Amy Peterson: Surviving Trauma, Building Lennox & 16th, and the Truth About Skincare

0:00Coming up in this episode of Professional Jealousy. When I recovered from the accident, the last thing I thought was that I fit in. My question, I'm curious and I'm always like, how can we do that better? How can we show up better? How can I show up better? I think it's really naive and wrong to think that if you don't feel like you look great, that you're going to automatically show up amazing. I want to always play the long game. There's plenty of ways to play the short game. All of that marketing that you're talking about, if you really understand what it is can boil down to 12 or 13 things right i use the laser serum i thought okay and i woke up the next morning and i went oh my god you need the hard stuff in life you need the punches in the face like you don't realize how much you're about to grow

0:52Hi, I'm Natasha Jakubowski, Chief Innovation Officer at Anomaly, a global marketing agency. And this is my podcast, Professional Jealousy, where I am lucky enough to talk to founders, CEOs and creatives that I'm impressed by and want to learn from. So today I'm talking to Amy Peterson, a celebrity esthetician known as the Skin Savant. She also she has her own skincare clinic in Miami and she's also the founder of Lenox and 16th, a line of luxury clinical grade skincare. So we'll be chatting all sorts of things. I told her I'm going to try not to constantly husk about my skin. And we'll be talking about her career and how she has been heavily influenced by surviving a traumatic accident at the age of 18, which left her with a passion for regenerative skincare.

1:51So we'll be talking about that, her thoughts on the beauty world and yes, what I should be doing with my skin. Hello, Amy. Hello. Thank you so much. Well, your skin is reflecting a beautiful amount of light. So you already are doing a lot of the right things, I can tell. But yes, my name is Amy Peterson. I'm the founder of Lenox and 16th. I also own about to be two namesake skincare clinics in Miami and North Miami. And I've been in this industry for 20 years and I absolutely love everything about it. So amazing. Well, I have lots of people who are in all over the world, actually. It's kind of amazing seeing the stats.

2:35For anyone that doesn't know Lennox and 16th, can you give us the kind of elevator pitch? Yeah, so Lennox and 16th was inspired by the last 20 years of my career. The name actually comes from the cornerstone of where my practice sits in Miami Beach. and you know i always say a lot of magic happens on the second story of this unmarked building um it really stems from years of clinical education i was a clinical educator for a lot of different device companies i've worked in plastics i've worked in dermed i've watched women buy products for the last 20 years i have seen what they liked what they didn't like what moved the needle um and i really you know once i established the clinic i really wanted to set out and how, you know, when you're in a clinic, you can only treat so many people, right?

3:25You, you really are per unit of volume work. Um, and I wanted to see how I could reach more people. And I've always been fascinated by what lasers do and some of these products. So I wanted to build a line that really was inspired by like the treatments I see in the office. Um, so really innovation with having some of the traditional things that I think are amazing in skincare. amazing we're going to dig into all of that but I you know it's hard not to uh you know I know I mentioned your accent it's hard not to um kind of just you know on a human level be like just amazed and um yeah inspired by your story do you feel comfortable just talking about what happened and how it's kind of informed both, you know, why you went into beauty, skincare, and who you are today.

4:22Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, that accident really shaped the person I am today. So I, I think everyone has a different journey in life. And I'm really grateful for mine at the time. It was tough. Very tough. But yeah, I was when I was 18 years old, I was a freshman in college, I'd only been there about a month, right? So moved into your dorm, and you're like, oh my god I'm free and like I I don't know you want to go out with your friends you're you know it was just a really happy time in my life um only about a month in I was walking across the street and um an impaired driver ran through a red light hit me as a pedestrian going 40 miles an hour I kept going hit two other kids that weren't in my group um I was flown to university Maryland shock trauma.

5:06And I had a lot of internal bleeding, ruptured bladder, shattered pelvis, broken hip. I mean, I was lacerations all over my head. And it was touch and go there for a while. Luckily, to the amazing team there, I pulled through. I was there for quite some time because I had so many different types of surgeries that you almost had to get well enough before you could into the next one if anyone knows how that goes. And then I spent some time at a rehab center to learn how to walk again. And this was, you know, out of time. I look back at that 18-year-old girl and like, oh my God, vanity meant so much to her.

5:45You know, it was like, and it does for every 18-year-old girl as it should, you know, you're a young woman, you want to look a certain way, you want to, you want to fit in you. And, and I have to be honest with you, when I recovered from the accident, the last thing I thought was that I fit in. Like, you know, I had 59 inches of scarring all over me. I was, you know, I'm six foot tall. I was, I don't remember my weight, but it was, I was so skinny. I, I had just been through it. And I went through all of the things that you go through with post-traumatic stress disorder, which is a very real thing.

6:20I lived every, every stage of it. And I came out and I remember the acceptance part. And I remember being like, this is my story. And, you know, I want to start trying to heal, you know, and I think there's a healing on the inside and healing on the outside. And I will tell you from that moment on, and I remember the moment there has been a fire burning inside of me that like, I don't even think a wind tunnel could take out. You know, it's something about having a second chance and choosing the path that I think was meant for me. And I have a lot of empathy for anyone going through anything like that because there's always a different path.

6:59And I think, you know, my heart goes out for those people. But for me, it started with, you know, really diving into aesthetics, understanding lasers. It was early 2000s and things were just coming out of the market. I I remember like Botox was being done, but no one was talking about it. Like you would never dare say it. Yeah, it's a secret. The first lasers. Yeah, it was kind of like hush hush in some of the plastics office. It was just kind of being on the scene. I think skincare had always been a staple. We even hear about our grandmothers like using skincare. But as far as devices, injectables were just coming on the scene.

7:36And I kind of just dove into it and loved it. I went to aesthetic school. And then I was fortunate enough to meet the man of my dreams and land in Seattle with the job of my dreams. So it was, you know, it was a tough thing. But I really understand that girl, you know, and I understand when people come in and they don't feel like themselves or they feel like they've aged in a certain way or they have acne scarrings. There's a compassion that I have for those people. And if it's vanity alone, I'm OK with that. but sometimes it's something deeper and and I find that we treat both of those things and sometimes when you're treating on the outside you can do a little bit of treatment on the inside too so it's been it's been just my passion it's been my cause um and I healed myself so yeah no I mean it so I mean as a mother who probably irrationally is constantly worried about my kids being run over I mean, honestly, I'm like, I don't know why it's just always been a thing.

8:45Um, yeah, it's so to take that kind of setback and life experience and be fueled by it actually is, is so inspiring. Um, and I, I'm just, you know, again, as a mother, I mean, I know this sounds corny, but I am wondering if you think there's any, you know, any, anything in how you were brought up that kind of helped you be so resilient because these things you, you went, you know, fuel, you know, getting better. It drove you, you know, do you have any advice for people facing hard things? because you faced something impossibly hard. Like what in your upbringing or how your mindset kind of worked, you think helped you?

9:38Yeah, you know, I actually often think about my mom during that time. I give her so much credit because, man, that woman did not leave my side. She is a nurse. And I can't believe now that I have my own kids, I never really saw that side of it. But, you know, I was one of five kids and my mom is one of seven girls. And every woman in my family is like so strong, resilient, determined. I mean, my cousins, my aunts, I've always had great examples of that. I was an athlete. I, you know, I was a basketball star. I always liked, you know, challenges. I was always taught that you can overcome anything.

10:22And so, yeah, I think part of that is that. I think another big part of it is just having faith that I think gets stronger as you get older. It did for me. But at the time, you know, I've always been the toughest on myself. Like no one has to set expectations for me. I mean, they can and I welcome them, too. But I'm just the type of person that it's not that I don't enjoy the moments, right, the moments of success, because I think sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses. but my question I'm curious and I'm always like how can we do that better how can we show up better how can I show up better how can I do this more and I think all of those things probably helped me get through it um along with just a lot of great people but yeah I have just a really resilient family and my mom specifically my mom and my sister are just I don't know they're the type of women that you just want to aspire to be and also just kind and also just authentic and just real and um and yeah so I had a great support system growing up and I've also I still to this day just have great people to look up to yeah amazing um so you you mentioned you know this dream job you presumably you were using skincare and some of these early treatments like lasers to help you literally heal that help your center heal um I'm just wondering like you know working for a plastic surgeon getting over this injury you you must have some kind of amazing insights both from personally and meeting all these you know people that were you were working you know dealing with at the plastic surgery like talk to me about some of the kind of you know insights into women and how they think about beauty and skincare and all of that stuff?

12:21You know, I think I have insights from then. I mean, I have insights for 20 years. I have insights. I think that whole with age comes wisdom thing is very, very true. I will tell every younger woman, like, you know, I love being 40s. I think my 40s are probably my favorite decade. There's a confidence, a quiet confidence. There's a I don't care about the small stuff. And then there's just a natural, you know, you're just wiser. You know, I think women come in for a multitude of things. And I think society can classify them differently. So some people can think it's just vanity or like revenge glow up, right?

12:57I don't know. I've seen that before. Yeah. Doing something good for myself, reward. But I think what I see most and what the world doesn't see, because I get to be in this room, is people come in because they don't feel like the outside matches the inside. And that's like a really interesting thing to think about. Like I've heard older people that are in their 70s say like, I still feel like I'm 20 or 30 years old. And I kind of get that now as I get older. They still feel youthful, but they don't feel like they're showing up as the best version of themselves. I think it's really naive and wrong to think that if you don't feel like you look great, that you're going to automatically show up amazing.

13:41I mean, this is the whole thing dress for success was built on. So that was an organization that said to these women, if you want to get back in the workforce, let's dress you in the best suit possible. Let's make you feel fierce and go in there and get that job. There's no different than the face, right? There's no different than feeling great in your skin. Unfortunately, I think aesthetics has, and as an industry, anything can be overdone. anything can be blown out of proportion. And sometimes that's what people really focus on. I mean, what I see is the countless women walking in and out that look incredible, that look like nothing has been done.

14:18Because that is really what I find to be aesthetically beautiful. Or the women that really care about taking and pride in taking care of themselves. And that may be a three-step routine, and that may be a 10. But it's also their decision. So I think there's a lot of judgment out on it. But I find it's interesting. Different stages of different people's lives they can lean in a little bit more to it um for me it's always been a constant i will tell you without a shadow of a doubt that when i look amazing and feel amazing i just show up differently yeah for myself and for the people around me so i am always going to vote for that like i think everyone should have that yeah no it's such a you know i actually i love i work in beauty sometimes I um and I think what's amazing about it is it's both emotional kind of functional but just so irrational so you know I've worked with beauty companies where I've seen their research I've seen the clinicals and then I will go and buy something that literally I have no idea about and I'm literally buying it for that hope in the bottle kind of idea it's just so irrational you know um what what sort what sort of um what sort of advice do you have for women trying to kind of navigate uh the aesthetics you know that i'm i've noticed that everywhere has botox fillers you know there's i live in new york in soho i can't walk more than a block without finding a JECT or a summer, you know, what do you make of that?

15:55Just the extreme explosion of like, you know, accessible injections, as many as you like, you know, subscriptions. I mean, like I said, I think any industry can overdo it and be accessible to any degree. I mean, my suggestion and my recommendation is obviously find someone that you really trust, you love their aesthetic. You trust them. You know, it doesn't have to be the most popular person. It doesn't have to be the most followers on Instagram. You can research the products. You know, a lot of people are going to get into whatever is booming at the time. If you go back to the 1920s and you think about the Great Depression, the two things that were up were liquor sales and Revlon lipstick was up and it was 83 cents.

16:44But, you know, that was a moment where there was a, you know, a lot of depression in the country. It was a very sad time and women wanted to look good. So if a red lip made them feel great, they were going to buy the 83 cent red lip. So if you know that and you're smart, you know that it's a good industry to quote unquote go into. See, I think the difference with me is I never went into anything. Like this was the only choice for me. Like this, this was the only choice for me. Like I live and breathe this. I mean, now I'm a lot more of a businesswoman today, but initially it was just about teaching and educating.

17:22I mean, I used to travel to tons of offices for these companies and teach people how to use lasers. I mean, I love this so much to the point where I will talk to you and then I'll go talk about this for the rest of the weekend. You know what I mean? So for me, it's it's a deeply personal thing. I feel really fortunate for it to be that way because I don't think everyone gets that. But, you know, I was just telling someone else the other day, like, I think my success and listen, I understand you need to have a P &L. I get that. But I think if you put that before the experience, before the client, you're going to have a problem.

17:57Like I built this business by giving 120 % to every client from a knowledge base to an actual execution. And now to my team, right? Like my team is some of the most well-trained people in the country because I invest in them because I know that. So maybe it's a booming business. I don't know. Maybe I got lucky. I had no other choice. Like this is what I was doing and what I will continue to do for forever. I just think everyone's going to try to capitalize on what's hot next. I mean, AI is hot, so now everyone's going into it. I think, you know, I don't know anything about crypto, but at one point everyone's going into that.

18:35So if you change your friends and you chase that in starting a business, you're not going to yield great results, right? So I want to always play the long game. There's plenty of ways to play the short game. I would always bet on the long-term game. and you know if I had advice for my kids it's like find something that you love right like find something that you love to do that you can withstand like the ups and downs you know and I I know that's hard for some people um I think if you search long and hard enough you'll find it yeah I feel like um there are just so many it's interesting thinking you know how beauty has changed there have been so many innovations over the last 20 years last five years like how do you keep up how do you find new treatments how do you figure out what's good what's not you know I'm constantly looking at you know Instagram posts about polynucleotides or ZERF or you know there's just so many options so how do you keep up and then we're going to talk about what you think at SheWorks?

19:44You know, I so I have a network of people. Like I said, I was a clinical trainer when you go on the insides and see how these things are made and the engineers and you understand what it's actually doing. You'd be very surprised how many people don't actually know that, you know, there's actually only this is probably going to blow your mind, but there's actually only 12 or 13 based technologies on the market. So all of that marketing that you're talking about, if you really understand what it is can boil down to 12 or 13 things right now what i think is amazing is the innovation and things keep getting better more precise um we have a new uh bbl ceitan moxie hybrid laser and it has a new component on it where it measures your face so you don't miss anything so like things like that i'm very excited about because we are making these treatments more effective for the patient, right?

20:37But, you know, when it's like this new innovation, it's like, well, it's not that new, right? It's still a base technology. Like, what is the core base technology? So I think first of all is really understanding. I think that a lot of people don't have that knowledge base. And I always say, I'm never going to build my multi-million dollar mansion on a swamp, right? So if your swamp is your foundation, like it's going to be very hard as a provider for you to really understand these things so we build strong foundations here at my practice and I was always given one um the second thing is strong foundation being generally just good skin just knowledge base right there's no like aesthetic laser school that like everyone has to go to that's two or three years right there's not a lot of formal post-education like to really understand this because the innovation is happening so rapidly.

21:31So really diving in to your craft. When we buy something at this office, we don't launch it for like two or three months. People would be like, that's insane. You're missing out on two to three months of revenue, Amy. And that's not the case with me because we test it. We're doing this. The FDA trials will say something, say one thing, and then actual in-office use is very different. So we understand how we're stacking it with topicals. How are we using this? Different skin types. And then we launch it and our patients love it. We're not going to have those issues. So aside from doing all the due diligence that you can, understanding the technology, speaking to other people, having a network of people that you truly trust, which I'm fortunate enough to have, those are all really great ways.

22:18And then just staying ahead of it. If you're interested in this field, you're always going to be looking for something. I tend to be a little bit more concerned when something launches and a famous person does it and everyone asks for it and patients don't even know what it is. And I think it's this brand new thing. And I tend to think okay this is probably going to get legs and really go quickly um to the market um but we don't really know completely what the long-term effects of it are so we try to be slow with devices um and then choose wisely all right so what are your go-to what are the things that you think uh say just asking for a friend you know someone that is noticing signs of aging um yeah what what what should i be doing okay so first off read skincare lennox and 16th yeah we're going to talk about that next yeah um i love renova we are huge renova practice um it is an injectable that is not a filler, but people have to understand that they have facial volume loss in the form of fat as they age.

23:41And fat pads are really important to kind of keeping your skin held back and keeping that moisture, that youthful look. So we restore fat pads a lot here with Renuva. In fact, I have three clinical trainers that work at my office for Renuva. We saw the writing on the wall about five years ago with filler. And we decided that we were going to pivot and really lean into this new injectable. And it has been out on the market for about 20 years and it's been used in medical. And so we do it a lot in the face. I love, we kind of separate the skin into the mattress and the sheets. So we know what's working where we love, you know, we love a fractional laser for cleaning up pigment and nice resurfacing.

24:26So whether that be Fraxel or clear and brilliant or moxie um i love i love an ablative co2 um i certainly love it around the eyes although we'll never cherry pick we always treat very uniformly um and we actually love laser stacking i love silo firm x for radio frequency microneedling no it will not go after your fat because i've seen those posts um you know i also love a neurotoxin used you know there's over 70 uses of a neurotoxin that people don't really know about, um, artistically in the face. Um, I love a Nefertiti lift. Oh my God, I can't live without one. That's when it shifts back a little bit.

25:04Um, so I, I have things and there's more, you know, there's one device in the market. It's called Tixle. Like they don't have the budget probably to, to have a famous person on there, but they put a lot of money. Um, it's from Europe. They put a lot of money into the device itself. And it's a remarkable device. And we actually, you know, we like to laser stack. We like to use everything and make it really customized. Like none of our patients are really getting the same thing. And then once we create a channel through the skin, whether that be heat or injury or combination of both, we like to say, what are we putting in the skin?

25:41Because we have a shot at this to get some stuff into the skin before those channels close. So a lot of ours, you know, it's like a longer process. Like you're never going to get insert name at my office because it's so much different. And honestly, if you go someplace else after you come to our office, sometimes people will call me like they didn't do the same things as you or like they didn't cryo call me afterwards because I had plasma. So we just have specific protocols and lean into those. so how so i think what's amazing is about the kind of uh the the kind of do you call it clinic or a yeah yeah clinic so you know it is so personalized and you get to use these amazing tools i feel like um i was saying before we got on i i am i've always said that i don't want to do like botox and feelings and I feel like for the first time I'm like well maybe maybe I'd try some some Botox type stuff but ignoring that I do think the older I get the less I'm interested in skincare potentially because I'm just like no give me a clear and brilliant or something that's going to do something more you know more uh more noticeable and how did you think about bringing in your very personalized expert kind of clinical grade treatments from lasers to you know all these all these things into a skincare line so i know i loved that you know your line is focused it's not a multi you know 10 step crazy thing it seems very purposeful talk to me about the creation of Lennox since 16th and how you thought about product development, considering you have the good stuff that is really effective and now you're trying to bring it into something that people can use at home.

27:40Yeah. You know, I, I've always thought that, okay, oftentimes skincare alone can't change your skin depending on what the person thinks, right? So this is a managing expectations game all the time. You really have to be very clear about that as a clinician. That's also the reason that sometimes I say, look, I think what you think is going to happen with this procedure isn't, and maybe you are a surgical candidate. And that's because that's what I would do for my mom, right? It's a North Star for me. What would I do for my mom? What would I do for my sister? What would I do for my aunt? That's the only way I do things here.

28:19When I decided to do skincare, believe me, I mean, I was like, I know there are 550 ,000 beauty products on the market. Like, do I have any business doing this? Right. And then I thought, you know what? You watch skin over seven days with a clear and brilliance, a perfect example. And you see that transformation happen on day seven and you see that brightening. What if you could bottle that up, Amy, and not use it in a laser necessarily, but have these acids that work at each different layer. But the consumer isn't going to wait three months to see. And they're certainly not going to a store and hoping that this line changed and is slightly plumper, right?

29:03Like, that's I like results. Like I like the before and the after. I'm very invested in that. Yeah. So I said, well, you know what? I mean, it's me still have that fire. I'm just going to try. Right. And I use the laser serum one night. I thought, okay. And I woke up the next morning and I went, oh my God. And for me to say that was even my husband still to this day remembers it because he thought, God, this is going to take her forever to formulate this line. She's so picky. She's so this. And it was an OMG moment for me. And I kept using it and I kept seeing, and that's someone who is really consistent.

29:44And I knew I was onto something. And then I started taking products and saying like, why is vitamin C, why is L-asorbic the only thing that you can do here? And like, I would love it in like a cream serum hybrid. And like, I would love it in hot weather to only have one step after cleansing with SPF. And so I started thinking of the woman that came into my office and then of myself, you know, like what I like. And I also thought it's so annoying when I love a product, but it doesn't have a travel. And like a staple in my line is like, it's always going to have a travel, like always, because like, that's really annoying, right?

30:16Like to be consistent and then not to be able to or not want to bring your bottles. But I started formulating and I found that I really have a knack for creating amazing products. And then I also realized like texture plays really mattered. Also, like the way things, you know, there's smoke and mirrors sometimes when you put something on your face and you're like, oh, my God, I look like a glazed donut or whatever you want. But like, what is the dry down actually like? Like, how does it feel an hour later? And how does your makeup lay on it? How does it feel? I mean, the questions were endless.

30:54And then I thought, you know, we are not and truly we are not a clean company first. I mean, we're just not. We are a results driven company. With that being said, I am really thoughtful about every step I make. And I thought, well, let's just be 1 % better with everything we do. And, you know, I'm so proud that that landed us with EWG certified for two products and prestige beauty, which is is really, you know, thoughtful. I thought, why can't we have a powerhouse moisturizer? All these people are talking. They have eczema and everything else. Like, why can't they use fun skincare? Like, it's why can't they use these things?

31:31You know, our our soft landing has an eczema seal of approval. Like, you know, I always think back to taxis. It would be simple to say, like, we have taxis. We don't need anything else. You know, we have Ubers. We don't need anything else. But now there's Waymo. And I'm like, you know what? Thank God they kept thinking. And it's not always about recreating like something that doesn't exist. Sometimes I truly believe there's white spaces and they should exist for a reason. But sometimes making things a little bit more effective, a little bit better, and in some cases a lot better, really, you know, breed something amazing.

32:10Yeah. So what do you think your secret advantage is? Like what makes the products different? So it's just the overall kind of thought about how to make the total product just a little bit better. Or is it the formulation? Like how do you think about your kind of secret advantage? My secret advantage is I think we got away from, you know, really tight, a tight knit skew, being able to do a lot of things. But never like a shampoo. OK, a great example of one product that I think will never work is a shampoo and conditioner in one for women. They do two different jobs, one cleanses, one conditions, and they shouldn't be in the same bottle.

32:53Right. But a lot of the stuff that I was seeing in skin care was like you have your separate H.A. and then your separate C and your separate this. So I kind of wanted to condense it, but also clinically test it that all of the stuff that I was putting in, it was still not being canceled out and really effective. So the premise is really simple. When you're talking about anti-aging in any realm, lasers, skincare, you're talking about increased cell turnover, right? You want to rapidly turn over the skin to have great new skin. Then you want to protect and nourish that skin, right? So I made, I accept, I that was the concept when I created the first three products.