Eva Sheie (00:03): Whether you're visiting an aesthetician for the first time or considering a new one, the more you know about who's behind the chair, the better your experience will be. Meet the Aesthetician features skincare professionals sharing their expertise so you can feel confident about who you trust with your skin. I'm your host, Eva Sheie, and you're listening to Meet The Aesththetician. Good morning. Welcome to Meet the Aesthetician. I'm so excited to bring you Marianne Fallhaber. Did I say it right, Mary Ann? Mary Ann (00:30): Faulhaber. Eva Sheie (00:31): Faulhaber, the German way. Mary Ann (00:33): Yep. Eva Sheie (00:34): How long have you been an aesthetician, Mary Ann? Mary Ann (00:37): I've been an aesthetician for around seven years now. Eva Sheie (00:41): And where do you work right now? Mary Ann (00:43): I'm at the MD Beauty Lab at Portland Plastic Surgery Group. Eva Sheie (00:47): How did you find yourself there? Mary Ann (00:50): Colleen actually reached out to me online and saw my resume and then had me come in. Eva Sheie (00:56): She found you? Wow. Mary Ann (00:59): Yeah, they reached out to me and then I've just been kind of briefly looking. Not so serious, but I've always wanted to get into plastics and kind of change up the environment a little bit. And then we just ended up talking for over an hour and both nerding out about treatments and skin. And so I was like, I just need to be here all the time. Eva Sheie (01:22): That's easy to do with Colleen. Mary Ann (01:24): Very easy. Yeah. Eva Sheie (01:26): Yes. Mary Ann (01:26): Yeah. She's great to talk to. Eva Sheie (01:27): So if someone's listening right now and they don't know who Colleen is, how would you describe her? Mary Ann (01:32): Colleen is just a wealth of knowledge and passion behind everything she does and the kindest person ever. She's so sweet and such an inspiration. Eva Sheie (01:44): I feel like she is MD Beauty Lab. Mary Ann (01:46): Yeah. Yep. Right? Yeah. I love her. Eva Sheie (01:50): Okay. So in terms of the menu of treatments that you do, can you kind of walk us through all of those things? Mary Ann (01:57): Yes. I'm a laser technician, so I do more advanced technologies compared to your basic esthetician who does facials and waxing. So IPL, microneedling, chemical peels, more medical grade chemical peels, dermaplaning, diamond glow, all the fun stuff. Eva Sheie (02:18): Sometimes I bust out this picture of myself with horrible rosacea to remind myself both how far I've come, but how simple the solution was when I actually asked the right person for help. Yeah. Mary Ann (02:34): Yeah. It's so rewarding and just validating. Eva Sheie (02:37): Do you have any stories like that about patients that you can share? Mary Ann (02:41): Oh my gosh, absolutely. I think it's really cool that we get to bond, especially as women and I get to kind of like take care of whoever's in my bed or my table that they can kind of be vulnerable with me and have a safe space to like, "Hey, I look in the mirror and I notice this and I can provide that solution." It's like my favorite part of the job and kind of like bonding and it's really rewarding. Eva Sheie (03:10): So if I said to you, "Mary Ann, my eyes are really puffy and I have dark circles." How would you approach something like that? Mary Ann (03:18): First, we would treat the dark circles, kind of maybe do some IPL, kind of remove either like the purples or the blues, sometimes even browns that kind of come along with the discoloration around the eyes, maybe work on some RF microneedling to kind of tighten up the lasticity and the puffiness that you're noticing around the eyes and then send you home with a good eye cream that can maintain- Eva Sheie (03:42): Oh, do you have a favorite? Mary Ann (03:43): I really do love something that has like a little tint to it. I like the EltaMD. It's really light. The EltaMD has a little bit of SPF in it too, so it's always nice. Eva Sheie (03:54): Do you happen to know what ingredient and eye cream is the ingredient that actually does work? Mary Ann (04:01): I think it depends. Eva Sheie (04:02): Is it just a mystery? Mary Ann (04:04): It depends. Some of them have caffeine and vitamin E to kind of help with the dark circles and the puffiness. I've used some that have retinol in it. Those are really fun for kind of more of the fine line. So it kind of just depends on what your concerns are. Eva Sheie (04:20): The first time that someone comes to see you, what is that appointment like? Mary Ann (04:25): Usually I sit them down and kind of just get to know them, ask them what brought them in when they're looking in the mirror, like what's catching their eye. And as I'm kind of mostly listening to them and having them do a lot of the talking, I'm kind of making my own assessments and like what I'm noticing first because I always want to make sure I'm listening to them before just throwing out ideas and not making something that's not a problem, a problem. And so if they come in for discoloration, like that's what I'm going to talk about. I'm going to talk about discoloration and then maybe we'll eventually work on the fine lines, but I'm always willing to listen to why they're here. And then I get them all excited about their treatment and kind of create a treatment plan for them and get them ready to get started. Eva Sheie (05:11): So when you build a treatment plan, are you thinking about today? Are you thinking about a year? How far ahead are you planning with somebody? Mary Ann (05:21): I'm a little bit more like relationship based, right? And so I want to like build that trust. I don't want to like bombard them with too many treatments that were like, "Okay, we have a year long plan of what we're going to do. " Typically ask them like, "Do we work on a timeline? Do we have like a wedding that we want to prepare for the holidays?" And I kind of just like go as we needed. And sometimes I'll just have them rebook for an hour, a month later and just have them come in and we'll kind of chitchat what we want to do that day and be super flexible with what they got going on, what they're coming in for. Eva Sheie (05:55): How often do you find yourself working with other people on your team to put treatment plans together? Mary Ann (06:02): All the time. That's my favorite thing to do. I think it's like better for the patient and for everyone involved if you're bouncing between the rooms of like injections and treatments. I always say it's like we're just sandwiching collagen on all those different layers. I can't go as deep as those injections sometimes and that's what we need. And so sometimes you also get more like instant results with those injections and then we kind of build collagen and get more of an investment within the biostimulant technologies that I do. And so it's just really great if you can kind of blend the two together. Eva Sheie (06:39): What's a biostimulant? Mary Ann (06:41): Biostimulant is anytime we're kind of triggering our own biology to get collagen rebuilding. So microneedling, RF microneedling, even chemical peels, and then you can get into injections like Sculptra or PRP. Eva Sheie (06:58): It sounds like it's all about collagen, getting collagen to come back. Mary Ann (07:02): Someone described it to me as like fillers and Botox is like renting collagen and then biosimulants there is more like buying collagen. So it's just kind of a better investment. Eva Sheie (07:13): How do laser treatments affect collagen? Mary Ann (07:16): Most laser treatments are kind of about causing a wound to get that healing response to come back and create healthier tissue and regenerate the damaged tissue. Eva Sheie (07:30): Are there any laser or energy treatments that you can see working very quickly? Mary Ann (07:37): Yes. IPL I feel like is the most instant result that you can get. I always say it's like the gateway treatment because you'll start with IPL and then you're like, "What else can I do? " Because it has that like such instant satisfying result. It's really great for red vessels, purple vessels, those little broken capillaries that we have like on our skin, typically like on our cheeks and around our nose is where they pop up the most and that kind of causes vascular retention, so they disappear immediately. So it's super satisfying to watch. Eva Sheie (08:12): What even causes those in the first place? Mary Ann (08:14): Could be like a little mixture of everything, right? Genetics play a huge role in just your skin type in general. If you do lean towards more rosacea characteristics, paler skin too tends to pop up, but even injury kind of triggers some, like blowing your nose. I hear that a lot like, "Oh, I got sick and then I was just blowing my nose all weekend and I got this new capillary popping up." Eva Sheie (08:40): Oh no. Mary Ann (08:42): But genetics does play a huge role in how severe it is. Eva Sheie (08:47): Oh my goodness. Okay. Don't blow your nose. Mary Ann (08:53): Be careful. Eva Sheie (08:54): What should we know about seeing an aesthetician at a plastic surgery office? What are the advantages maybe of being there where you are? Mary Ann (09:03): I always like lift up my coworkers and the people surrounding me too, is that we're all like a wealth of knowledge that even our admins, our nurses, are in the industry. And so we have kind of that avenue of education with the people that we're all working with and the surgeons that we're working under. So it's really great that you can have that team to kind of rely on. I will say it's a little, maybe less relaxing compared to like your day spas where you're in a nice cozy bed and falling asleep during your treatment, but you tend to get a little bit more results when you can feel it. Eva Sheie (09:42): When you say results, it makes me think of this idea that getting results is what we want. And that might be another difference too, is if you go to a day spa and you see an aesthetician for a facial, it might just feel good, but it may or may not actually do anything to improve your skin beyond. Mary Ann (10:02): Yes. Eva Sheie (10:03): Yeah. Feeling good that day. Is that fair? Mary Ann (10:05): Totally. I think so. And that stuff is totally needed and very healing for our mental health and human connection is amazing, but sometimes we want to see the hyperpigmentation actually be gone. Eva Sheie (10:22): Can you actually do both there, like just relaxing things, but also things that get results? Mary Ann (10:27): Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Because you definitely always maybe will sometimes have a client that doesn't want to be poked. She wants to just come and feel taken care of and absolutely we can always do that. Eva Sheie (10:41): What do you think people don't know about estheticians that they should know? Mary Ann (10:46): I feel like we're kind of like hairstylists, right? Where we're like sometimes people's therapists where they can come in and just like blab about what's going on in their life and I'm like 100% invested and like generally care about them and wanting to be there for them and hear their stories and hear what they've been through. And so I think that's kind of nice. Eva Sheie (11:12): And if they don't want to talk? Mary Ann (11:14): Oh my God, even better. If I can make you to fall asleep, that's amazing. Usually I'm like chatting to kind of distract them through the treatment, but if you can fall asleep and get a zone out and that's what you need, totally. I'm up for it. Eva Sheie (11:30): Depends on the treatment, I suppose. So for those treatments that are a little more intense, other than talking, is there any tricks up your sleeve for more distraction? Mary Ann (11:43): Luckily I started out my career doing, I was a wax specialist and so I was doing Brazilians like every 15 minutes. And so I feel like that really set me up for distracting and moving fast and making sure the person is comfortable while I'm also doing a treatment and being there for them, whatever they need during this maybe a little bit uncomfortable time. So the gift of gab is what I like to say for like distracting them with like just talking about random stories, like what I did this weekend or what they did this weekend or their dog. But when you're doing laser, you have your own techniques of maybe like having a nice roller, tapping on the skin is always nice to kind of like distract them. This one time I had a chiropractor, I was like getting an adjustment done and she was about to crack my neck and she could tell I was like tensed up. (12:45): And so she was like, "Okay, now lift your left leg." And I was like, "What?" And so I lifted my left leg and because I was like distracted and thinking about my leg, she like popped my neck because I was finally relaxed and I wasn't tensed up. And I've actually like stolen that, especially with people that are like a little more nervous or just their anxiety is a little higher from anticipation. I'll be like, "Oh, wiggle your toes." Just to get their mind off of what's happening. Eva Sheie (13:16): That's funny. I'm going to have to borrow that for my kids. I've had Botox in your office, full disclosure. It was great. Mary Ann (13:25): Yay. Eva Sheie (13:26): And I found it to be just a really great experience. One of the things that I got at your office was the vibrating ... What's that thing called? It's just like a vibrating little ... It looks like a pen. Mary Ann (13:42): Yeah. Eva Sheie (13:42): It's got a little horizontal bar on it and I didn't feel a thing the whole time. Mary Ann (13:49): Yes. For some reason, our body kind of perceives vibration before pain is what I've been told. So it's a nice little tool. Eva Sheie (14:00): What I love about everyone in your office is that everybody cares so much about you being comfortable and not being rushed and feeling like you're being well cared for. And so you're like the perfect addition to this team because you think the same way. Mary Ann (14:16): Oh, I love that. Eva Sheie (14:18): Yeah. It's great. Okay. Tell us something about you outside of work. What do you like to do? Mary Ann (14:25): I've been married for like almost three years now. We're working on our third year, but we've been together for seven years now, me and Keaton, and we have a hairless cat, and so I'm a crazy cat lady. I love her. Eva Sheie (14:44): Just one? Mary Ann (14:46): We're getting a second actually in December. Eva Sheie (14:49): With hair or without? Mary Ann (14:51): Without. We're both a little allergic, so they're pretty easy. Eva Sheie (14:58): Do they have weird personalities or are they just like regular cats without hair? Mary Ann (15:02): They're actually super social and really kind, at least ours is. Her name's Pearl. She's cuty. But I would say she's always cold because she doesn't have any furs, so she likes to cuddle a lot. Eva Sheie (15:15): Oh, did you get her sweaters and stuff? (15:17): Yes. Mary Ann (15:18): She has her own closet. It's so cute. Eva Sheie (15:21): That's really funny. Mary Ann (15:22): Yeah, she does. Eva Sheie (15:23): All right. Well, we're going to need to see pictures when you get the second or now of the current hairless cat. Thank you for that. Yeah. How can we follow you online and where should we go to see what you're up to at work? Mary Ann (15:38): Yeah. I mostly am probably a little more active on the MD Beauty Lab accounts and then it's linked to my personal, which I always still use for a professional because I like to merge the two. I think it's nice to see a little personality. Eva Sheie (15:53): It is. It's great. Everyone just wants to know you. That's why we're doing this. That handle, if you're listening, is @mdbeautylab and we'll put it in the show notes so it's easy to find. And if you want to reach Mary Ann at the office, you can go to mdbeautylab.com and fill out the form or send a message and Tracy in the office will get you on schedule, right? Yeah. Mary Ann (16:17): Love Tracy. Eva Sheie (16:19): There's no substitute for meeting in person, but we hope this comes close. If you're considering this aesthetician, be sure to let them know you heard them on the Meet the Aesthetician Podcast. If you'd like to be featured on Meet the Aesthetician, book your free recording session at meettheaesthetician.com. Meet the Aesthetician is made with love in Austin, Texas, and is a production of The Axis. T-H-E-A-X-I-S.io.