Helping to find a better you

COOK- Shared interests is a theme that’s shaped the lives of Cook area physician Matthew Holmes and registered flight nurse Kristen Scott. A shared interest in medical careers caused their paths to cross at the Cook Hospital eight years ago, and shared interest in each other blossomed into a romantic relationship four years later.
And now, another shared interest—helping people feel fabulous about their appearance— has led the couple to launch a new medical business venture, Evergreen Aesthetics med spa, which recently opened in the North Office complex on Hwy. 53 in Cook.
“It’s a new and popular area of medicine that’s rapidly growing, and I think we saw the need for it,” Holmes said. “I think we maybe saw the joy that we could bring out of it. This is something where people are looking forward to their appointments, and we want to make it something that people look forward to and make it a great experience that they’re happy with.”
“I think we both like the diversity of medicine, too,” Scott said. “I’m a flight nurse, so usually people aren’t having a very good day when they’re seeing me. It’s a nice change of pace, for sure.”
There isn’t another med spa closer than Duluth that offers the array of services available at Evergreen Aesthetics, and providing patients with easier access to what they want was another motivating factor.
“It’s nice to bring this home and have it where people don’t have to travel as much,” Holmes said. “And we can keep that business in the community as well.”
Scott summed up the overarching mission of Evergreen Aesthetics.
“The main part is to rejuvenate youth and enhance beauty,” she said. “What we want to do is help people feel better about themselves. We’re not plastic surgeons looking to make those dramatic kinds of changes. We’re here to help people slow the aging process so they can feel more confident about themselves.”
The couple offers a wide variety of treatments from botox, dermal fillers and chemical peels to microneedling with radio waves and hydrafacials. Some treatments have exotic sounding names like Jeuveau, an injection for improving frown lines, Latisse, an eyelash treatment, and Upneeq, an eyedrop that lifts low-lying upper eyelids. For Homes and Scott, it was important to have the highest quality services and products at a variety of price points to give people as many options as possible to accomplish their goals.
“We weren’t going into this half-baked,” Holmes said. “We wanted to make sure that we really were able to do what we wanted to do. We didn’t want to partially treat people with them still having to do part of their treatments down in Duluth. We wanted to offer everything short of surgical interventions here.”
“A lot of places are smaller and have just Botox and fillers, or something along those lines,” Scott said. “We decided early on that we didn’t want to just do that. With Botox, it’s not going to help you if you have a certain amount of skin laxity or certain depth of wrinkles. We wanted to make sure that we could address a broad spectrum of people and give them the results they were looking for.”
Since making the decision to go ahead with the med spa in February, the learning curve has been steep, they said. First came all the research to determine what the top-of-the-line items were in the industry in order to choose what they would offer. Then came the training. There’s not a general course that addresses all of these procedures, medications, and equipment – training is product and machine specific, requiring travel, online coursework, and on-site visits from company trainers.
And of course, they needed a space for the med spa. For that they turned to their good friends Brandon and Tiffany McCormick, owners of North Office.
“We knew about North Office and what they’d been doing here, and that they had space available,” Holmes said. “To try to find a rental space somewhere else and renovate it to get it up to the quality and feel we wanted, we weren’t going to find that anywhere else. It took a huge burden off of us to be able to have a beautiful office space to come into so that we could focus more on the equipment we wanted, the type of specialty chairs and a few furnishings without having to do anything else for the space.”
Microneedling
A possibly unfamiliar procedure that has gained widespread and popular use in the world of aesthetics today is the practice of microneedling, and Holmes and Scott have procured one of the leading units in the country, the Morpheus8 made by Inmode. Facial and neck treatments with the Morpheus8 give skin a more youthful appearance and can address issues of aging, skin irregularities, and pigmentation.
Collagen is a basic building block of skin, and the aim of microneedling, Holmes explained, is to stimulate the body to rectify its own skin issues by producing more collagen. The Morpheus8 is a unique combination of two technologies, microneedling and heat-inducing radio waves. In essence, the two technologies combine to slightly injure the skin, triggering the body’s healing mechanisms.
“So, you’re getting the microneedling at very set determined and adjustable depths, stimulated with radiofrequency energy to heat the tissue to injure it enough to stimulate more collagen production,” he said.
The effects of such treatments are longer lasting than using fillers or Botox.
They also have the Morpheus8 Body which can be used on other areas, and has the capability of actually melting fat cells, such as those found in cellulite, and the remnants are absorbed and metabolized by the body.
Since the procedure can be uncomfortable, they have the option for patients to receive the inhalational anesthetic nitrous oxide, known as laughing gas, often used to manage pain in dentistry.
Microneedling alone can be done with the use of the Skin Pen, the first microneedling device for aesthetics that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. As with the Morpheus8, multiple treatments may yield better results. Scott said Skin Pen treatments come in at a lower price point than with the Morpheus8.
And that’s another reason Holmes and Scott offer so many kinds of treatments, to make aesthetic treatments available to a wider array of people with differing budgets. If one option is too expensive, desired results may be attainable with a less-expensive alternative treatment. Their treatments aren’t covered by health insurance plans, so patients pay out-of-pocket. They will be offering a popular medical procedure finance plan to assist with spreading out the cost over time.
Treatment planning
Holmes and Scott encourage prospective clients to arrange for a free consultation.
“We actually require a consultation prior to starting the Morpheus8 treatments,” Scott said.
“I think the importance of having a consultation with us is to talk about what a patient’s goals are, as well as to help make sure that they have reasonable expectations,” Holmes said. “It’s not going to be the same as if you get liposuction and a tummy tuck, it’s not going to be the same as if you get a face lift.”
“We like to talk to people about how their goals are a process,” Scott added. “We go through the process and all of the different approaches we could use to get you to where your goals are.”
Consultations are also important when someone is having work done related to a particular event, such as a wedding. “There’s definitely a timeline of when certain things are going to be better than others depending on what you’re looking to get done,” Holmes said.
Holmes and Scott aren’t only interested in helping people feel better about themselves through treatments. They’re also interested in promoting healthy skin care. To that end they’ve arranged to sell the AlumierMD line of medical grade skin care products, a collection of about 50 different products for cleansing, hydrating, enhancing and protecting the skin.
“When people come in for consults, we kind of go through a skincare routine with them and help them out with what things are going to be best for their skin type and their goals,” Scott said.
Whether it’s teenagers with acne or seniors with crow’s feet, Evergreen Aesthetics has something that will likely work for them. And Holmes and Scott emphasized that skin treatments are equally beneficial for men who want to rejuvenate their appearance. Men have increasingly shown interest in aesthetic treatments as the world of Zoom meetings and social media has taken off, putting more focus on appearance.
“Sometimes people have these preset notions that it’s just going to be for women, and that is not at all the case,” Holmes said. “We’re not gender specific. All of our services are available.”
Holmes and Scott haven’t given up their other medical jobs, so Evergreen Aesthetics’ services are available only by appointment.
“We don’t have regular business hours,” Scott said. It’s going to be contact us by phone or email for an appointment. And we’ll be having online booking available where people will be able to go to our website, look at all our services, and book right from there.”
“Being small town and local people, we’re also trying to keep our hours pretty flexible,” Holmes said. “We’re trying to make sure that we have some evening hours available and even some weekend time.”
A grand opening open house will be held from 5-8 p.m. on Friday, June 30 at the Evergreen Aesthetics office at 1817 Hwy. 53 in Cook. There will be gift cards and product/treatment giveaways at the event.
To learn more about Evergreen Aesthetics, or to schedule a consultation, call 218-666-8670 or email info@evergreenaestheticsMN.com. Their website is evergreenaesthetics.com.