FNDMTL: Skin

Welcome to Fundamental Skin, where knowledge becomes confidence. Hi, friends. My name is Raquel McCown. I am a dual licensed aesthetician and massage therapist. And welcome to Fundamentals. I wanted to start this podcast mostly because I have been in this industry for a little over ten years now, and I have talked to so many aestheticians and massage therapists or people just in the spa industry who have different ideas of what things are. And they there's just gaps in the knowledge of, I feel like, the schooling here focusing on aesthetics. I feel like there's some things that we should know that we aren't being taught, and there's some things that I feel like we focus a lot on that aren't very important. I just wanted to create something to help you fill the gaps in that knowledge. My goals for things to talk about is gonna be things like pregnancy, oncology, thinking about how things work on the skin. I'm gonna answer some of the fundamental questions that are gonna be, like, when we use them, why we use them, how often we use them, things like that. Thank you for joining this adventure with me. Like I said, I have been in this industry for ten years now. I actually grew up in the spa salon industry. My mom was a nail tech. She still is. My mom's a nail tech, and I have just grown up in this environment. And so I've seen I've seen it from every different aspect as someone just kind of hanging around the salon, as someone who has been working in the salon, I've done the reception stuff. My mom actually had me do, like, all of her scheduling and stuff when I was, like, seven, eight, nine years old. I'd be answering phones, filling out her appointment book. So I've seen it from that side. I've seen it from a therapist, practitioner side. I just want to help everyone grow in their business and help everyone have a better understanding of aesthetics as a whole, maybe massage in the future. I can go into any of that. So I originally got into aesthetics first in 2015. I moved up from Arizona to Oregon, and I went to aesthetic school up there. I started because I loved doing makeup. I wanted to be, like, a makeup artist. I wanted to do that that extreme makeup, that bright colors, that very, like, crazy, almost special effects y type of makeup, like, that art. I wanted to do that. Turns out I'm really bad at it. I was only ever good at doing my own makeup, and that's about it. I like, putting makeup on other people scared me, and it made me so nervous. So that was not the road I went down. Actually, when I was going through aesthetic school, I found out that I loved learning about the skin and what's happening during during a facial, and I loved learning about kind of what you're doing to the skin and helping people build that confidence in themselves. So I ended up sticking with doing facials. I do some waxing here and there, but I would say, like, my main thing that I focus on is doing facials in the world of aesthetics. I did that for a few years after I graduated. I worked at several different spa, like, resort style spas. I worked at a Troon property. I've worked at a day spa in Oregon, which was voted, like, number one day spa in all of Oregon for a few years in a row, one of the years I was there. So who won best facial? But so I have had several years to kind of, like, build that knowledge. While I was at that day spa, I learned that I like, I would sit there and I talk to the other massage therapist. So, like, hey. I noticed that a lot of my clients have this and this issue with their bodies. Like, tell me about that. How can I help that? And that's really what furthered me to want to learn massage. And so with massage, I ended up moving back down here to Arizona, and I went to the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts. And I I loved it. I think it I learned so much, and I learned about the anatomy as a whole, which, honestly, high school slacked on. I did not learn I learned that I didn't learn anything in high school. I learned about the anatomy and the muscles and kinesiology and why we do things and how our body operates on a cellular level, a skeletal level, a muscular level, all the levels. I thought that was really fascinating, and I love that I get to share that with people. I love the opportunity to help out people feel beautiful, feel good in their skin, feel confident with how they are, and help them relax in the world. Like, that is something that I think ties in massage and aesthetics a little bit is, like, you are really giving people space to just, like, relax. I focus, a lot on massage, but I am doing a lot of aesthetics as well. I wanted to kind of talk about different things in aesthetics. This is gonna be mostly aesthetics focused in the beginning, and we'll see kind of where we go from there. But it's mostly gonna be me talking about different things that I have learned and as well as things that I want to learn. Because I reached out to a lot of aestheticians that I know when I had the idea for this, and they would be like, you should talk about this, and you should talk about that. And there's some things that I didn't know that I don't know. And so putting things out there for newer people, people who are remotely interested in aesthetics, people who are thinking about joining the industry, have been in the industry for a long time, maybe just need, like, a refresher, putting things out there for them is also gonna really help me learn what I don't know and strengthen the knowledge of what I do know. I'll go in-depth on things that I think that have been overlooked a little bit. I see a lot of clients here in Arizona because it's so dry. It's so like, there's no moisture here whatsoever. And I see a lot of people will tell me, like, oh, my skin's so sensitive. It's so red. It's so this. It's so that. And, like, they don't know what they're using is hurting their skin a lot of times. But be like, oh, my skin is so oily. And I'm like, I look at them. This happens so often here. I look at them, and I'm like, your skin's not oily. It's actually very dehydrated because there's zero moisture here. And they're using products that are going to be more stripping their skin and, like, they're, like, trying to they're like, oh, I have acne. They're like, you don't have acne. You just need really to hydrate the skin properly, and then everything will balance out a little bit. So that's something I see a lot of here. I will see clients who kind of just don't know about their skin and just kind of wanna be educated. And as someone who I don't personally sell products at my salon, I don't, I'm happy it's not like I'm sitting there, like, you have to use this brand that we use. I am happy to help people at any budget. I think there are some things that are great that are a little bit pricier, but it'll last a very long time. But then there are some products that are, like, a little bit on the more affordable end and work just as well a lot of the times. So I'm really I'm just trying to help people be comfortable in their skin and help people really feel their absolute best. The most rewarding client I've ever had, I would say it's a massage client, and I so I don't think I've mentioned this. I specifically work in medical massage. I'll work with everyone, but my focus is doing a lot of medical massage, working with people who have different ailments, different, like, medical histories. And I worked with this client who was going through oncology treatments. And it's one of those things that, I mean, just that, like, it hits you in a way. I just like, you are going through hell, and I wanna do the absolute most to make you feel a little bit better. If I can make you feel a little bit better, I think I'm doing my job. And I had this lady who just came in, and you can kinda tell that she was just she didn't even want to come in. She booked the appointment and was kind of that day wasn't feeling it. It was over it, but she didn't want to bail on me either. And I feel like she came in and was just like, ugh, I'm over it. I don't want like, she feels like crap. And which I totally get. So, so justifiable. But I just remember at the end of it, like, because this is the best I felt in, like, weeks, and that just to me, to give someone that opportunity to not feel like utter crap for a little bit, It means a lot. It's one of those things that I feel like makes me feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. It makes me feel like I am doing what God put me here to do, essentially. Like, I feel like I have that opportunity to help people. And I want to make this podcast, make this series something for everyone. It might be targeted for aestheticians in the beginning, and maybe I'll grow into doing something for massage people and grow into teaching people about the body because, personally, I find it fascinating. I want it to be something that everyone can get some knowledge about, and I want to have that opportunity to kind of teach everyone. So for aesthetics, which is where we're gonna start off, I have so many people question, like, I don't know what I'm using. I don't know when to use it. And so, like, that's where we're gonna start off with our next episode, is I'm gonna teach you what you're using, how, when, where, how much, all those little things, and what it's doing to your skin. I would say that's probably the question I get the most from people is they don't know what they're doing. It's just, like, having that overall knowledge. And so I wanna help, like, the everyday person, but I also want to help them understand what's going on and help fill in the gaps of knowledge that I feel like I didn't have coming out of school. I felt like I had to go and do all this research and take all these classes. Definitely do that. It's gonna help. But I didn't know where to look. I didn't know who to talk to, and I just wanna give people the opportunity to have an outlet for that. So if you have any questions, have any recommendations for of things that I can talk about, anything that you want to hear from, anything you're like, hey. I've been really curious about x, y, and z. Absolutely reach out to me. I am available on social media. You can find me on Instagram. You can find me on Facebook. You can find me on TikTok. So definitely reach out if you have any questions, if you want to know more about something, have a quest, have an idea of something that you would like to hear from. My Instagram actually, all my handles is at body by Raquel. As I build this podcast, these videos, all of this, I just wanna say stay tuned. Things are gonna get more streamlined on my end. I will definitely be sticking with this. I love the opportunity to just really help people. And that's pretty much it. Stay tuned. Follow me. Subscribe. All the things that every other YouTube podcaster person says. Thanks for tuning in to Fundamental Skin. 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