As the new year brings a fresh start and people try to pursue goals they’ve set for 2022, one we should all have is to prioritize skin health. Thanks to Atlanta-based skin expert and MUA Jazmin Meredith of SKIN Vegan Med Spa in Buckhead, women are getting help to make that happen and learning what’s good and what’s not so great for their skin type.
“[After] meeting so many different women who have so many skincare issues, I realized we are not addressing them because we’re more concerned about how we look every day to ourselves and others,” Meredith tells ESSENCE. “We are not really taking care of ourselves. We are masking the issue.” She adds, “[I] realized that its more important to get to the underlying issue of how you can take the time to take care of yourself and your skin and give yourself confidence as opposed to having to buy confidence and put it on.”
She started in the makeup industry more than 10 years ago, and opened her first skincare studio in 2013. It wasn’t until 2020 at the height of COVID that Meredith had a chance to do research and educate herself on ways to help people care for what they seek to hide with makeup. From there, she decided to provide more healthy skincare services for women of color, thus revamping Skin Vegan.
The spa now provides such services as a bevy of facial treatments (from detoxing to acne treatment) as well as chemical peels, microblading, hair removal with a machine specifically made for melanated skin and a vegan skin product line to help you have a regimen at home. She also seeks to make you beautiful from the inside out, creating a fresh juice bar with various health-conscious, refreshing drinks that benefit skin.
She also wants to continue to educate her clients on the importance of not only knowing how to take care of their skin but also, to know what products or machines are best for them, too. Everything isn’t for everybody. “The laser hair removal [services], which we just added, you would never know that lasers are not made for people of color. There’s a specific machine that’s made for all skin types,” she says. “It was a big investment but it’s not right that we as consumers are paying the same money [as our counterparts] but we’re not getting the same results. We’re not even being told that this isn’t going to work for you or you’re going to have to do this twice as long as everyone else. But with our services, I won’t see you for years!”
When Meredith isn’t whipping up a vegan product, creating a new juice or trying to figure out what she wants to add to her treatments list to make skin glow, she finds time to reach out to other minority-owned businesses to see how she can assist them in their entrepreneurial journey. She also aims to see what she can learn from them as well. “It’s important that when you’re working on yourself and building your company, that you patronize and build others,” she says, noting that two women-owned businesses will be selling their products at SKIN Vegan Med Spa. “You go further when you work with people. When you share information, you become better like that.” You can also grow, which Meredith seeks to do in the future. Not only does she wish to expand to have multiple locations, she also wants to offer classes, from the right way to apply makeup to courses on overall skin care.
“We’re trying to bring services for our community, the multi-racial community too, because it’s not[about] race, its about skin type,” she says. “A lot of these services help us. [SKIN Vegan Med Spa] is just offering services that are more tailored for our skin and that will give us the best results that we’re looking for. We’re here to teach you.”
To learn more and to book an appointment with Meredith or a team member on her diverse staff, visit the SKIN Vegan Med Spa.