Today we’d like to introduce you to Hayley Wood.
Hayley, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I became an esthetician back in 2006 after struggling from low immunity and inflammatory skin conditions starting as young as age 10. Back in 2005, I was a freshman in college in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where I felt like I was not finding my purpose in the world.
I ended up visiting my older sister for lunch one day at her salon and spa job where she was a receptionist. She introduced me to the lead esthetician of the spa who was only a year older than me. I asked her so many questions about how she became an esthetician because even though I had skin issues, I had never heard of an esthetician before. It was music to my ears, and my soul felt called to investigate this as a career path. Within the week, I was signed up for the esthetic program at the Aveda Institute in Downtown Milwaukee. It felt as though I had come home to myself.
I spent the first few years really nurturing a craft that focused on plant-based products and aromatherapy. I learned so many beautiful massage techniques that transformed skin and the energy of my clients. I did however always found myself trying to get deeper with my clients in terms of the information they were sharing with me. I would ask about nutrition, stress levels, sleep cycles, hormones, etc. because I realized early on that the skin is a communication from our internal health and well-being. I learned how to heal my decade long battle with acne, eczema, and hives by taking note of what was working for my clients.
In 2009, I moved to Austin, TX where I was introduced to different healing modalities such as acupuncture and reiki (which I got attuned in back in 2010). I continued to grow as an esthetician and healer when I decided to move to Los Angeles in 2012. This was when my career took a huge hit because the industry was saturated with discounted sites like Groupon and as much as people claimed to be holistic, they were not. I felt that I had to compromise my ethics in order to make a paycheck so I worked for several different companies until 2014 where I got hit with an incredibly painful case of shingles.
My nervous system was crashing, and my endocrine system was on overload from all of the endocrine disruptive products I was using in the treatments I was doing for conventional spas. I ended up having to quit my job to get better and took on a part-time position at a green beauty store called The Detox Market. This is where I got the opportunity to truly connect with brands and a clientele that believed in what I knew in my heart was my calling. I wanted to provide safe, holistic facials to a clientele that was passionate about the sourcing of ingredients and how it impacts their health and the environment. That was when the Therapeutic Skin Coach was born.
I started taking clients out of my living room in my one bedroom apartment that my husband and I were sharing. I would work full-time hours at the store and take clients at nights and my days off. After years of cultivating the Therapeutic Skin Coach experience, I’ve now trained three apprentices to mindfully practice the same ethics as I have, have two online courses to help better support the community outside of LA that want this type of holistic care, and still continue to work from home – I just have my own space for it now.
My wildest dreams have come true with Therapeutic Skin Coach, but I’ve also continued to follow my heart and honor my intuition with every challenge that I’ve been faced with since. I’m so lucky that I get to be my own boss, help other estheticians, and support the community of clients from around the world who want holistic and safe skincare practices. I believe that skincare is self-care and I actively continue to expand my education in the field by taking advanced classes and trainings to this day.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
My journey has definitely been a rollercoaster, and it still challenges me every day. I think that when you work with people and their health, there is always going to be a quick fix that is enticing to them when I believe that holistic healing is really the key to connecting with your long-term health goals. I’m also not made to be a business owner.
I’m a healer, so when it comes to learning bookkeeping, marketing, and the basics of running a business, I can often feel very overwhelmed. But luckily, I have been able to outsource support to help educate me in any areas that I’m clueless in.
With the help of the people who have generously gifted me free advice or the referral of a professional that guided me to uplevel the business, it has definitely been a group effort. I also endured many health crises stemming from the initial shingles outbreak in 2014.
I have to be very gentle with myself and manage my stress to stay as minimal as I can. Otherwise, my nervous system and endocrine system start to act up, and the physical symptoms can be unbearable. I just learned that my journey is not one that I should compare to others because I have to follow my heart and my health.
If I overdo, which as a recovering workaholic I tend towards, it ends up backfiring in my long-term. So I honor myself daily with doing the best that I can and understand that failures are just lessons.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Therapeutic Skin Coach – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Therapeutic Skin Coach is a holistic skin care practice that emphasizes healing holistically through individualized care and education.
My facial treatments are customized to each client with organic whole plant products, a combination of ancient modalities such as manual lymphatic drainage, gua sha, facial reflexology, and energy work. I specialize in inflammatory conditions and individuals who are in a transition with their life. Whether it is transitioning their products, transitioning off of birth control or another pharmaceutical prescription, or a stress-related imbalance within the body.
I am extremely proud of how each service is catered to the individual with exactly where they are at. If they are in their first trimester, post-partum, recently being diagnosed with an auto-immune disease, or a new transplant to LA and having a skin crisis because of their new atmosphere. I want to empower each individual to feel comfortable and confident in their skin while debunking a lot of common conventional skincare myths.
Such as there is such a thing as perfect skin or bad skin. Honoring their individuality is my greatest honor. I also have a lot of online resources that I’ve created over the years such as a blog with tons of great topics for people to learn from, two online courses that help dive into skin health and skincare rituals for self-care, and offer online consultations for those outsides of my immediate area.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I recently launched my Skin Health 101 course to a conversation platform on facebook messenger which will give the user the control on how they want to learn the information as it is a truly empowering course. It walks you through all of the areas of your health that can attribute to achieving your best skin and your best self holistically.
I have endless resources on my TSC approved products and tutorials so that each individual can become refine their own intuition towards the conversation their skin is having them. I also plan on hosting more events to be able to support the community outside of my facials.
There are also several ebooks in the works to help support my TSC community on their most commonly asked questions such as how to break up with picking your skin and how to transition from conventional skincare to organic, clean beauty products.
Pricing:
- $275 for the TSC Introductory Facial
- $175 for the Skin Health 101 Skin Series Course
- $69 for the Skincare Rituals Skin Series Course
Contact Info:
- Website: www.therapeuticskincoach.com
- Phone: 2623780369
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/therapeuticskincoach
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/therapeuticskincoach
- Other: https://www.yelp.com/biz/therapeutic-skin-coach-los-angeles
Image Credit:
Taylor Souza
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
