For Gina Vanderveldt, there’s no greater feeling than helping a woman feel beautiful in her own skin. Gina founded VITA Aesthetics, a medical aesthetics spa on a mission to help women build confidence and feel empowered. “We just really enjoy making people feel good about themselves,” Gina says.
The name VITA, which means “life” in Italian, is a tribute to Gina’s mother who passed away after a battle with cancer. She always encouraged Gina to follow her own dreams. Gina says her mother struggled with self-confidence, and she wants to help other women love who they are, inside and out. “I want people to shine, and when people feel good and feel like they look good then they do really great things,” Gina says.
Before starting VITA Aesthetics, Gina spent fifteen years working as a nurse. After spending countless hours in the emergency room and seeing people on the worst days of their lives, she felt burnt out and in need of a career change. She is dual-certified as a Family Nurse Practitioner and Acute Care Nurse Practitioner. “Having that background allowed me to get really great experience with anatomy, physiology and just everything about the body,” Gina says. “It’s very important to know the anatomy but also how to manage any complications should they arise.”
Gina says she has two other nurse practitioners on her staff at VITA who are always working to further their knowledge by going to conferences or taking webinars. She wants clients to know they are in good hands when they come to VITA. “We put a big focus on consultations so clients are able to get to know the staff and feel comfortable,” Gina says.
While she may not have grown up in the Nashville area, Gina says it has become home. She was born and raised in Philadelphia and moved to the area in 2008. While she originally assumed it would be temporary, Gallatin quickly became a place she and her husband knew they wanted to stay. “I started to get into golf, and we made a lot of friends, and then it really felt like home,” Gina says. “I stopped telling people that I was from Philly and lived in Nashville, and now I’m just like yeah, we’re from Nashville.” She says there’s something special about Nashville and the people who live here. “It’s such a great community! Everybody helps each other and is super friendly, and it wasn’t like that in Philly where everybody kept to themselves,” Gina says.
Gina and her husband Garig, who is also VITA’s Medical Director, stay busy with their three kids, whether it be cheering them on at a sporting event or spending time as a family. VITA offers a variety of services, such as skin care treatments, hormone replacement therapy and body contouring. Whatever service women may be interested in getting, Gina wants them to view it as self-care. “Self-care is okay, and it doesn’t have to look like you’ve had anything done,” Gina says. “The goal is to age gracefully and not to change the way you look.”
During a time when more and more medical spas are seeing clients from a younger generation, Gina says it’s important to keep in mind that she and her staff are committed to only providing services they feel are necessary. “We will actually talk you out of something if we don’t think you need it,” Gina says. “With services like filler or Botox, I don’t think more is better, I think less is better and we can always add.”
After working with a client, Gina says it always warms her heart to hear them say they have a new sense of confidence or just simply feel better. “I’ve had people come in tears and then leave in happy tears,” Gina says. “It really touches your heart and is the ultimate high.”
Gina says the feeling of joy she gets while helping women achieve their goals is amplified while thinking about how happy it would make her mother. “She loved to make people happy and cared more about other people than she did herself, so I really think she would love it,” Gina says.
VITA Aesthetics
1501 Hunt Club Blvd, Gallatin
VitaSkinTN.com
@vitaskintn
"I want people to shine, and when people feel good and feel like they look good then they do really great things."