Ellen Bailleaux

For more than 15 years, my career has centered around aesthetics. I have worked alongside plastic surgeons and dermatologists, treated patients as a medical aesthetician and laser technician, taught future aesthetic professionals, trained providers, and eventually transitioned into medical aesthetic sales and national account management.

I have spent much of my professional life in an industry built around helping people look and feel their best. But it was my son, Beau, who ultimately taught me the most important lesson I have ever learned about beauty and confidence.

When Confidence Became Personal

Beau developed alopecia at a young age. As his mother, I watched something most people consider such a normal part of their appearance-hair-begin to disappear.

Eventually, alopecia became part of our family's story.

As a mother, there is an instinct to want to protect your child from anything that could hurt them. You want to make things easier. You want to make sure they never feel different, excluded, stared at, or insecure.

But Beau taught me something I wasn't expecting.

He taught me that confidence isn't about fitting in.

It's about knowing who you are when you don't.

Watching him navigate alopecia changed the way I viewed my career, my purpose, and even my definition of beauty. I had spent years helping people improve something about their outward appearance, but Beau showed me that the most powerful kind of confidence has to be built much deeper.

Confidence is walking into a room knowing you may look different and deciding that you still belong there.

It is choosing not to allow one part of your story to define the entirety of who you are.

And it is having the courage to show up as yourself-even when showing up as yourself requires bravery.

When Your Experience Becomes Your Purpose

Beau's journey has given me a much deeper understanding of how closely our outward appearance can be connected to the way we feel inside. It has also taught me that helping someone feel confident is very different from making them believe they need to change.

That distinction has become incredibly important to me.

I want the work I do to remind people that aesthetics should never define their worth. It should never tell someone they aren't enough. Instead, I believe it can be a tool that helps people feel empowered, confident, and more like themselves.

Beau has also shown me the power of embracing what makes us different. The things we sometimes wish we could change about our stories can ultimately become the very things that give us purpose, compassion, and the ability to connect with someone else.

What Beau Has Taught Me About Being a Woman

Interestingly, some of the greatest lessons Beau has taught me as his mother are the same lessons I believe women need to hear more often.

So many women spend years questioning whether we are enough.

• Are we successful enough?
• Qualified enough?
• Good enough mothers?
• Good enough wives?
• Strong enough leaders?
• Do we belong at the table?

I have asked myself many of those questions throughout my own life and career.

I've learned that confidence doesn't mean never questioning yourself. It means continuing to move forward even when you do.

Our differences are not weaknesses. Our sensitivity is not weakness. Our unconventional career paths are not weaknesses. The experiences that make our stories different are often the exact experiences that allow us to connect with and influence others.

Women don't need to become less emotional, less compassionate, less ambitious, less outspoken, or less themselves to become powerful leaders.

We need to recognize the value those qualities can bring.

The Woman I Hope to Be

My parents taught me the importance of hard work and believing in myself. Incredible mentors throughout my career took chances on me, educated me, and helped shape the professional I became.

Now I believe it is my responsibility to do the same for others.

• I want to be the woman who encourages another woman to raise her hand.
• The woman who shares what she knows instead of guarding it.
• The woman who notices when someone feels left out and makes room for her.
• The woman who reminds another woman that one difficult season does not erase everything she has accomplished.

And most importantly, I want Beau to grow up watching his mother live the same lessons I encourage him to live.

• Be yourself.
• Stand tall in what makes you different.
• Treat people with compassion.
• Use what you've been through to help someone else.
• And never allow another person's perception of you to determine your worth.

I entered the aesthetics industry because I loved helping people feel beautiful.

More than 15 years later, I understand that my purpose is bigger than beauty.

It's confidence.

It's connection.

It's helping people recognize something within themselves that may have been there all along.

And one of my greatest teachers in understanding that purpose has been my son.

Beau's alopecia may have changed the way he looks, but watching him grow has changed the way I see.

If I can use our story, my career, and my voice to help even one woman or child feel more confident in who they are, then that, to me, is influence worth having.