their children, but that's not what they're posting on social media. It's interesting. Right now, it's been for the probably a year now where I just feel like I'm engaging less. Because it's not fulfilling anymore, even though I need it for my business to be able to connect with people. I'm more focusing on in-clinic and interpersonal relationships and like you said, putting your phone down and going for connections, whether it's coffee or going for a hike or working out. There's definitely a shift right now that people are starting to experience.

Ashley: 15:37

It definitely is the highlight reel, and if people don't really factor that in when they are scrolling, it does become a. You know, why isn't my life exciting? Why isn't it this? And it's like, from a business perspective, it is so frustrating because it isn't easy to find your community authentically anymore. It's like, mm-hmm. Choosing that right time of day to post. Instagram wants to be TikTok so bad that it's like there's no pictures anymore. It's everything is video. Everything is like capture their attention in three minutes or else, and it's like doom and gloom and it just, it can be really frustrating and exhausting and it just feels like work instead of like a fun part of your work or an additional part of your work. So as a business owner, I can completely relate that it does kind of feel like. You're banging your head against the wall and it just isn't getting better, but extra box can find you.

Leah: 16:29

Yeah. Right.

Ashley: 16:32

I know that we are sort of heading into summer. We had kind of touched on what tweens should do for their skincare. What should all of us kind of be focusing on as the weather is shifting

Leah: 16:43

so this is an interesting time of year because in BC we're still getting that dry, cool air. But we're starting to see the rain come in, and we're above freezing now. So it's an interesting shift because a lot of people still have the heats on in their homes and in their vehicles in the morning, and then we're starting to dress in layers because now we're starting to get a little bit of that springtime temperature. So something that you should be looking for is pairing. Vitamin C with your SPF. This is one of my favorite combinations, vitamin C is one of my favorite. Daytime ingredients because it helps to fight pollution. It fights free radical damage. It helps to support the efficacy of your sunscreen, and it builds collagen. A lot of people don't know that vitamin C builds collagen, so when you go into the sun, the sun is damaging the DNA in the skin, and it breaks down the elasticity and collagen in your skin. So we use things like sunscreen to be able to support and protect the skin. If we complement that with Vitamin C, we're just doing so much more. So looking to have a little bit more of a hydrating serum, pairing it with a vitamin C, and then supporting it with your sunscreen. Those are definitely the spring things.

Ashley: 17:55

I definitely didn't know that about Vitamin C. Can you explain to people, if they were to come into the spa, what does a typical client consultation look like?

Leah: 18:05

We are actually known for our consultations. We spend 60 minutes for our regular skin intake consultations. We take. In depth, they're called Visia. It's a branded photo technology. It takes photos of their face directly straight on to the left side and to the right. And it's really interesting for people because the left side typically has more sun damage'cause it's their driving window. So we show them what's happening not only with texture and pore size, but we show them the bacteria under the skin. We show the redness and inflammation as well as. Pigments. So it's really important to show people where they start because your skin is an organ and people expect immediate results, but they forget to be able to reflect two years later, five years later, and really see how their skin has improved long term versus like that social. Cue of this is what a filter looks like on your skin. So people expect that I'm gonna go in for a facial and I'm gonna walk out looking 10 years younger, right? So we include these digital images during our consultation. We go through their medical history, any medications or supplements that they're on, what their diet's, like, what their travel or for business or for pleasure is like. We go through their exercise program, we go through their current skincare routine. Also what we recommend for them, and then we help to create a plan where I find a lot of other people, they lose a little bit of that because they're not going through where they have been and where they currently are, and then a projection to where they want to go. They just come in, they look at the client like they're number, they're like, here, let's get our sales to you and we hope we'll see you again. That's not the type of relationship that we look for with our clients. We look for long-term relationships with our clients, so it's really important that we educate people on what they've done versus where they're going, and then the best roadmap to achieve that.

Ashley: 19:55

I imagine that would kind of be. Scary to kind of be able to give all of that knowledge, I think it's fantastic, but there must be kind of like a shock at people when they really see the skin damage or the sun damage rather, or bacteria and all of that. Because I think so many times we forget that it's more than just what we see. And I really do love the fact that it is focusing on, you know, sleep and diet and all of those other things because we do forget it's an organ and everything is. Connected that way that it isn't just it's my skin. I'll throw on a sunscreen and, I'm good.

Leah: 20:30

Yeah, absolutely. People forget that it's an organ. So that's one of the things that I lead with is that don't forget that what you put inside your body is what you're going to get out. So if you're experiencing acne flare ups, for example, acne takes 90 days to form. So that's a three month process. So if they're getting breakouts, now it's February. What were they doing in December? What were they doing in November? And people don't think about that. They think, oh, I've been eating so well since January 1st and it's my New Year's resolution and I'm exercising. But what were you doing back in November and December? You were probably indulging in Christmas festivities. You were maybe drinking a little bit more alcohol. You know, shorter, darker days. You're probably having more caffeine and all these little micro. Experiences can build into some, you know, perfect storm. And then that's usually when the clients come in to see us because there's something, what they say is wrong with their skin or they're not happy about something. So we really educate them on that process. And before it used to be such a vanity thing, like, oh, I'm going to the spa and you must have all this extra money to be able to afford this. Whereas I'm trying to flip that and say let's prepare the skin and treat it like an organ, which it is. It's our largest organ. And you know, not end up 20 years from now waiting for a referral for a dermatologist because we have a pre-cancer skin lesion. Like let's teach people when they're younger that you can help prevent these things. You can have less exposure to the sun. You can wear things like vitamin C to protect the skin on a regular basis. You can use things like vitamin A retinol to repair the damage. Prepare the skin so that it doesn't have that advanced aging. And we coach that on a regular basis, but also during the consultations. And we do 60 minutes for all of our skin consultations. And then our acne consultations are 90 minutes because we go so much more in depth into diet and nutrition. And a lot of people, you know, they come in, they say, well, I don't need 60 minutes. I just want you to tell me what we need. Then we say, well no, there's so much more that goes into it. 60 minutes. I mean, we could talk for three hours, but this is the time that we set aside to really just explain the body and the health and how everything is connected.'cause people forget that.

Ashley: 22:42

Well, and I think it is really, really important to think about it as preventative, I think too many of the times we don't start to think until something is wrong or. Not to say like until it's too late, but until more damage is done. So I think it is really important to understand that while it can be a luxury or an additional cost, it is that, like what is it gonna save you down the road? How much money is treatment for something going to cost or the pain of like going through something like skin cancer that it is really important to kind of get ahead of it and give ourselves permission to have that version of self-care.

Leah: 23:18

Absolutely. And I think right now too, we're really gonna start to see more. Cancer show up in skin, and it's scary because they don't teach you that in school. They don't teach you that in post-secondary education. Even online, nobody really talks about it. So unless you have a medical esthetician in your corner who can teach you and keep an eye on it, I mean, we always take photos when clients come in for their follow-up treatments as well, because. Something that pops up, you know, they just say, oh, there's little red spot on my nose. We'll take a picture of it, we'll file it and chart it and say, you know, we'll keep an eye on it. And if it grows or it changes color or shape, then maybe it's time, to go to your doctor. But now your GPS, they'll be referring you to a dermatologist if it's cancer. And most of the time we'll send clients to their doctor, and the doctor says, oh, it's fine. It's nothing. I've had probably 10 clients in the last year where I'll say to them, you know, this looks really suspicious. We've been watching it for a few months or a few years now. I think this is a really good time to go in and get it checked. And the medical system is failing them. They've had these clients and they come back and they say, oh, I've got basal cell carcinoma or melanoma. I wish I had a known sooner. Well, we did know sooner, but unfortunately the medical system is just, it's failing us now because unless it's something drastically wrong. It's hard to get somebody to look into it for us.

Ashley: 24:41

The issue that we're having in BC, I don't know whether other people listening to this would have the same situation in their town or in their country. But in BC it is very rare if you have a family doctor. I know if you are somebody who doesn't have a family doctor, either because there wasn't one available in your town, or because a practitioner retired and there wasn't a replacement, it can take five to 10 years to find a regular GP to see you. In Canada, we can't opt to go to a specialist without a referral. So you really need that GP step first. The pandemic kind of shut down most walk-in clinics and there is sort of a middle ground because our healthcare is supposed to be free. If you're going to a walk-in clinic, essentially, now it's telehealth, which you have to pay for. So it is a little bit of a gray area of whether you have the ability to go to telehealth, but most people are stuck going to emergency rooms for really basic things that they really shouldn't have to go to for that. And then a. Emergency room visit is like probably on average, anywhere between 12 to 14 hours, just to be able to be triaged and see a doctor. And then once you're in there, they're really so slammed and so short-staffed that again, a lot of times you're told, ah, it'll be fine, or this is nothing. Or they're really just rushing you out, leaving you back at square one and having to repeat. So it's so difficult to get basic care and. I think women especially are so overlooked and so gaslit that we're often told the labs are fine when the labs aren't fine. That it's like everybody is looking for the treating the symptom instead of finding the root cause. So it can be very, very challenging to get taken seriously.

Leah: 26:31

Yeah, my husband, he's a first responder. He's a firefighter for the city of Surrey. And you know, when we talk about things, I notice that what he sees a lot of the time is not actually an emergency situation, but like you said, a lot of people, there's this miscommunication that, you know, if you call 9 1 1, you're gonna get to the front of the line where it's not necessarily the case, but then you're tying up different first responder emergency services like your firefighters, like your ambulance. Because they're not getting the care that they want. It's very sad and it's frustrating to see what's happening to our medical system. And in all transparency, I actually recommend my clients to just drive across the line. We're in White Rock in BC, and you know, we're a 10 minute drive across the border and I tell my clients, you know, this looks. Concerning if you can't get in to see your doctor, or if you do get in to see your doctor, usually they'll just say, oh, it's fine, or we'll, just zap it with liquid nitrogen and you're fine. I say, go to the states. You know, you might pay$150 or up to$300 for a visit, but at least you're getting seen and you're getting treated and you're getting addressed right away, and they can get in, you know, within a couple weeks versus waiting six or nine or 12 months. It's too late at that point. And we see celebrities now like Hugh, Jackman, who's had cancer cut out of his face three or four times. Now he's a spokesman for skin cancer. But if you don't see that, you know, it's not in your face, you're not aware of it, and there's so many things that you can do like having, you know, a medical esthetician or a medical spa. In your back pocket where they can say, oh, you know, you come in for regular treatments. It doesn't need to be a monthly facial. But even if you're coming into the clinic a few times a year for a laser treatment, we notice when there's a change in the skin, we notice if something's unhealthy and it gives us an opportunity to have a touch point with that client that says, Hey. This is your time for a friendly reminder. Are you wearing your sunscreen? Are you helping to prevent skin cancer and sun damage other than the vanity of looking good? And you know, people think Botox and fillers and altering the way that you look. Let's get it back to skin health. No different than, like I said, you would with your teeth. You go in for regular checkups, you, look for cavities and. Infection and you know, they check your glands to see if maybe there's any cancer that's showing up in your thyroid. They're doing different things now in dental care that we should just expect to have with skincare as well.

Ashley: 28:55

Yeah, that is a really good point. Can you tell me a little bit more about the services that you offer within this spa?

Leah: 29:04

Absolutely. So we are what we call a medical Medi-Spa. And what that means is we're like a bridge between a daycare spa and a full medical spa where they're potentially doing surgeries or they're just. Specifically focusing on medical care. So that could be cancer, pre-screening. It could be doing Botox and fillers and injectables, whereas we are bridging the two. So we offer what we call medical facials where it's a bridge between having that relaxation facial that you would have at a day spa, but then merging it with. The medical field. So we're doing chemical peels. We're doing LED light therapy for rejuvenating the skin, working on fine lines and wrinkles and texture. So we have that aspect of our business. We also have our correction phase, which is more working with lasers. So we have our halo laser, we have our Cyton Forever, young BBL, we do medical microneedling. Then we also go into the acne therapies and then we have the injectable side. We have a full menu to service, pretty much anybody that comes in with a skin concern. And it's important that we educate people that we are a medical spa. So if you're looking for, you know, I kind of call them those fluffy spa facials, we're probably not the right partner for you because we're more looking on education-based training and treatments,

Ashley: 30:27

which is awesome to have that education piece because I think sometimes, even when you. go into Like a day spot and you're like, oh, I just want a facial. You may be damaging your skin by taking whatever products are generically offered through that, that it's like, it may feel good in the moment, but again, you're maybe spending your money to feel sick later

Leah: 30:50

And some of them aren't cheap. You know, if you go in for facial. Massage type, you know, where they've got the arm massage and the hand massage and they've got the steam machines. You know, it's a very European style facial, and you could spend 200,$300 for those types of facials, or you can spend as low as$60. And then you get into the medical facial ones where you have like the chemical peels and the hydro facials and the microdermabrasions. They're still giving you that spa type experience, but they're doing so much more for their skin. They're exfoliating the skin, but they're replenishing with. Peels and peptides and vitamin C's and anti-inflammatories. So you can still have the relaxation aspect, but you can also be working on prevention and correction as well.

Ashley: 31:35

What are some red flags that people should watch out for when they're choosing a spa?

Leah: 31:40

I'm advocate for education. So I would say definitely just asking or doing some due diligence and researching the company before you go in. How long have they been open? What's their training? And it's hard for a consumer because in the laser realm, there's no regulation in BC anymore. They took away the licensing in 2006. So anybody can just go and purchase a laser or a light-based device on Amazon or eBay, not have any education or training, open a business and start offering these services. So it's very scary. So I would always say, ask for their diplomas. Ask where their training is, who they got training from, how much experience they have. Have they been doing it? Three months and they're new. Have they been doing it five years or 10 years? Because even though you can watch online training, it's different when you're working on hands-on experience in the field because what we're trained on online. Might not correspond directly to working on someone in the clinic. And when you're working with lasers, some light-based devices like IPL or BBL, they are attracted to pigment. So if you have a client that's coming in to work on freckles or sunspots and sun damage. If they've been exposed to sun and they have a tan in the skin, the laser is attracted to that pigment. So instead of just having, you know, a specific freckle or a sunspot, you have pigments everywhere now and you run the risk of over treating clients. So if you have someone who hasn't been doing it long enough or doesn't have proper training, even though they know, okay, well this is your skin type, this is what we're treating. They don't have the hands-on experience to say. This is what you're presenting as a skin type, but you actually are coming in with a skin type three or four versus a two. So that's the Fitzpatrick scale that we use to see how much pigment is in the skin. So you run the risk of going to a spa or a medical place where they can be over-treating you

Ashley: 33:38

you have a skin quiz on your website. Would that be something that you'd recommend people do before they book a consultation, or is that something that even once you go into the consultation, that's something that you incorporate?

Leah: 33:52

So we don't talk about the skin quiz during our consultation because. In the consultation, we have the client right in front of us. So that gives us an opportunity to see their skin, to touch their skin, to do the visious scans. The skin quiz is more for people who don't have access to come see us. Maybe they live outta country or outta province. They still wanna be able to buy medical-based skincare, but they don't know where to start. So I spent a lot of time developing a skin quiz to say, what are your skin conditions? What is your age? What are your targets? And then to create. A visual skincare regime, and then the client can go through and pick maybe based on their budget or based on how many steps they want based on what's populated after the skin quiz. So it's more for people who aren't able to come into the clinic.

Ashley: 34:38

I love that, and I love the fact that it gives people that opportunity where they're not just like blindly picking that they do provide a little bit more context and information for you guys to be able to help them to say, Hey, try this, or try this, or try this.

Leah: 34:54

And one thing that makes us unique as well, because this passion stemmed from my own experience with cystic acne is that the line that I developed, which is Essence of L medical Skincare, it was designed to be acne-safe first. So even if you're not acne-prone, maybe in your twenties or thirties, maybe you hit perimenopause and all of a sudden you've got some new acne breakouts. So what was working for you before might not be what's gonna help support you and target you as you, you know, go through your life. So if you're buying it from Costco or you know, Sephora or London drugs, those things might not be acne safe. They might be targeted towards. Fine lines and wrinkles or towards laxity. Whereas when you go into the medical based skin care, they can do multiple things with each step. So you can have a serum, for example, that's gonna work on texture and pore size and wrinkles and pigment. You can have a moisturizer that has human growth factor that's going to work to fight precancerous skin lesions and reduce inflammation in the skin. So they just do more things. Per product per ingredient. So you'll notice that in our skincare line where each serum has multiple ingredients that are gonna be targeting multitude of specific treatments.

Ashley: 36:08

I think that's something that a lot of grownups don't necessarily think of too, is that your skin isn't just going to be say like. Whatever stage you're in now, it's not just gonna stay this stage. But it's really important to understand that so many different lifestyle changes or so many different hormonal changes throughout your adulthood into being a senior, that really can change what products you should use. Like I think that that part we just don't really think about. We think, oh, I like this brand. It's working for me. I'm just gonna use it for the end of time.

Leah: 36:43

And again, it's very misleading because there isn't a regulatory board that says you can't say that on your label. So somebody could say, Acne, safe Moisturizer, but if you flip it over and you read the ingredients, there might be one to three poor clogging ingredients in it. So it's misleading for the consumer.'cause they're gonna say, oh, you know, I'm dealing with acne right now. I'm gonna buy this acne cleanser or this treatment serum. But then there's actually ingredients in it that is going to contribute to the development of more acne again, you know, three months down the road. Because we know that acne takes 90 days to form. So, you know, it might clear up initially, but it'll have a compounding effect where eventually it might contribute to more acne. So it's frustrating for the consumer because. They might just be going online and looking for a specific ingredient. Maybe they saw an influencer, maybe they saw an article that said salicylic acid, for example, is really good for acne, oily prone skin. But if they're a drier skin type, but they still experience the odd breakout, it might not be the best ingredient for them. Or it might be formulated in a base that has poor clogging ingredients in it. So it's very misleading and very confusing for the consumer if you don't have somebody in your back pocket that can actually explain what these are doing to your skin or if it's even the right product for you.

Ashley: 37:58

For sure. And I know even with thinking about ingredients, if you go to the supermarket and you flip'em over, you're more likely to see like products you recognize, like milk, eggs, whatever. But if you look at. At cosmetics or any sort of product like that. It's like these big scientific terms and it's not as readable for most people, but it's like, it's so hard to actually get that information, like you said, unless you're going to a professional.

Leah: 38:25

Mm-Hmm. And one thing that we see common is clients will come in and they'll say, well, I want, you know, a chemical. free Skincare line. So this is why I shop at the natural food stores. You know, whether it's choices or nature's fair, we'll say, well, you can't have chemical free products. Water is a chemical. Light is a chemical, you know, so people get this. Misconception in their head that they need chemical free, but like what kind of chemicals are you looking to avoid? Is it a toxic chemical? Is it a, an ingredient that's been banned in Europe? You know, what we allow in Canada is different than the allowance in the states, which is different than what's available in Europe. Everybody has different regulations and. People get very confused in what chemical free means. It's like, okay, so you don't want parabens, you don't want phthalates that are gonna be hormone disruptors, but they don't know what those are. They just come in, this is what I want and I don't want this in my skincare. It's like, okay, is there actual science behind that or was it, paid self-assigned company that all of a sudden started, you know, telling people that there's a company out there that you have to pay for to have your products listed on their website, and people come across this site and then they just take everything you know, as it is that it's the holy Grail and it's the only sourcing that you should run your products through. But it's not always accurate and people don't know that companies have to pay to have their products on there. So it's a little bit biased as well.

Ashley: 39:56

Can you let people know if they're looking for you online or they're looking for your website where they can find it?

Leah: 40:03

Yeah, so if you go to our website or Google Essence of L MediSpa, there is a shop page, a direct link on our homepage.

Ashley: 40:12

Awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation with me today.

Leah: 40:17

You are so welcome. Thank you for having me.

40:21

Thank you so much for joining us today for this episode of The Filled Up Cup podcast. Don't forget to hit subscribe and leave a review. If you like what you hear. You can also connect with us at filledupcup.com. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode.