Downtown aesthetician is far from ordinary

A downtown business opened in Mt. Pleasant early last year offers a handful of services rarely seen in Iowa’s notoriously conservative small towns: facials and body waxing. The name is even more jarring: “Skin is my Canvas Spa.”

“This is what we show everyone,” Owner and Aesthetician Micah Leslie said. “My art is helping you with any corrections, and helping you with any flaws on your skin, and bringing that brightness and luminosity to everyone out there, and yourself … it’s our canvas, everyone shows it to everyone, and I’m here to brighten that canvas up.”

Its owner, Micah Leslie, is equally far from ordinary. At 34 years old, she’s one of the younger business owners in town. Most of her business management guidance has come from other Aestheticians in farther away small towns, coupled with extensive Google searching.

Previously a stay-at-home mom for her five boys, she started looking for ways to get into the workforce as her kids entered school and recognized a spa as both a niche unfilled by the Mt. Pleasant market and an industry she could be passionate about.

“I was scared to death because I was one of the older girls in the class,” Leslie said. “You’ve got these just-graduated 18-year-olds and these girls in their twenties …

It was a nerve-wracking experience to open the shop downtown. Many people are squeamish even acknowledging their interest in the type of service Leslie provides, and show it with their initial uneasiness when they arrive for, say, a full-body waxing appointment.

Leslie is not. She said she got over such things at some point in the five births she’s given.

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“It doesn’t matter, we’re all human, we have body parts,” she said. “It’s a job. We’re all human, everyone has these parts. We all look different but it’s all the same stuff, I’ve never been that awkward person.”

Nonetheless, the aesthetician said she worked hard to accommodate clients with jitters. She keeps things casual and conversational, despite any nerves first-time customers may have.

Most leave their 90-minute appointment saying they feel like they’ve known her for years.

“You can really tell when a client’s like, ‘Oh gosh, I need to get on that table and show you my areas,’” she said. “I just have conversations. I talk to them like we’ve known each other forever, I open up to them and they’ll open up to me … and by their second appointment, they’re up there, hands behind their head, just talking away.”

Just because she’s part of the beauty industry now doesn’t mean Leslie fully supports its every facet. She decries the trend of “body care influencers” as being rife with misinformation, and says that beauty magazines perpetuate all kinds of unreasonable expectations.

She works to keep clients on the same page about that mindset. Leslie said her goal was to make people feel confident in their own skin, while balancing realistic expectations.

“You have to own what you’re given, I can boost your confidence by giving you a good skin care routine … but it’s still your skin. You need to be happy with who you are, and look at yourself and say, ‘Dang, this is me, this is who I am,’” she said. “I feel like sometimes, we’re therapists, too, to be honest … they just start opening up and telling you their life story and what’s going on.”

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Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com