4 minute read
Spa Works for Beauty Inside and Out
Spa Works for Beauty Inside and Out
By Pat Reilly
Tucked into Hamilton Street, on the eastern edge of the historic district is a new business called MedSpa of Middleburg. In a town that hosts several spas, this one is different, as the glamorous fox logo suggests. It combines medical health services with a full range of aesthetic treatments.
Owner Michelle Lane conceived the business out of her own experience surviving a rare cancer with a long journey to wellness and battle scars that are no longer visible.
After 10 surgeries, 18 months of chemotherapy and frustrating outcomes, Michelle, a registered nurse with a Master’s degree, decided to take things into her own hands and find supplemental treatments that might improve her chances.
Her primary goal was to see her children graduate from high school, she recalled. In the process, she shocked her doctors with her resilience and learned that looking good is a big part of feeling better.
Lane had owned a home care company she started in 1998 in Maryland before her former husband moved the family to Middleburg in 2013. She worked with the Virginia Department of Health to transfer her licenses to Virginia. A decade later, Middleburg Home Care was practically running itself.
“At this point,” she said, “we don’t even need to advertise, as we get so many clients by word-of-mouth.”
Her patients come from Loudoun, Fairfax, Frederick, Fauquier and Warren counties and Winchester. Case nurses from hospitals and insurance companies know that the owner is a registered nurse with a graduate degree and that their caregivers do a good job.
“Basically, that’s my business model,” Lane said. “I get the best people and I retain them by paying above scale and treating them with respect.”
In thinking about how to grow her business, she wanted to share therapies that helped her outlive the dire prognosis from Johns Hopkins, where she still receives immunotherapy.
“As a cancer survivor, I’m more compassionate in my care,” she said, adding that she thought a lot about what people need and want in their wellness services. She had experience with a high-tech infusion company. She owed a lot to infusion therapies. Yet she also wanted to change the paradigm of health services to include some that are aesthetic in nature.
“My personal goal for all people, especially women and particularly those struggling with chronic illnesses, is for them to feel and look as well and as beautiful as they want to look and be,” Lane said. “I want to help all woman be at their best, inside and out.”
MedSpa offers a full suite of IV therapies, including Vitamin C and B12, along with pain management, facials, massage, Botox, Juvéderm, eyebrow tattooing, lip lining and lip blushing. In 2025, she wants to add a hair salon.
She also helps clients set their goals; then she aims to exceed them. She discusses with a client levels of care and designs a plan for the best outcome. She has developed protocols for optimal healing. She also helps clients find affordable solutions.
Her daughter, Marilyn Clisham, who has a Master’s in neuroscience, is also an aesthetician and manages the office while preparing for medical school.
After a soft-opening last summer, the staff and county officials had a ribbon cutting in September to launch Middleburg MedSpa.
Details: Medspa accommodates wedding parties and other groups of women who want to have fun indulging themselves together. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, they take walk-ins. Otherwise, appointments can be made at www.MedSpaofMiddleburg.com/scheduling
