Appel Aesthetics Impresses On-the-Go

A new aesthetic medical care company is making waves in the spa and beauty scene for its personable, mobile model. Appel Aesthetics, founded and owned by Josh and Alexis Appelstein this January, is an interesting side-step from their usual areas of expertise and day jobs – or in Josh Appelstein’s case, his night job, as he works in critical care at North Forsyth.

“Josh happens to work at night in the ICU every other week. So, we do a lot of our work with this business when he’s off,” said Alexis Appelstein. “It actually happens to fit pretty well in our schedule.”

“Certainly, knowing all the anatomy transfers over, the injection skills themselves,” said Josh Appelstein, describing the skills he uses at Appel. “We do a lot of, for lack of a better term, needle work in critical care.”

Alexis Appelstein, meanwhile, has a background in anesthesiology, which she credits for her experience with procedures. The business, which travels to its clients, visited the AJT office to provide examples of its services.

“Like you see here, we bring everything to the location,” said Alexis Appelstein, as her husband administered facial injections. “We also do private parties as well. We’ll bring the chair, we’ll bring the medication, we’ll bring everything that’s needed to have it be a medical procedure.”

“I love that they come to you,” said one client at the AJT office, “because when you go to a doctor’s office, there’s so much anxiety about being in a doctor’s office, but they come to your own space and you’re more at ease, and calm.”

“I think our skills compliment each other. I think she is more the forward face of the business, she enjoys the shmoozing aspect, while I enjoy more of the backend stuff,” said Josh Appelstein. “Ultimately, I wouldn’t mind transitioning to doing this full-time.”

“We wanted to partner together to create a practice that allows us to be creative, and I was very much interested and he was very much interested in aesthetic medicine because it’s very much focused on the regenerative side of things,” said Alexis Appelstein, who went on to discuss her intention with the company. “Our goal is not to make you look like someone else or look overdone, our goal is to make you look in the mirror and recognize yourself from when you were younger.”

To that end, the Appelsteins partnered with Epicutus, an Environmental Worker Group-verified skin-care company out of Princeton, N.J. – one of a number of companies they’ve partnered with since.

“One of the things we’ve noticed is it really has to be multi-modal. You really can’t just do one thing and be healthy,” said Alexis Appelstein. “Partnering with people in other areas of wellness really brings to light how much you have to put into it. But it can be easy, and it can be fun while you’re doing it, too.”

“I met Alexis a few months ago,” said Holly Nelson, an Epicutus representative who often comes with the Appelsteins. ”She actually reached out to me, and I love this because Alexis has a passion for non-toxic, but she’s a doctor so she definitely wants efficacious and therapeutic and powerful science. So, we matched, and it is a beautiful thing.”

Nelson and Alexis Appelstein both practice what they preach with their products and find it very useful for their individual skincare needs.

“I have Hashimoto’s, which is an auto-immune disorder, and I’ve always had dry skin. I don’t have dry skin anymore after using it,” said Alexis Appelstein. “I like to do whatever we do on myself, because I want to know that I’m seeing the benefits, and whatever side effects there are I can personally talk to the patients, too.”

“I actually suffer with cystic acne, which you probably can’t tell because I haven’t had a single problem since I’ve been using Epicutus,” said Nelson, though she also stressed that Epicutus products were not just for acne-prone skin, but for everyone’s skin health.

Clients at the AJT office had nothing but glowing reviews after getting facial injections of dysport, which the Appelsteins purport as “better than Botox.”

“Originally, I wasn’t going to do it, but they made me feel very comfortable and they were very knowledgeable, and I really liked them a lot.” said one staff member, who also noted how the Appelsteins followed up via video call a day later to check in.

“I felt like they were very knowledgeable, and they made me feel at ease,” said Ronit Franco-Pinsky. “I do like that they used clean products, that’s a very big deal for me – clean, green products without the chemicals that are so dangerous.”

“They came in, they were very friendly, they answered all of our questions,” said Robin Freedman. “They described the treatment spot-on and were very gentle with us. I would definitely use them and recommend them.”