More than skin deep

Posted on 14 December, 2022

When she was four, Emma Levett was attacked by a dog. The savage bite left her with a facial scar that would come to define her interactions with people.

“Everyone used to look at the scar, not my eyes,” she says.

Plastic surgery at 15 would help, but then an episode of Bell’s Palsy a few years later saw half of Emma’s face paralysed for six months. Again, she felt acutely the impact of a facial imperfection on her confidence and self-worth—an insight that ultimately set her on a career in skin.

“When someone, especially on their face, has a scar…or acne…it wrecks their confidence. I know it’s affected them mentally.

“I like people to be able to walk into a room and look straight ahead, rather than down, or look someone in the eyes.”

Starting in beauty therapy in London at age 21, Emma worked in the industry for years—later retraining as a nurse—before combining her expertise in both medical and skin, working in plastic and reconstructive surgery, skin therapy and now specialising in advanced skin repair. Today—nearly three decades since she first started in the industry—she’s the owner of Lite Nurse Clinic in Braddon.

A nod to her background as a nurse—and reflecting her passion for light as one of the best ways to help skin—Lite Nurse Clinic is the product of Emma’s very personal vision to help women love, appreciate, and feel confident in the skin they’re in.

“For me, the best part of the job is people. Our team is committed to providing the highest quality services, latest and greatest skin therapies, peels and treatments—but it’s about more than that for me. I do actually care about the people I’m seeing.”

Ask Emma to pick her top treatment and it soon becomes clear that it’s like asking a mother to choose a favourite child. She’s truly passionate about what she does.

“I love resurfacing skin—getting rid of the old cells and bringing out the new ones. I love skin needling. But also, the FRAX Pro is a brilliant resurfacing machine. Oh, and I do Threads as well, and am about to launch a skincare product!”

The Lite Nurse Clinic team

Clinic practitioners Kena and Jess are equally enthusiastic and have their own loves when it comes to treatments: LED, medical skin peels, skin needling, microdermabrasion, hydrobrasion, IPL—to name just a few. Beauty Base’s Demi and Meraki Cosmetic’s Cathy round out the Lite Nurse Clinic team, offering specialised cosmetic tattooing and injectables, respectively.

But for Emma, it all comes back to her childhood experience. Now trained in cosmetic tattooing for scar camouflage, it’s become a specialisation and something she is truly invested in. I tell her I can’t get my head around how tattooing can minimise the appearance of scars.

“Most scars are either whiter than your colour, your natural skin colour, or they’re red. So, you can put pigment within that scar tissue if it’s ready to be tattooed, and colour match,” she says.

“It’s done very gently with a dotting technique. It’s very easy to do and it’s easy to get the colour in without injuring the skin too much.”

At the end of the day, says Emma, it’s about people.

“I know it sounds a bit cheesy but I suppose my passion is about making someone happy in their skin.

“There’s a lady I worked on for a good year, and we got to a point now where she said, ‘That’s it. We’re done.’ She looked at me and she had tears in her eyes and said, ‘this has been a problem for me for 30 years, and I now can say that it’s not a problem for me anymore. Thank you.”

“That, to me, is everything.”

Photography: Ben Calvert