Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Bergen County
Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Ep # 118 Beauty, Health, and Self-Care: A Conversation with Purpose Aesthetix
What does it mean to be a "unicorn" in the aesthetics industry? For Heinny Severini, owner of Purpose Aesthetix at Glam Studios in Norwood, NJ, it means bringing 18 years of nursing expertise into a field often criticized for prioritizing quick cosmetic fixes over genuine health and wellbeing.
During our enlightening conversation, Heinny shares her remarkable journey from hospital bedside nursing through infection prevention and urology before finding her passion in aesthetics after experiencing adult acne. This personal struggle sparked her interest in treatments that address both external appearance and internal health—a philosophy that now defines her practice. Unlike the "cookie-cutter" treatments offered elsewhere, Purpose Aesthetics provides deeply personalized care that begins with education and encompasses the whole person.
Listeners will discover the technical differences between neuromodulators (like Botox) and dermal fillers, but more importantly, they'll understand how modern aesthetic medicine is evolving toward regenerative approaches. Heinny debunks common misconceptions about treatments (no, properly done lip fillers shouldn't make you look like "the Joker"), while explaining how today's habits affect how we'll look a decade from now. Her refreshing honesty about the realities of entrepreneurship—balancing clinical excellence with the demands of running a business—offers valuable insights for anyone considering a similar path.
Whether you're curious about aesthetic treatments, contemplating a career change, or interested in the intersection of health and beauty, this episode provides thoughtful perspective from someone who truly understands that looking good is about feeling good, and that confidence comes from both medical expertise and genuine care. Ready to learn what makes Purpose Aesthetix different? Listen now and discover a community that celebrates confidence, grace, and timeless radiance.
Purpose Aesthetix
Heinny Severini
551-305-3378
521 Livingston St 113 Suite 6, Norwood, NJ 07648
info@purposeaesthetix.com
purposeaesthetix.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Doug Drohan.
Speaker 2:Good day everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast brought to you by the Bergen Neighbors Media Group. I am your host, doug Drohan, and today we are joined by Heinny Severini, the owner of the brand new Purpose Aesthetix at the Glam Studios in Norwood, new Jersey. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I'm so excited about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I was at your studio. I guess you called a studio.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Just earlier this week, earlier this week, and for those who don't know what Glam Studios is, it's there's a concept like this that are it's popping up around Bergen County and elsewhere, but it's a kind of a workspace, if you will, at different studios that people mostly in the wellness and beauty and aesthetics industry can have their own kind of business that runs out of a building that has other, you know similar types of businesses beauty and health, I guess you could say right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that concept. This is actually a community hair nails med spa massage, so it's great for small business.
Speaker 2:yeah, so let's talk about you before we get into uh purpose aesthetics. So what's your background like? How did you get into uh this business, and how long have you been in the aesthetics business?
Speaker 3:yeah, so I call myself a unicorn. I've been a nurse, um, in the field of nursing I'm currently a nurse practitioner for about 18 years. But I started with med surge in hospitals bedside, then I was a manager in infection prevention, then I became a nurse practitioner in infection prevention and then I went into urology, which was one of my favorite specialties, and then I started to really get into aesthetics, maybe about six years ago, and that was because I developed adult acne, something that I never had to deal with. I started doing research and just fell in love with the concept that you can help people not only aesthetically right from the outside, but also internally, and that plays a big role, right.
Speaker 2:That's great.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean, I mean you're, you're right, you're all like a unicorn, because I haven't met many people in your industry that are, that are nurses. But I think that gives your clients more of a sense of of you know, trust and, you know, kind of eases their worries, maybe because, all right, you're putting needles in my face, does this person know what they're doing? But having been a nurse or being a nurse, I guess gives us that extra layer of trust. So so when did your business like? When did you go off on your own? What was the kind of the aha moment where you said you know, I want to start my own business.
Speaker 3:So I've been in my own space for about two months almost now. I did work for other med spas around Bergen County. The aha moment was when I understood that, listen, I feel like it was me from the moment they entered to that business. So when they're treated, and even after you know, in a lot of these places that I work for, did not education? That represented safety, that represented everything that I stand by. So that was my aha moment. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's important. And the reason why we have this show is so people understand who you are like the name behind or the person behind the name. You are like the name behind the, the, uh, or the, the person behind the name, because, to your point, there are so many places to have, you know, fillers and aesthetics and different things for my, my face or lips or or forehead or whatever. So why you like? Why should I visit you? You know, and I think that's the biggest hurdle that we have as business owners is getting that kind of message out there without spending, you know, tens of thousands of dollars a month on just getting ads in front of people like so, so what? So what's the experience like? So you, you say you know it's educating people. It's obviously your background as a nurse. So what? What makes the experience with you different?
Speaker 3:So my business is not a cookie cutter business, right? We personalize treatment. I make sure that every patient that comes to my business has a full consultation, that they understand that not only what I do here is important but what they're doing at home, especially with their health, that I don't treat a single area. For example, a patient comes in. These nasolabial folds, which are the lines that run from your nose to the corner of your mouth, are bothering me. Can you treat it? So, basically, I am going to have them understand anatomy and also aging. Aging is a diagnosis and I'm not just going to go ahead and fill that area but provide them with the best treatment plan, right?
Speaker 3:okay, yeah, yeah everybody's gonna get personalized treatment.
Speaker 2:So how they can best treat their skin themselves through hydration and diet and things like that.
Speaker 3:It takes more than Botox or filler right.
Speaker 2:Got it. So for somebody who's uninitiated like myself, I know Botox, but what is a dermal filler? What is tox? That doesn't? That sounds like something that's toxic, so I'm afraid of that so it's a short word for tox is botulin toxin.
Speaker 3:We have different brands. People know Botox because it's a name brand, so they all call it Botox. But we now have a lot of neuromodulators and what these medications do is that they stop the muscle and by doing that you kind of help the skin to relax. You look brighter, you don't get those permanent static lines that can form with muscle movements. You look refreshed. Dermal fillers are made out of hyaluronic acid, which is a gel that is injected. We all produce it in our body, but this is an external way of allowing some areas to be filled. And then we have now newer trends. Just Like everything in medicine, we are growing, we're learning, we're improving. A lot of the focus now is in regenerative medicine, especially with skin and aesthetics.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:And that includes using a lot of things like vitamins for the skin or your own blood, right, if you're a good candidate for that. Polynucleotides, we have it all for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, and I guess one of the benefits of any type of I mean for want of a better word, I'll call beauty treatment is that when you look better, you feel better. Sure, when you feel better, you're more confident. Right, I mean it's, it's, what you provide is not just a physical service, it's, there's a emotional part to it, right?
Speaker 3:Yes, there's actually studies out there that have shown that people that get treatments with Botox feel better. I mean, you look at yourself, you feel refreshed, a little more perky, and you know, even when the sun is out you feel better, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what is so I, if I go on your Web site, there's a line that says be part of a community that celebrates confidence, that we just spoke of grace and timeless radiance. So what do you mean by being part of a community?
Speaker 3:A community is people who believe in health inside and outside. That's it. The newest, some of the newer things now is that a lot of people understand that health is a community. Listen, I exercise Great. I take care of I use sunscreen Great. You know this is part of our community that we now have learned that, ultimately, what you're doing today are the results of 10, 15 years from now.
Speaker 2:Right, Right, right, yeah. I heard somebody say it might've been a celebrity that said you know, when you turn 50, everything that you did in your 20s comes back to the chickens come home to roost. So what you did in your 20s you get away with in your 20s and in your 30s, but by the time you're in your 40s and 50s you know that lifestyle that you had.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I talk to my clients all the time. I said listen, all this sun damage that you've had for 25 years, it's now here and we have to deal with it. You know as best as you can I can't take it all away in one visit Right, so yeah.
Speaker 2:There's a line from a guy named Stephen Covey who wrote the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and he back in the 90s I read that book and had his tapes, you know, when you had tapes put in your car, when your cars actually had a tape deck. But he used a line that said you can't talk yourself out of a habit you worked yourself into. In other words, like just snapping your fingers it's not going to change something that a lifestyle has developed over years. You want to become a better manager, or better this, or better husband, better father, but it's not going to happen just by snapping your finger if everything you've done for the last 15 years has been counter to that. So you know, to your point, um, you've been spending your days drinking and hanging out in the sun. Uh, now you wake up and say, oh, I got to do something about this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess you could get plastic surgery, and then you look like but even with plastic surgery, you're still going to need um some of these medications. You're still going to need some of these medications. You're still going to need Botox. You're still going to need some fillers.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know that's not going to erase damaged skin, but I'm here for it.
Speaker 2:So who's your typical client? I mean, I'd imagine it's mostly female, but do you have male clients as well?
Speaker 3:I do have male clients, not a big population. Most of my clients are females. A lot of the young girls love lip fillers and then the older females are really more focused on skin maintenance and some injectables.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so lip fillers, that's where you're. You know, like Meg Ryan. All of a sudden you've got these like clown lips or you look like the Joker. How long does that last?
Speaker 3:Right. So listen, that's one of the misconceptions in aesthetics. We've seen these people that almost look like aliens, right Overdone over the years. That is not how we're treating people nowadays.
Speaker 3:We are basically replacing a little bit of what's changing, supporting structures that are changing Fillers. If you really read some of the, or study or listen to the companies, they're supposed to last a year. Everybody's different. If your body metabolizes the medication faster, you know you need it sooner. But from what I do is listen. They come in, they want lip filler still looks good. I'm like no, we don't need any more filler. Filler still looks good. I'm like no, we don't need any more filler.
Speaker 2:It's up to the provider to really bring that patient into understanding what's happening well, it's almost like you know you're english, you have a stiff upper lip, but you want to look latina, you know, and it's like well, I don't think your body was meant. You know you're, you're from england and is your genetics, but yet you want to have. You know, you want to look. Right, I mean, certain things just don't look right on people Don't happen.
Speaker 3:That's what I say. Everybody comes in and they're like I want your lips. I'm like you're going to get a lip but you can't have mine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's funny. That's funny. So let's go back a little bit. So when did you decide you wanted to be a nurse? Like, what was that moment in your life where you're sitting on it?
Speaker 3:So I actually grew up in Columbia and I wanted to be a doctor. My uncle, who raised me, was a doctor and used to bring us to the hospital when I was little. Then I came to the US. I was a young mom. I had a child when I was 18. And I said, listen, medical medicine is going to be too long. I love taking care of people, I love medicine and I went into nursing.
Speaker 2:Wow, okay. So what part of Colombia did you grow up in?
Speaker 3:I grew up in Cartagena, Colombia.
Speaker 2:Oh nice, so on the coast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. See, I had a lot of sun exposure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I don't want to get too deep into Colombia, but having friends from there my nephew married a girl from there and my neighbors from San Andres, you know, one thing we don't realize about Colombia is how different the climates are. Certainly like the US. Bogota, medellin is not. It's not like it's hot and it's tropical. You're in the mountains. It's a different kind of climate which I guess would also affect your skin, your skin Yep, and what you eat. Right, I'm sure the food is a little bit different, and just like it's different in the South you know, down Alabama than it is here in New Jersey, for sure.
Speaker 2:All right, so here we go.
Speaker 2:You come to America, you become a nurse, you know, and then at this point in your life, you said I want to open up my own practice. One of the things I like to talk to people about on this show is what the journey's been like being an entrepreneur, because I've heard a couple of people describe it as a roller coaster. It's also the difference between financial security and financial independence. Financial security is having a paycheck every week, having, you know, punching the clock, so to speak, and having the security that you know you hope you keep your job, but while you do have a job, you have benefits and you have that, versus being an entrepreneur. So I'm going to go off on my own and now I don't have that security, but I do have the ability to do more with my life, to make more, to earn more, because now you know the sky's the limit, whereas when you work for someone else, sometimes there's certain you know ceilings on how far you can go or what you can do. Right, what is it like for you?
Speaker 3:Wow. So it's, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's a lot right. So I am, before anything, I was a provider. Like you said, I was just focusing on one thing making sure my patients are safe, doing the best that I can. Now there's a lot right. I carry I don't know how many titles at this point right, cleaning person, you're, you're everything busy. What I love is that I'm basically standing what I by, what I believe right. Um, that every client that comes to me has service that I created. Um, even from the consent or the branding, the colors. It's me right, and that's what keeps me going. But it is definitely a roller coaster, right, one day is different from the other. It's hard to disconnect. That's something that I have to work on, um, since it's a new thing for me. I don't know how to disconnect right, I'm always checking emails or answering dms on instagram.
Speaker 3:So that's something that I have to work on and it will come it'll come.
Speaker 2:I've been, it's been. This is my eighth year of uh running my own business and um, it, you know it's, it's definitely uh, there's, it's a different kind of stress. Uh, I've gotten better with it. I've become more um, I've learned there's certain things I just can't do myself, so I I have to pay somebody to do it because I can't. You know, in the beginning you're kind of bootstrapping it, you want to save as much money as possible. But then you realize and you're so worn down and so like on edge that, like you know you're, you got a 24 hours, seven days a week sign on your forehead. Uh, but it is what you need to do.
Speaker 2:And when you watch Shark Tank, it's always about what's your grind, right? You know rise and grind and um, you have a dream. It's not going to happen without passion. It's not going to happen without passion and it's not going to happen without hard work, but it's worth it. I'll tell you that, like you said, now you're working for yourself and you make the decisions. If they don't work out, you just pivot, learn from it and keep going. You don't have to worry about a boss is going to reprimand you or something like that, and then you can totally you know you can listen to your clients and be able to react to that quicker.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:It's something that I found rewarding in a lot of different ways. So let's, let's go back. Okay, so here we are. We're in Norwood, new Jersey, 521 Livingston street. There is a new kind of I'll say new in the last couple of years, this new kind of shopping strip mall plaza on Livingston, which is a road that runs from, I think, harrington Park all the way up to New York State and becomes Route 303. So you are in suite six at Glam Studios.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, and what is the best way for people to book an appointment with you?
Speaker 3:yes, so we do have a booking system, but I think the easiest way is to call or text and our number is 551-305-3378 and we can automatically get them scheduled from there. We also have a booking system from Aesthetix records which they can access from our instagram link tree or from our website nice and on instagram.
Speaker 2:How would I find you there?
Speaker 3:yes, on instagram we're purpose Aesthetix with an X at the end and a underscore.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 3:And we're also on Facebook as Purpose. Aesthetics with an X at the end.
Speaker 2:And you have a big event coming up right in May.
Speaker 3:Yes, I'm so excited we are finally um having a grand opening party. Um we're collaborating with one of our neighbors here, which is yes, 86 and vine. I love it there. Um, we're having an all-white party from 6 to 9 pm. It's's gonna be fun.
Speaker 2:Dj raffles all the above, yeah, so do you come on a web boat is.
Speaker 3:That is that how I dress. Yeah, that's something that you do. Listen, if it's white, why not? Yeah and we have an event right. We do require people to register.
Speaker 2:Okay, and how would they do that? I know on Instagram you have something on Instagram.
Speaker 3:On our link tree too. We have something there. They can go directly, hit on that link tree and go ahead and reserve their ticket for sure.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. Yeah, let's, just before we say goodbye, let's just review again some of the services that you provide. So we talked on fillers, we talked about Botox. What are the other types of services that you provide?
Speaker 3:Yes, so we provide laser services, microneedling medical grade peels. I do have wellness services, microneedling medical grade peels. I do have wellness services which are IVs, for nutrition, for health. Also.
Speaker 2:After this grand opening party at 86 and Vine, who are your cocktail parlor partners? If I've had a little what we call cocktail flu the next day, I could come in for an iv b vitamin kind of boost recovery yes, for sure, for sure nice, nice I like that yeah, yeah that's great.
Speaker 2:well, hanny, this was great, I you know. I think we can come back at another time and maybe talk about some specific um, you know, we'll call it an episode or or an experience that somebody had where you helped them. Uh, you know, maybe it was like you said, it was acne or it was something else, and I'd love to be able to share that story with uh, you know, with the audience. So, thank you so much for for joining us today, um, and I am just going to have Chuck say goodbye to us, and then you and I will be right back.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbergencom. That's gnpbergencom, or call 201-298-8325.