Meet Ava Farvahari, an award-winning facial aestheticist, and founder of My Pure Aesthetics. Though Ava founded My Pure Aesthetics just five years ago, they have already earned their place as one of the top clinics in the aesthetic field, and have opened two clinics since 2017. Last year, Ava Farvahari’s business won the UK Enterprise Award for Best Dermal Filler & Anti-Wrinkle Clinic – an accolade that she and her team are exceptionally proud of.
‘’We are committed to helping clients enhance their beauty through treatments that achieve transformational results while looking completely natural. It is our ability to ‘keep others guessing’ that makes us the clinic of choice among celebrities and influencers.’’
As an entrepreneur and practitioner, Ava Farvahari is also dedicated to helping others in the industry, offering one-to-one training to those who want to learn techniques in aesthetics.
What inspired you to start working for yourself?
They say that nobody works harder than a woman who doesn’t like asking for anything, and I have always been a ‘do it yourself’ sort of person. People have often commented that I always seem to get what I want. And that’s because I pour my heart and soul into working for something I want until it’s mine.
I knew from a young age that I wanted to be independent and work for myself. And there’s something so incredibly empowering about earning your own income, running your own business, and not relying on anyone other than yourself. It’s taken a lot of hard work, dedication, and heaps of resilience, but the rewards of success always outweigh the challenges. That’s why I want to empower other women and support them in reaching their own goals. As they say – it’s not easy, but it’s worth it!
What was the hardest part of working for yourself?
Procrastination is the toughest beast that any business owner faces. It’s definitely held me back in the past, but that all changed when I started an accountability club with a few friends. We’d have weekly zoom meetings where we’d discuss our weekly, monthly, and yearly goals, so that we start holding each other accountable and stay motivated. This has helped me immensely and has been a great way to fuel my appetite for success and push me to do my best.
Tell us something about your My Pure Aesthetic what’s the style like and who are your clients?
My Pure Aesthetics is all about helping people feel more confident in their own skin. That means enhancing their features with undetectable changes that bring out their unique and natural beauty – their ‘pure’ beauty. We’re often approached by clients who seek an improved facial structure, such as better-defined cheekbones, bigger and more hydrated lips, or a straight nose. And the various treatments we offer can achieve all this, without the ‘fake’ or ‘puffy’ look that some associate with fillers.
We also treat a lot of younger clients with preventative aesthetics, such as Anti-wrinkle injections or dermal fillers, to prevent wrinkles or sagging in predicted problem areas. People can be very judgemental towards younger clients having these treatments, but they are incredibly effective at preventing lines and wrinkles as we age. Freezing the muscles like this deters the development of lines, as the movement that causes them is greatly reduced. The forehead, frown lines, smile lines, and crow’s feet are all popular problem areas to which we’d typically administer this kind of treatment.
What are the best and worst things about your job?
What I love most about my job is the amazing people I get to meet and become friends with. Medical aesthetics is a very intimate field of work and requires a huge amount of trust from the client’s side. This means that clients often come to me having done their research, and they know they’re in good hands. I’ve built some amazing relationships with them as a result, helping them to feel and look their best as they get married, have babies, and excel in their careers. No other feeling compares to it!
The worst thing about my job is the risk of complications (and this is true for any medical practitioner). A complication is every injector’s nightmare, but I do everything I can to reduce that risk. I take extra training and have joined various complication groups so I can be prepared if that day ever comes. These cases are extremely rare, but when you’re dealing with someone’s face, you really can’t afford to get it wrong!
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced since becoming an entrepreneur?
For me, finding balance in my life has been a tough one. It’s funny – everyone thinks you have tons of free time when you work for yourself, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact, you almost feel guilty when you do take some time off, thinking you should be working on your business instead.
Apart from my aesthetic qualifications I also studied and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business Studies and Marketing whilst running my business at the same time. Finding the balance to study part time, run a business and have a social life was in fact very difficult.
As much as I adore my job, finding the perfect balance has definitely been a challenge, as I’m always trying to push toward my next goal.
How can we choose the right treatments and stay as natural as possible?
The first thing to understand is that the art of facial aesthetics is not child’s play. It’s something we specialists spend years perfecting, for the sake of your beauty, confidence, and happiness. The genius of fillers is that, when the correct amount is injected properly, the result is indistinguishable from the natural. Unfortunately however, the UK medical aesthetics industry is notoriously underregulated, and there are a lot of inexperienced ‘practitioners’ selling fillers and Anti-wrinkle injections after doing a day course. Would you trust a heart surgeon to operate on you after just one day of training? Of course you wouldn’t. So why allow someone with the same degree of experience to alter your face? If you truly want to achieve a natural result, you need to do your research, find a genuine professional, and understand that the best results take time.
How and why did the treatments increase after the lockdowns?
They’ve actually dubbed this the ‘Zoom boom’ of the industry. Many people worked from home during lockdown, checking in with colleagues and clients via video call. Of course, this means that they were forced to stare at their own face for a large part of the day, and they started noticing their imperfections. It didn’t help that they could see their faces side by side with others on the calls, and this led to an increased demand for Anti-wrinkle injections, fillers, and plastic surgery. Of course, I don’t believe that you should get treatments just to look like someone else, but I do think people should feel confident at work and in meetings. That’s what we’re all about – helping people feel more confident.
Do you get a lot of botched clients coming from other practices?
Sadly, yes. We do correction work on a daily basis, and that’s something that’s been exacerbated by the pandemic. The government shut down most regulated clinics during lockdown – including my own – which led people to go to unregulated practitioners. This resulted in hundreds of clients coming to us with botched jobs – patients with filler that had been placed incorrectly, excessively, or unevenly. I even had a case of vascular occlusion, where a beautician had blocked an artery, without the knowledge or the emergency kit to dissolve the products. Had I not treated it on time, the issue would have resulted in necrosis i.e. skin tissue death, where the skin falls off.
The surge in demand for lip fillers has seen an increase in unregulated practitioners with no medical background carrying out the treatment. Fillers can naturally dissolve between 6-12 months, but in many cases it doesn’t, especially if the patient has migration, lumps, or if the filler has been misplaced. That’s why it’s essential to seek treatment for the problem and not just assume it will sort itself out. Fillers are easily dissolved with an enzyme injection that breaks the chemical bond and removes its effects. It’s a quick and relatively simple procedure that patients with botched jobs should seek out (with a good practitioner!).
Who have been your own biggest mentors and what is the best advice they have ever given you?
I believe that there are two kinds of people in our lives – those who build us up, and those who tear us down. And honestly, I think we need both.
I’ve been lucky enough to have a family friend as my mentor. He taught me to believe in myself, love myself and realise my full potential. He used to spend hours on the phone, building me up and pushing me toward success. Through him, I realised that the best mentors in life give advice, not to fulfil their own ego, but because they genuinely want the best for you. They want you to benefit from the hard-won wisdom they’ve gained over the course of their careers. I’m so lucky that I had someone like that in my life.
On the other hand, I also had people in my life who told me I could never be successful. But if you can come to terms with the fact that you will always face naysayers, you can use it as fuel to prove them wrong. Being able to turn their negative words into positive actions kept me hungry for success, proving myself with every milestone.
If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?
The number one most important thing new practitioners need to do is to give 100% at all times. Setbacks are a certainty, but you should keep doing, no matter what (and never compare yourself to others). Yes, it’s an exceptionally competitive industry, but it’s constantly growing and evolving, and there’s room for all of us. It’s also an expensive business to get started in, which is why it’s crucial to invest time and effort into marketing and showing good quality before and after pictures.
I’ve had many people come to shadow me over the years – a lot of whom were struggling to scale their business – because they weren’t business-minded enough. They assumed that their talent alone would help them grow. But it takes so much more than that. Apart from this, you need to have a warm personality, and show patients the kindness and sympathy that puts them at ease during intimate treatments. The majority of clients have a phobia of needles – they aren’t doing this to have syringes stuck in their faces. You need to empathise with their fears, insecurities, and wants, and support them every step of the way.
Tell us about your proudest achievement?
My proudest achievement has to be winning the UK Enterprise Award for Best Dermal Filler & Anti-Wrinkle Clinic in 2021. I felt like everything I had worked for my whole career had led to that moment, and winning solidified our place in the industry for good. The year following up to the award had been extremely stressful, trying to keep up with new COVID restrictions and 3 lockdowns. But winning proved to us that all the work we had put in was worth it, and that we really are at the forefront of the medical aesthetics industry.
Meet Ava Farvahari, an award-winning facial aestheticist, and founder of My Pure Aesthetics. WOMENONTOPP.COM | WOMEN ON TOPP.COM
![From Music to Perfume: How did your background as a music teacher influence your transition into perfumery, and how do you incorporate your musical sensibilities into creating fragrances? I’ve always thought in terms of metaphors, and music has many that can be related to perfumery! Beyond just thinking in terms of top, middle and base notes [soprano/alto/tenor in choir], I approach each fragrant idea as a composition. When documenting my ideas, song structures often come to mind. As the scent brief is visited, I meditate on what the fragrance should convey - do I want to create an accord or a “chord” of fragrance note combinations? Do I want an a capella soloist (a particular ingredient to stand out more than others?) Many of my thoughts regarding song composition transfers to my scent formulation process, with me treating each note as an intentional soliloquy at some point.
Brand Origin: What inspired you to start Pink MahogHany in 2005, and how has your vision for the brand evolved since its inception?
An avid lover of all things pleasantly scented (with slight modesty), looking back in retrospect, it’s no huge surprise that I’ve created an indie perfume house with just an idea to provide unique options for those who may be sensitive to unnecessary pungency. Initially, I just wanted to evaluate various blends to note their aroma profiles when “played” together…it wasn’t until I had friends and family asking if I knew of brands that catered to those who may be on the more olfactory sensitive side, that I really began to take my research more seriously. In the almost 20 years that Pink MahogHany has been in existence, our micro visions for the brand have evolved to larger territory. Where Pink MahogHany used to only be a personal brand, we are now also a bespoke formulation service provider to other indie brands seeking unique fragrance offerings for their products. These products range from (but are not limited to) perfumes, candles, body butters and lip balms. Ingredient Transparency: You emphasize transparency and the use of desirable ingredients in your products. How do you select your ingredients, and what challenges have you faced in maintaining this standard?
Being an indie brand often comes with a set of assumptions and misconceptions - one of them being more negative than positive as it relates to ingredients used. There is a lot of “fluff” in the industry with labeling falsification. Because fragrance formulas are a trade secret, not every molecular breakdown of a material has to be noted on the ingredient label (it would be incredibly long), but we at Pink MahogHany™️ adhere strongly to the IFRA [International Fragrance Regulatory Association] regulations that state for common and potential allergens to be listed on our ingredient label. We’ve taken this a step further to also include these ingredients listed on our website to promote further transparency, all while protecting our intellectual property. Unfortunately, we’ve had companies to unethically sell lesser expensive “dupes” of our artisan perfumes, so as a way to create a better authenticity stamp, we make it our duty to be honest about our claims. If our perfume says “Rose Bulgaria”, it is in fact just that and not a component of rose being passed off as the source material. Collaborations and Custom Scents: Can you share more about your work with private label clients? What excites you most about creating custom scent solutions for other indie brands? I could easily sum this up in one word and say “Funding.” True, there is money out there, but I’m always thinking outside the box. Having a program that has an “Each One Fund One” mentality doesn’t exist (that I’ve been made aware of). Bootstrapping can be quite the challenge, even when you’ve reached the 6-figure mark annually. Competition to be seen and set apart is extremely high, so having quality packaging and branding is a must. There are lots of factors to consider, though when desiring to make upgrades. If there were a unique, tier-geared funding operation available, it would help perfume brands offset packaging and bulk material costs in the beginning stages.
Industry Challenges: What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced as an independent fragrance house, and how have you overcome them to grow your brand? As the brand continues on the path of organic growth, I would like to expand our reach into schools, offering perfumery as an arts elective for middle and high school. I’d love to partner with botanists, farmers and horticulturists directly to grow and source raw materials for the students to work with in the creation of tinctures. My passion is getting back to nature as best as possible, as nature was my first “scent experience” as a child. We would also love to witness our fragrance creations being used to scent model homes, our focus diffuser blends being used in automobile dealerships as well as partner with Air Bnb and boutique hotels that specialize in highlighting minority, indie brands. Personal Journey: How has your personal experience, particularly as a divorced mother and someone who has experienced the loss of a child, shaped your approach to life and your work in perfumery?
Because I homeschool my twin sons, we are together a lot more than most, so one thing we all do is have moments of sharing where a neutral “floor” is laid to converse about anything. Though they are quite communicative by nature, I realize that sometimes I can be in work mode so much that it spills over into what should be our quality time. My sons see the authentic me and learn how to communicate through seeing authenticity. I’ve learned not to feel as if I have to be the epitome of perfection but allow them to see my imperfections vulnerably but with discernment. Having had two traumatic experiences pretty close together has taught me how to truly slow down and enjoy the simplicities of life - igniting a spiritual aspect that I’ve always carried but never fully explored…until Kenji’s sudden passing (2018.) Grief has a way of catapulting us into a quest for more meaningfulness in both life and business. After Kenji’s passing and my processing through the initial stages of grief, I was able to incorporate our spiritual bond into Pink MahogHany by way of essential oil diffuser blends for both focus and sleep and most recently aromatic perfume elixirs. It’s been quite the process channeling the void of his physical presence, but I also have peace knowing he can be honored in a great way through scent. I noticed once I began to be more open and receptive to spiritual signs, synchs and “winks”, more ideas began to flow. It’s been this way since his transition. Emotional Expression: Fragrance is often tied to memories and emotions. How does your personal life influence the fragrances you create, and do you have a particular scent that holds special meaning to you? My creative process is much more alchemic now, and I include Kenji by talking out loud to him, believe it or not. I’m a firm believer that when our loved ones transition from the physical plane, they are still present - just in another form. I choose to keep his memory alive by not pretending he never existed (even if for a brief period of time). I am working (slowly) on a book and accompanying fragrance, but I know it will require me to revisit some memories I’m not quite ready for, so until then, his big brothers will launch their debut fragrance, The Peaceful Tiger (they chose the name.) I’ve learned that even in what we consider “small things”, our transitioned loved ones want to be recognized and acknowledged. When the twins and I designed their fragrance label (with a designer out of the country that didn’t know anything about me personally), we had issues with the graphic - so much so that the designer asked if they could rework the design. When they sent the proof for approval, the Tiger was not only younger but sleeping, with an uncanny, angelic resemblance to baby Kenji! Becoming more aware and being more sensitive to my intention for launching a fragrance has definitely made room for more divine situations like these to occur. Healing Through Scent: In what ways has creating fragrances been a form of healing or expression for you, especially after the loss of your son, Kenji Mwamba? I know my sons may not necessarily want to be perfumers, but they definitely have an entrepreneurial heart. My desire is that whatever they decide to pursue (acting, script-writing, music or architecture), they know that anything is possible with the right amount of determination, grit, belief and immersion. One reason I chose to homeschool is so they could enjoy learning without restraint and have ample time to devote to their own separate passions and it still be fun. They know Pink MahogHany is theirs if they want it (many, many years from now - lol), and we are already discussing business structures for whatever they choose their role to be once I retire. Work-Life Balance: How do you find balance between your professional responsibilities and personal well-being, and what self-care practices do you prioritize? I’m not just a perfumer; I’m also a consumer, and self-care is huge for me. I often take salt baths to reset my energy and clear my mind after being around large groups of people or free a long day. I’m a habitual perfume sampler, and I have so many to choose from to wear as my “nightcap.” Even if just for 10-15 minutes, I cherish each moment I’m able to have some “me-time.” When time and co-parenting schedules permit, I’m definitely on a flight somewhere to indulge in some delicious food and mouth-watering mocktails!](https://www.womenontopp.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/IMG_3812-1200x720.jpeg)
Ava Farvahari’s dedication to empowering women and her support for others in the industry are genuinely commendable. It’s no wonder her clinic has become so popular and received prestigious awards. As someone with an interest in aesthetics, I truly value her focus on enhancing natural beauty through personalized treatments.