What They Don’t Tell You About Beauty Medspas

The Glam Temple Medspa located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada is fast becoming the destination of choice for South Asian women – and men – because not only does it offer a vast array of modern, effective treatments, it is a medspa that is also focused on ethics, inclusion and safety.

The medspa first opened it’s doors one year ago on November 10th, 2023, and on this first anniversary of the business, I chat here with one of The Glam Temple Medspa’s owners Raj Girn (who is also our Founder and a service-driven entrepreneur), along with Melanie Barnard, a member of the College of Nurses of Ontario and the medspa’s master injector. Here we discuss philosophy of this medspa; what inspires them to provide the services that they do; the trends for South Asian skin needs; and what criteria we should all examine when we consider visiting a medical spa.

MEENA KHAN: What is your background and how did it lead you to The Glam Temple Medspa?

RAJ GIRN:

I belong to an entrepreneurial family. My parents emigrated from India to England in the 60s for that proverbial pot of gold that England was believed to have in those times. After a few years of working for others, they realized that true financial freedom was in building your own opportunity, which led them to build several service based businesses throughout the rest of their working life. Watching how they were able to build a quality of life for themselves and my siblings, really spoke to me. This idea of getting paid to do what you love, as well as provide value to others aligned with my value system, so I made the decision to foray into service-based entrepreneurship that has formed the basis of my entire professional career.

I started out training under my parents at the age of 15 for 6 years at their catering business from 1985 to 1991, followed by building a successful dental practice from scratch (with my now ex-husband Harjinder) from 1997 t0 present, to founding ANOKHI in 2002, and The Open Chest Confidence Academy in 2020, before partnering with Harjinder and longtime friend, Ada Mlostek in 2023 to open The Glam Temple Medspa.

As an entrepreneur who is service driven, this industry made sense for me to enter into, especially with its future predicted growth. Additionally, I’m a big believer in destiny and that what you’re meant to do finds you. Point in case, over a decade ago, I purchased the ‘glam temple’ domain when I was looking into partnering with some experts to launch an online holistic beauty shop. The shop never happened, but I kept the domain name because something told me that I would use it one day. Then when Harjinder and I relocated his dental practice to a larger location, we purposefully designed it to include a few extra rooms for botox and filler services, knowing that we wanted to extend into this for the dental benefits as well as esthetic benefits to our existing client base. Years later over a dinner with Ada, who had previous experience in medspas, we decided to partner up, the three of us, to open up a medspa at the dental location.

MELANIE BARNARD: When I was in nursing school, I met a fellow colleague, and he was talking about this profession going into the beauty industry which I found to be interesting. I went into the medical field and it was as if the clients were a number, everybody was a task, and you didn’t really get to know the person. I found with the beauty industry, you got to have more of a relationship with your client and you also got that artistic side as well, which allowed me to use my abilities to create and craft art.

I went straight into injectables, meeting a plastic surgeon in Toronto (one of the top three in Ontario) who is a double-certified, Dr. Elahey. I ran his injectable practice for about three years and from there, I started to teach with the Canadian Board of Aesthetic Medicine, where I taught other nurses, surgeons and doctors how to inject. I’m still teaching there.

I also went to school for additional qualifications to learn the basic injectable anatomy of botox and fillers. Afterwards, I traveled to meet with doctors from Columbia, England, and Russia for advanced training to learn the different techniques that are exclusive to those countries, and bring them here [Canada] for my clients. I also went to Miami and trained with many doctors to learn techniques on special treatments, so that I could bring these different treatments to Canada, as well as keeping up-to-date with what’s happening and trending.

MEENA: What is your goal with The Glam Temple Medspa?

RAJ: Our idea behind the medspa was to marry our individual skills and experiences in business and client service, into a holistic medspa experience where clients receive a combination of up-to-date education (so that they can make knowledge based decisions and not ones based on social media fake news) and diverse state-of-the-art treatments (a one-stop for all medspa related services), in 3 ways:

– Enhance their visual appearance based on their requirements (reduce wrinkles, promote hair growth, etc.)

– Correct areas that require improvement (fill hollowness, remove botched treatments effects, etc.)

– Provide medical assistance (reduce sweat/migraines, minimize grinding, etc.)

MEENA: When you are meeting with a client, what is your primary concern and what is your goal?

RAJ: We are very transparent with our clients about what to realistically expect with treatments, which is why we insist on pre-consults with our nurse to evaluate each client on a case by case basis, because results are not standard. They are predicated on numerous factors like skin type, colour, and age being the primary ones. Because we are very thorough in this process, our clients rave about the results and leave pleased. Our client retention rate is 96%, which is very high for this industry, and we are proud of this.

I also want to mention that about 30% of our clients work is correcting other medspas’ treatments, because not all medspas employ trained nurses like we do.

MELANIE: When someone comes in for a consultation, the first step is to know what their goals and their expectations are, and safety also plays an important role, so you want to know their medical background and then from there, you can determine what treatments are safe. You also have to look at their physical attributes and assess their symmetry – what needs to be balanced, what needs to be corrected. Then you can start picking out a plan of treatments to get them to reach their goals, always making sure that you communicate exactly what you can and can’t do, so that they’re realistic about the outcome and are not dissatisfied or surprised with the results.

MEENA: One aspect of The Glam Temple Medspa is how people of colour are prominently featured on the instagram account and the website, which is rare in the medspa world within the North American context.  Is this medspa focused on the beauty needs and aspirations of people of colour?

RAJ:  The number one rule of successful marketing is to identify your client clearly in everything that you do and provide, so we are loud about showing diversity and inclusion as one of our core values in all of our communications with the public. We service clients of all ethnicities, genders, and ages (18+), and we are mindful to showcase this in our marketing, so that everyone can see the benefits of our treatments across the board. Treatment results differ depending on these factors, and rule of thumb in marketing is that your client needs to know the value of what you do before they believe it’s for them, so we show them, plain and simple. 

MEENA: Melanie, in your professional experience, what are some common issues that women of South Asian descent have discussed with you, when visiting The Glam Temple Medspa, and what are the recommended treatments?

MELANIE: Usually South Asian women have very tight skin that have smaller pores, so they don’t need many of those tightening or lifting treatments. What they do struggle with is more pigmentation issues, darker circles, and fine lines and wrinkles around the eyes.

Hence the most common treatments are PRP and microneedling, which would be done to help with the pigmentation issues. You have to be careful with that treatment, though, because if you’re doing it at too high of a setting, you can actually cause more hyperpigmentation.

For dark circles under the eyes, there are three solutions. One of them would be a glutathione vitamin drip which is a vitamin infusion that helps to overall brighten the skin and it does affect the whole body by giving a glowing, brightening effect. You can also do derma filler for these concerns, which is hyaluronic acid. Additionally, you’re a candidate for tear trough filler as well (you’d have to have some hollowness), when mixed with an antioxidant helps give a brightening effect. You could also do PRP injections as well underneath the eye.

MEENA: Do South Asian men attend the spa, and if so, what are their primary concerns and what are the recommended treatments?

MELANIE: It is a smaller percentage than women, but it’s growing every year. A lot of men are feeling more comfortable doing treatments and a lot of their wives push them to come, as it is important for men, because they have the same skin; need to take care of it; and need to prevent aging. Their skin is different because it’s thicker and tougher, so they need a little bit more treatments and more volume of product to achieve the same result.

The most common treatment for South Asian men would be botox, to help with the fine lines because that is where they notice the aging. Most men also lose fullness in the cheeks and they look hollow and sunken which makes them look aged and sick, so putting a little bit of filler will help fill that up and give them a more youthful effect.

MEENA: How do skin care regimes complement with the treatments at the medspa?

MELANIE: Sunscreen and skincare are very important. Sunscreen is important because it helps with decreasing the risk of getting hyperpigmentation, so it makes the treatments that you’re doing with us last longer because you’re not causing more pigmentation to occur.

As well as with doing your regular skincare treatment, you want to keep your skin nice and clear away from acne because a lot of treatments can’t be done if you have active breakouts. You want to make sure you have a good skincare routine if you’re doing botox, as botox helps make your skin smoother and tighter, so it complements your skincare routine, and your makeup looks smoother and better.

MEENA: For people who live in other cities, who are researching medspas, what questions should they ask and what research should they conduct prior to submitting to a treatment?

RAJ: Make sure that you do your research on the treatment that you are looking to get. Make sure . . .

You research the medspas in your area to ensure that they have excellent google ratings and are not embroiled in any legal cases.

You have a consultation with the nurse who will be injecting you, before you book your appointment, to see what she says about your individual case and the results you should expect.

You take a look at their client before and after photos to see the quality of their work.

You ask them about their treatment protocols to ensure that they are administering services at the highest safety regulations, which you can find out directly online from the government’s health and safety rules and regulations for medspas.

You feel fully comfortable with all of the aforementioned before you allow anyone to inject you – this is your face and your health!

MELANIE: Also, make sure to know what education your injector has done. There are some guilty of fraud in Canada – they’re not nurses, they’re not doctors, they don’t have a degree, and they’re doing it out of their home which is very scary. You want to make sure that there’s a certificate that you can ask to see and also ask:

1. Where have they been trained
2. How long have they been in the industry
3. What products do they buy

You want to make sure you’re familiar with the types of products out there and which ones are Health Canada approved, or wherever they are, that the products are approved. I have seen in Canada that there are people buying illegal products off the black market, and they’re rebranding them to appear like the approved products, but they’re not. People have died because they have been getting injections done by somebody who is not using legal products, and that somebody is not even registered with the College of Nurses. You can actually go online, and doesn’t matter if it is Canada, the United States or another country, you can look on the website like the College of Nurses, and you can confirm if the person is a medical professional.

Summary

The world of beauty is ever evolving and the role of medspas plays an integral role in the routines of thousands of people, and the knowledge shared by The Glam Temple Medspa are elements that everyone should consider when and if they choose to attend a medspa.

It is comforting to know that in an industry that is driven by trends, that classic values of safety and professionalism, twin well with innovative procedures and products to help people to achieve their aesthetic and health goals.