WORKING -- Brittany Thacker

-- Story by Paul Clinton, photo by Don Leach

SHE IS

Healing the faces

All the right lights

In the back room of a Costa Mesa beauty parlor, Brittany Thacker is

working on a client.

Lights have been strategically placed around a supine woman wearing

only a white towel, plastic booties and a headband to keep the hair out

of her face.

Thacker works methodically, smoothing out the woman’s shoulder and

neck muscles. Thacker is preparing her for one of her trademark clay

facials.

She starts by cleansing the face, scrubbing off the surface layer of

dead skin that is unseen to the human eye. The warm booties are put on.

A big step to come

After a 15-minute massage that includes a full treatment of the face

muscles, Thacker will do the extractions -- clearing out the blackheads

and other oily buildups.

Then the big step. The clay mask will cleanse the woman’s face in a

way she can’t do at home.

“You make the skin red,” Thacker said, about the massage. “It cools

down [the face] and turns it back to its normal skin tone.”

Thacker has been working on faces for two years, since she graduated

from a cosmology school’s rigorous 600-hour course that took almost five

months to complete.

She plies her trade, as a licensed aesthetician, at the Templeton

Salon in Costa Mesa.

She is trained in body waxing, lash and brow tinting, reflexology and

many specialized facial treatments.

A bit of skin care

Thacker graduated from Newport Harbor High School in 1999. The

20-year-old lives in Costa Mesa.

She is still building a client base, but she loves the work.

“I love doing facials,” Thacker said. “It’s really relaxing for me.

It’s not stressful at all, and I love helping people.”

Lindsey Cooper is the 22-year-old laying on Thacker’s table this time.

Cooper, who also graduated from Newport Harbor High, said she realizes

the importance of caring for her skin.

“I’m scared of aging,” Cooper said. “I definitely don’t want skin

cancer.”