Leola Davis describes herself as a “late bloomer” when it comes to skincare. While going through a mental health episode in 2019, she decided to try getting a facial. “I saw my skin transform, but also noticed a huge difference in how I felt after I came out of each facial—it changed my mental health, too,” she tells me over Zoom. The decision was easy from there: Davis, who was a sex toy educator at the time, changed careers and became an esthetician. Now, she’s known as “The Lezthetician” online—a playful portmanteau of her career and her sexual orientation.
“While going to aesthetic school, I was talking to a lot of my queer and trans friends, asking ‘Oh my God, have you ever had a facial? Have you ever experienced this?’ just gushing. But many of them told me they had never had one because they had felt nervous or had gone once and the practitioner didn’t know how to treat them. After hearing this, it became my mission to create a welcoming and safe environment that specializes and focuses on skin care for queer and trans people.”
And Davis did just that, opening Pansy Esthetics in Los Angeles. Everything about the experience from the moment you start your intake form is thoughtful—something Davis says, well, she put a lot of thought into. Paperwork asks for preferred name, pronouns, and body wrap size (Davis also wanted to ensure her studio was fat-friendly, so the bed and spa wraps are sized appropriately), plus detailed questions about the patient’s experience in their body, how they are feeling emotionally, and their goals.
@thelezthetician
