SKIN LOVE CLINIC

By Louise May

Brooke Luke came into the beauty industry when she left high school and she started her own bridal makeup business. Brookes makeup business was extremely successful, and she won multiple awards during 2017, 2019, and 2020 as Best Bridal Makeup Artist in Western Sydney.

During this time, Brooke was passionate about skin due to her own struggles with acne as a teen, so she studied a Diploma of Beauty Therapy full time. Once Brooke completed her studies, she worked in a beauty salon and became the biggest skin nerd you’d know. She developed this wild passion for skin education and providing corrective treatments to clients who were struggling with aggressive skin conditions.

Brooke researched everything there was to know about the skin industry, the best education platforms, joined all of the Facebook groups, attending many educational training days, created an obsession researching modalities out there, that would give her clients the best results... and she just knew she needed to be her own boss.

Beauty Biz Editor Louise May chats with Brooke about her Industry journey…

How did you come to own your salon? How did it all start?

When starting Skin Love my goal was to create a results driven skin clinic for people struggling with their skin and provide an elevated working culture for skin therapists.

Skin Love started in the back of a noisy hair salon, in a small beauty room. Here is where I established the foundations of Skin Love and shared our message of being a safe space for you to feel comfortable seeking professional assistance in correcting any skin condition, whilst advocating for self-care and wellness.

In my little beauty room, I worked 5 days a week, where 4 days of the week I worked 12 hour days. I worked countless hours treating clients whilst investing in cosmeceutical skincare, modalities, and education to continue providing the best experience to my clients. I had been open for 5 months, my books were full, and demand was high! I took the leap and started the hunt to commence the journey of building my own clinic.

I had finally found the perfect shop in the perfect location, inspected the space, and just knew I needed it... the next day we went into our first lockdown. I could not get this shop out of my head, and took the risk and signed the lease, commenced the council process which took 6 months and finally got to the build stage where my dream clinic was brought to life.

These beginning stages of Skin Love make me emotional every time I reflect on my journey, and with thanks to our first lockdown this truly grew my business to where it is today.

How did you go about growing your team?

Once my clinic build was completed the hunt was on for my first ever super star therapist.

After searching for the right person, I soon met my dream employee and we hit it off after what turned out to be a 5-hour interview / trial process... we just got each other and had the same values!

Soon after employing my first therapist, her days were booked back-to-back, we were extremely busy and could not keep up with the demand! 5 months later, I found our next pocket rocket and trained her in all of the skin education and customer care skills she needed to be an excelling skin therapist.

Here is where I established extremely values driven and passionate skin therapists and a people first business model. We soon went into our second lockdown, which when you find the positives, could not come at a better time for my business. Again, Skin Love GREW during this time. We had just introduced our exclusive skincare line Lira Clinical, and this lockdown established the foundations of our now super successful treatment planning and skin prescription process.

The demand was high to get back into the clinic and by having the time to work on elevating our skin journey experience process, it was time to welcome our first clinic coordinator to the team. Being in a position to hire someone whilst the business was not running at its usual capacity is something I am extremely proud of and was another stepping stone of our continuous growth.

From here, the team has continued to grow with more skin therapists and another clinic coordinator. I am extremely proud of the team I have and am grateful to have been able to provide my staff the awesome team culture and values we have all worked on instilling into the business, and I am grateful to learn every day from the people I have in my business.

Can you tell us about some of the services you provide, and what sets you apart from other clinics?

We provide corrective skin treatments with our range of advanced Lira Clinical peel systems, and modalities including Dermalux LED devices, Exceed Microneedling, Elementals Nanofusion and Observ 520 Diagnostic Imaging. We are proud stockists of the brands we range in clinic which all align to the philosophy we have curated of how we correct skin.

Our skin treatments are results driven and elevated to create functional change in the skin, whilst complimented with elements of relaxation for our clients to take the time to invest into their selfcare and wellness. For us, treating the skin isn’t just about what is presenting on the surface of the skin... we investigate the ‘why’ behind what the skin is telling us by creating focus on our client’s hormonal health, gut health, mental health, and ensuring we are educating our clients on these factors during the treatment planning process to deliver the best results possible.

As a passionate team of skin therapists, what sets us apart from other clinics is our continuous emphasis on developing the best client experience possible. We have created strong systems to create open communication with our clients, which has allowed our them to gain trust in us as professionals assisting them on their skin journeys.

Skin Love wouldn’t have all of our points of differences without the team we have. The energy and passion our team has created is received by all of our clients, providing this positive and excitable atmosphere for all clients to feel confident in their skin journey.

Which aspects of your work do you love the most?

I love being a growing leader to my team and supporting them in their personal and professional development. I say growing leader, because I am always learning and investing in myself to continue to provide my team with the best qualities that I think should be expected from anyone who is in a leadership position.

When starting a business and the hiring process, it is so scary. I remember being hesitant to hire because ‘what if I can’t pay my staff?’.. ‘what if there isn’t enough work?’. I am so proud that after 2 years of having employees, I have been able to provide every employee of Skin Love a great work-life balance, opportunities for personal and professional development and have established open communication for a voice in what we do.

I love our clients and providing a safe space for them. Suffering from any type of skin condition is already hard, and feeling heard by people is even harder. To be on such a personal journey with our clients, providing an environment where they are understood and heard, creating life changing results and understanding how what we do impacts their lives is so empowering.

I am so grateful for our clients and how much they have supported my business through our evolving growth, challenges and hardships of lockdowns and floods leading to multiple business closures. Our clients are the reason why we get to wake up everyday and do what we do! cont’ over page

Can you tell us about your training and education for your team?

We love training and education! Continuous professional and personal development is something I invest into my business and team on a weekly basis. To create change and growth, I believe you must invest in your people and your time to continue to elevate your business.

We conduct educational training every fortnight and have our team join in on team led training. This allows each of our skin therapists to educate each other in areas they are passionate about and thrive in.

Every month we have set training booked in advanced with our Lira Clinical educator to develop our skills and knowledge in our professional treatments and retail ranges. Other areas of training focuses are by outsourcing educators for different skin education, modality, or holistic internal health training sessions.

My team is supported with weekly meetings to set goals, celebrate their achievements, and identify any roadblocks in their weeks, and with monthly one to one’s where we dive deeper into celebrating their overall performance, client success stories and how I can best support their careers at Skin Love. The team comes together every 3 months for our awesome team development days to elevate our careers as skin therapists.

Who inspires you most and why?

My team inspire me every day to keep moving forward. I am fortunate enough to work with the most incredible group of passionate, loyal, and positive women!

My team work extremely hard every day to provide all of our clients with the best experience, support in their skin journey and celebrate their skin wins. I just wish everyone could see and experience the extra mile my team take on the back end of how much they care for what they do, and the clients they are treating.

The most inspiring part of the team I have, is that they find the positives out of each challenge or hardship we have come across and always adapt, create learnings, and discover areas of opportunity and growth. Working with a group of women with this mindset is not only rewarding, but extremely inspiring and encouraging to keep going in business, and to know that through those hard times you have people backing the decisions you make, align with your values, and understand your why. The good always outweighs the bad!

You have had a rollercoaster ride in business over the last 3 years with covid and 3 floods! How did you face so much adversity and rise above it?

This year I am in the best position my business has ever been in, and I am feeling grateful for the journey I have had so far, and for not giving up. All of these challenges we have faced have shaped me into the leader that I am today, and the quick growth has allowed me to create foundations in my business that others may not have been able to do so quickly.

I think the only way to rise above challenges and adversity is to view every up and down in business as an opportunity for growth. I am a firm believer that nothing is ever a mistake, and rather is a learning opportunity or tool of how we can improve moving forward, better handle challenges the next time around, and continue to elevate every element that we are providing to our clients.

As a leader, a tool that is very useful is to be open to feedback and create time for yourself to reflect on every aspect of your day. By creating self-awareness and being open to reflection, I truly believe that this mindset has allowed me to adapt and find opportunities through challenges such as lockdowns, floods, staff changes, feedback and so much more, and all of these areas have truly shaped Skin Love into the success that it is today.

What is next for Brooke Luke?

You never know your next steps in business, no matter how much you plan out your goals, there are always challenges bound to be thrown your way!

Right now, my focus is to continue my personal development as a leader, create stronger business foundations and structures to continue that elevation of our client experience and results, as well as providing incredible opportunities for my team.

I have a bunch of goals that I have been fortunate enough to have already ticked off the list, but a clinic expansion and growing the team is always on the cards for when the time is right. I would also love to continue growing the Skin Love brand and creating more awareness of who we are within the professional skin industry and provide education not only to our clients and followers, but also to other skin therapists and clinic owners.