Meet Ava Farvahari, an award-winning facial aestheticist, and founder of My Pure Aesthetics. Though Ava founded My Pure Aesthetics just five years ago, they have already earned their place as one of the top clinics in the aesthetic field, and have opened two clinics since 2017. Last year, Ava Farvahari’s business won the UK Enterprise Award for Best Dermal Filler & Anti-Wrinkle Clinic – an accolade that she and her team are exceptionally proud of.
‘’We are committed to helping clients enhance their beauty through treatments that achieve transformational results while looking completely natural. It is our ability to ‘keep others guessing’ that makes us the clinic of choice among celebrities and influencers.’’
As an entrepreneur and practitioner, Ava Farvahari is also dedicated to helping others in the industry, offering one-to-one training to those who want to learn techniques in aesthetics.
What inspired you to start working for yourself?
They say that nobody works harder than a woman who doesn’t like asking for anything, and I have always been a ‘do it yourself’ sort of person. People have often commented that I always seem to get what I want. And that’s because I pour my heart and soul into working for something I want until it’s mine.
I knew from a young age that I wanted to be independent and work for myself. And there’s something so incredibly empowering about earning your own income, running your own business, and not relying on anyone other than yourself. It’s taken a lot of hard work, dedication, and heaps of resilience, but the rewards of success always outweigh the challenges. That’s why I want to empower other women and support them in reaching their own goals. As they say – it’s not easy, but it’s worth it!
What was the hardest part of working for yourself?
Procrastination is the toughest beast that any business owner faces. It’s definitely held me back in the past, but that all changed when I started an accountability club with a few friends. We’d have weekly zoom meetings where we’d discuss our weekly, monthly, and yearly goals, so that we start holding each other accountable and stay motivated. This has helped me immensely and has been a great way to fuel my appetite for success and push me to do my best.
Tell us something about your My Pure Aesthetic what’s the style like and who are your clients?
My Pure Aesthetics is all about helping people feel more confident in their own skin. That means enhancing their features with undetectable changes that bring out their unique and natural beauty – their ‘pure’ beauty. We’re often approached by clients who seek an improved facial structure, such as better-defined cheekbones, bigger and more hydrated lips, or a straight nose. And the various treatments we offer can achieve all this, without the ‘fake’ or ‘puffy’ look that some associate with fillers.
We also treat a lot of younger clients with preventative aesthetics, such as Anti-wrinkle injections or dermal fillers, to prevent wrinkles or sagging in predicted problem areas. People can be very judgemental towards younger clients having these treatments, but they are incredibly effective at preventing lines and wrinkles as we age. Freezing the muscles like this deters the development of lines, as the movement that causes them is greatly reduced. The forehead, frown lines, smile lines, and crow’s feet are all popular problem areas to which we’d typically administer this kind of treatment.
What are the best and worst things about your job?
What I love most about my job is the amazing people I get to meet and become friends with. Medical aesthetics is a very intimate field of work and requires a huge amount of trust from the client’s side. This means that clients often come to me having done their research, and they know they’re in good hands. I’ve built some amazing relationships with them as a result, helping them to feel and look their best as they get married, have babies, and excel in their careers. No other feeling compares to it!
The worst thing about my job is the risk of complications (and this is true for any medical practitioner). A complication is every injector’s nightmare, but I do everything I can to reduce that risk. I take extra training and have joined various complication groups so I can be prepared if that day ever comes. These cases are extremely rare, but when you’re dealing with someone’s face, you really can’t afford to get it wrong!
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced since becoming an entrepreneur?
For me, finding balance in my life has been a tough one. It’s funny – everyone thinks you have tons of free time when you work for yourself, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact, you almost feel guilty when you do take some time off, thinking you should be working on your business instead.
Apart from my aesthetic qualifications I also studied and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business Studies and Marketing whilst running my business at the same time. Finding the balance to study part time, run a business and have a social life was in fact very difficult.
As much as I adore my job, finding the perfect balance has definitely been a challenge, as I’m always trying to push toward my next goal.
How can we choose the right treatments and stay as natural as possible?
The first thing to understand is that the art of facial aesthetics is not child’s play. It’s something we specialists spend years perfecting, for the sake of your beauty, confidence, and happiness. The genius of fillers is that, when the correct amount is injected properly, the result is indistinguishable from the natural. Unfortunately however, the UK medical aesthetics industry is notoriously underregulated, and there are a lot of inexperienced ‘practitioners’ selling fillers and Anti-wrinkle injections after doing a day course. Would you trust a heart surgeon to operate on you after just one day of training? Of course you wouldn’t. So why allow someone with the same degree of experience to alter your face? If you truly want to achieve a natural result, you need to do your research, find a genuine professional, and understand that the best results take time.
How and why did the treatments increase after the lockdowns?
They’ve actually dubbed this the ‘Zoom boom’ of the industry. Many people worked from home during lockdown, checking in with colleagues and clients via video call. Of course, this means that they were forced to stare at their own face for a large part of the day, and they started noticing their imperfections. It didn’t help that they could see their faces side by side with others on the calls, and this led to an increased demand for Anti-wrinkle injections, fillers, and plastic surgery. Of course, I don’t believe that you should get treatments just to look like someone else, but I do think people should feel confident at work and in meetings. That’s what we’re all about – helping people feel more confident.
Do you get a lot of botched clients coming from other practices?
Sadly, yes. We do correction work on a daily basis, and that’s something that’s been exacerbated by the pandemic. The government shut down most regulated clinics during lockdown – including my own – which led people to go to unregulated practitioners. This resulted in hundreds of clients coming to us with botched jobs – patients with filler that had been placed incorrectly, excessively, or unevenly. I even had a case of vascular occlusion, where a beautician had blocked an artery, without the knowledge or the emergency kit to dissolve the products. Had I not treated it on time, the issue would have resulted in necrosis i.e. skin tissue death, where the skin falls off.
The surge in demand for lip fillers has seen an increase in unregulated practitioners with no medical background carrying out the treatment. Fillers can naturally dissolve between 6-12 months, but in many cases it doesn’t, especially if the patient has migration, lumps, or if the filler has been misplaced. That’s why it’s essential to seek treatment for the problem and not just assume it will sort itself out. Fillers are easily dissolved with an enzyme injection that breaks the chemical bond and removes its effects. It’s a quick and relatively simple procedure that patients with botched jobs should seek out (with a good practitioner!).
Who have been your own biggest mentors and what is the best advice they have ever given you?
I believe that there are two kinds of people in our lives – those who build us up, and those who tear us down. And honestly, I think we need both.
I’ve been lucky enough to have a family friend as my mentor. He taught me to believe in myself, love myself and realise my full potential. He used to spend hours on the phone, building me up and pushing me toward success. Through him, I realised that the best mentors in life give advice, not to fulfil their own ego, but because they genuinely want the best for you. They want you to benefit from the hard-won wisdom they’ve gained over the course of their careers. I’m so lucky that I had someone like that in my life.
On the other hand, I also had people in my life who told me I could never be successful. But if you can come to terms with the fact that you will always face naysayers, you can use it as fuel to prove them wrong. Being able to turn their negative words into positive actions kept me hungry for success, proving myself with every milestone.
If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?
The number one most important thing new practitioners need to do is to give 100% at all times. Setbacks are a certainty, but you should keep doing, no matter what (and never compare yourself to others). Yes, it’s an exceptionally competitive industry, but it’s constantly growing and evolving, and there’s room for all of us. It’s also an expensive business to get started in, which is why it’s crucial to invest time and effort into marketing and showing good quality before and after pictures.
I’ve had many people come to shadow me over the years – a lot of whom were struggling to scale their business – because they weren’t business-minded enough. They assumed that their talent alone would help them grow. But it takes so much more than that. Apart from this, you need to have a warm personality, and show patients the kindness and sympathy that puts them at ease during intimate treatments. The majority of clients have a phobia of needles – they aren’t doing this to have syringes stuck in their faces. You need to empathise with their fears, insecurities, and wants, and support them every step of the way.
Tell us about your proudest achievement?
My proudest achievement has to be winning the UK Enterprise Award for Best Dermal Filler & Anti-Wrinkle Clinic in 2021. I felt like everything I had worked for my whole career had led to that moment, and winning solidified our place in the industry for good. The year following up to the award had been extremely stressful, trying to keep up with new COVID restrictions and 3 lockdowns. But winning proved to us that all the work we had put in was worth it, and that we really are at the forefront of the medical aesthetics industry.
Meet Ava Farvahari, an award-winning facial aestheticist, and founder of My Pure Aesthetics. WOMENONTOPP.COM | WOMEN ON TOPP.COM
Ava Farvahari’s dedication to empowering women and her support for others in the industry are genuinely commendable. It’s no wonder her clinic has become so popular and received prestigious awards. As someone with an interest in aesthetics, I truly value her focus on enhancing natural beauty through personalized treatments.