Tru Skincare recently featured in Boulder Daily Camera January 2013 issue.
WHAT DOES YOUR SKIN SAY ABOUT YOUR HEALTH?
By Aimee Heckel
That’s another way of saying, “You are what you eat.” Which means I must eat sandboxes, dust, brittle splinters and bloody knuckles. Or I lack fish oil. One or the other.
Sass runs Tru Skincare in Boulder, a company with a different approach than the norm. Instead of studying at the Aveda Institute or taking another mainstream pathway, Sass decided to study at the Concentric Healing Institute in Boulder.
She studied the healing arts of the skin.
The institute, known as CHI, is the only school in the nation with this approach to beauty, she says.
That wasn’t the beginning of her journey, however. Before moving to Boulder, Sass was a professional makeup artist in the Chicago area for 25-plus years, with big-name clients, including American Girl and Lands’ End. She decided to move to Boulder to be closer to family and reset her life, she says.
But she had learned something over the years that she couldn’t unlearn, and that is what drew her on the nontraditional path. Sass’ daughter had struggled with severe eczema and skin disorders since she was a baby. After traditional practitioners pushed on her “every drug on the counter” — steroids, various antibiotics — Sass says she decided to dig deeper and figure out what was the root cause; after all, eczema is an auto-immune disorder, she says.
As soon as she eliminated dairy from her daughter’s diet and began approaching skin care from the inside first, she says her daughter’s conditions went from “cracks, welts and scratching her skin raw to pretty darn normal.” Today, her daughter is 21, living in New York City.
“Once you’ve seen that — that was my calling,” Sass says. “That’s why I got into skincare, not just to sit here and rub a face and throw creams on it. It’s to fix issues.”
She specializes in acne, aging skin, men and hormonal changes. When she works with clients, she spends a lot of time analyzing the client’s lifestyle, history, current skincare, nutrition, digestive issues and stress, and she recommends supplements and food suggestions to help bring the body back into balance.
Then she approaches the skin from the outside, using the Sanitas skincare line (based in Boulder). Sometimes, she might recommend a peel or another treatment.
“My job is now to be an educator to my clients and empower them.”
