Growing up, Livia Perez was the beauty guru of her friend group. “I was always doing my friends’ hair and makeup, and I was always that go-to person for all their beauty things, even for weddings, prom, or homecoming,” she remembers. Her mom encouraged her to open a salon, but her love of math and science drew her toward the medical field. She graduated from Texas Christian University with a nursing degree and worked in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Parkland Hospital for five years.
She eventually took on a second gig working with a plastic surgeon. “I just didn’t want to be in the O.R.” Perez says, “I liked the medical side of things a lot more when I was working for the surgeon.” When she discovered injections, she had found her passion. She left the plastic surgery practice to work at Renew Beauty in Northpark Mall, before taking roles at several SkinSpirit locations in DFW.
Over her years in the industry, Perez has realized she likes to take a more consultative, less sales-forward approach to medical spa procedures. “I just wanted to offer more of a boutique feel for my clients,” she says. “I wanted to offer a space where, when they come in, I'm never going to sell them on something that they don't need. I wanted them to feel like they could continue trusting me.” She became a nurse practitioner in 2023 to incorporate more aspects of wellness into her approach to beauty.
She opened her own medical spa, Preservation Beauty, in April on the edges of University Park and Preston Hollow—and her clients followed. She works with each of them closely and individually, providing a full facial balancing consult and a year-long treatment plan that often combines skincare, injectables, and laser treatments. “I believe in multiple modalities,” she explains. “I don't believe that injectables alone will give people beautiful skin and the results they want.”
That means also addressing health and wellness in her recommendations. For example, Perez might tell a Botox client to take zinc and copper supplements to help extend the results of their treatment or help a client seeking a hair replacement therapy rule out any other medical causes. “[Clients will] come in and say, ‘Oh, I'm losing my hair. Can we do a hair restoration treatment?’ I tell them, ‘Well, I want you to go to your labs done, check first, and make sure that this isn't a cause of something else: Maybe you're low in vitamin D, or you're having some kind of thyroid problem,’” Perez says.
Preservation Beauty’s treatment options go far beyond traditional Botox and fillers. Perez says collagen stimulating treatments, including Sculptra, have been particularly popular lately among her clientele. Sculptra is a bio-stimulating injectable that activates the body’s natural collagen production. “We also have Sofwave, which is ultrasound technology, and it stimulates collagen and elastin and hyaluronic acid,” Perez says.
In the short-term, Perez hopes to continue growing her client base, perfecting her consultative approach, and incorporating wellness into what she does. “Right now, we really just want to perfect what we have,” she says. She also hopes to open a second location. “Maybe in Southlake,” she posits. “Everybody has a different story that brought them into my chair… and I just love being a part of that journey.”
Livia Perez’s Top Three Tips for Med Spa Treatments
1. Do Your Research
“I give my patients or people who are inquiring [about treatments] a lot of education in the room, but I also want them to educate themselves. I give them a lot of facts, a lot of studies, and a lot of resources.”
2. Have Realistic Expectations
“You’re not going to [immediately] have face lift results. If you maintain what we are doing, it can buy you time until that time does come.”
3. Maintain Your Treatment Regimen
“You’ll age gracefully that way. You can’t just come [once] and then not come for a year and a half. You have to be very consistent with your skincare, with your treatments, with everything.”