By Ann Donnelly
Artistry of Face, a medical aesthetics practice operating in the Capital District since 2016, opened offices at 481 Glen Street, Glens Falls, in November 2023.
Owner Kelly Heffernan NP saw the potential to restore the Victorian-era home that previous owners had cut into apartments to its original beauty and make a comfortable and luxurious environment for her clients in the area. Heffernan reached out to the family that first owned the property and got access to pictures of how the home looked. She has carefully decorated with furniture and accessories from that era or fit the style.
Heffernan and her staff provide minimally invasive treatments to enhance their clients’ appearance and assist those who have suffered from disease-driven facial asymmetry, such as Cleft Palate, Bell’s Palsy, and severe burns. The latter is a particular passion for Heffernan, who has been a medical professional for 20 years.
After receiving a four-year nursing degree and attending night school to qualify as a Nurse Practitioner, Heffernan moved into medical aesthetics in 2005. She has worked as a Nurse Practitioner, Senior Clinical Specialist, and most recently as Senior Medical Science Liaison for Nestlé Skin Health, traveling the country and teaching doctors, NPs, PAs, and RNs the art of injections. Her experience has allowed her to work and learn alongside the top thought leaders in the dermatology and plastic surgery fields, both in the country and internationally.
She then decided to open her own “med spa.” “It’s a big leap. Very scary and easy to come up with a million reasons not to, but I felt I had to,” she said.
She started Artistry of Face on the weekends while working full-time. When she felt financially secure, she left her job and opened Artistry of Face full-time.
“Everything was going wonderfully, then COVID hit,” says Heffernan. “The best part about COVID was that people had a long time to look at themselves in the mirror and think about who they wanted to be. So, once we started returning to work, many people came to get the cosmetic procedures done,” she said. She adds, “It made me realize I will get through no matter what. I could be resilient.”
Services at Artistry of Face include neuromodulators Botox and Dysport and dermal fillers to enhance facial structure and skin care services to lessen the effects of aging, sun exposure, and other damage. They also offer “CoolSculpting” non-surgical fat reduction to slim down trouble spots of excess fat almost anywhere on the body with little to no downtime.
When asked about the negative perception of cosmetic surgery that some have, Heffernan says, “I worry what it’s turning into. Everyone knows someone who has had too many procedures and has become unrecognizable. I think there’s a line. I don’t blame the individuals themselves. It’s easy to blur that border, that line of body dysmorphia. I blame the injector that did that to them. It’s their job, my job, which I take very seriously, to realize when someone is crossing the line.”
“Most people don’t want to look different. They want to look like they did five or ten years ago. There’s beauty in growing older, but we don’t have to look old. The more natural results I can give, the more clients want to come to me,” she noted.
Heffernan adds, “In certain occupations, like sales, older women feel less valued because it’s a visual culture. Women come into my office in their 40s or 50s in a panic, looking for help to keep their jobs. They want to look like they did in their 20s. I won’t take advantage of that panic, someone at their most vulnerable. It’s my job as a provider to see what’s reasonable. I don’t have a problem turning a client away if it’s more psychologically driven and unrealistic. I don’t want to change a person. I just want them to feel better about themselves.”
As noted earlier, the medical reasons for these procedures interest Heffernan the most. “There are studies that show the benefit of specific cosmetic procedures to treat conditions like depression. Your brain knows particular muscles are moving when you make a dirty look. It’s usually an angry connotation, and it creates a chemical reaction. Using Botox in that area alleviates the use of those muscles and stops that connection. For years, women were saying, ‘I just feel better.’ Now there’s science behind it.”
In the future, Heffernan hopes to turn the Glens Falls office into the main office, perhaps as a women’s center with added services like massage and psychotherapy.
Find out more about Kelly Heffernan and Artistry of Face at https://artistryofface.com/.