By Christina Orlovsky, senior writer
Nan Brown, RN, and Lil Bogdan, RN, were not only nurses with a
strong interest in holistic health and years of experience consulting with burn
patients. They were also women who realized that the skin care products they
were personally using were doing more harm than good to their own skin. They
decided to take matters into their own hands by launching a line of products
that combined their nursing knowledge, holistic passion and personal needs all
in one pure and natural package: L’Athene pure anti-aging skin treatments.
Brown and Bogdan's different backgrounds—Brown’s as an
Army nurse in shock trauma and Bogdan’s in head and neck oncology—were
complemented by their interest in holistic medicine. Brown worked in a holistic
center in New York City and Bogdan did aromatherapy before their experiences came
together when they consulted patients with burns and serious skin
conditions at Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore, Maryland. Both realized then that they shared an
interest in treating conditions as naturally as possible.
“We found that it is really possible as nurses to take a love
of helping patients and whatever your passion may be, to combine it with what’s
very much a part of nursing—mind, body and spirit—and to take it into any
different area you choose,” Brown explained.
“That’s something not many careers offer: the different
variety and things you can do as a nurse, tapping into your specialty, your
passion and your creativity and doing it from the ground up. Nurses pitch in all
the time on a hospital floor and they’re capable of doing so many facets of
helping,” she added. “We decided to devote our lives to making beautiful skin
possible for everyone and it was so logical to start from the ground up—looking
at it holistically and truly helping people.”
Brown and Bogdan launched L’Athene in 1997, after gathering a
team of professionals to do research and formulate products for their “pure,
natural cosmeceutical line,” which, Brown explained, “uses ingredients that are
close to dermatology-strength products to make changes.” The products are sold
solely in physicians’ offices and medical spas.
“What makes L’Athene unique is that everything in our products
is pure—vitamins, minerals, fatty acids and antioxidants,” she continued. “We
don’t have the chemicals other products have, so we work with the body
completely and not against it.”
Bogdan added: “We know it to be true that pure nutrient skin
care works with our body so there’s a harmonious relationship. There’s a synergy
to it and our research and our testimonials show that.”
The L’Athene team, who are now based in Mt. Pleasant, South
Carolina, are grateful for the ability to help people by doing something they
love and using their nursing experience to help people and educate them on how
to most effectively and healthfully care for their skin.
“We went to great lengths to take what we found out, make the
products and provide education to patients through a treatment usage card and
three-step starter kit. Because it’s simple, people comply,” Brown said. “That’s
very much a part of our nursing expertise. In our own experience, we saw that if
discharge information was confusing, patients didn’t comply. We know that if
something is done simply, it makes it easy for someone to see results.”
As Brown and Bogdan continue to enjoy their success and their
educational opportunities, writing a book about the mind, body and spirit
aspects of health and beauty, speaking to packed booths at medical conferences
and winning awards including the “Skin Care of Choice” designation from Spirit
of Women Hospital Network, they explain that the chosen name of their company
says it all about what they have to offer.
“Athena is the goddess of wisdom, health, purity and reason,”
Brown said. “We were so drawn to that concept because it fit so beautifully with
our mission. Then we found out from an editor that in Sanskrit Athena meant
nurse. It wasn’t intentional, but it has been a very fitting name.”
For more information, visit the L'Athene Web site.
© 2007. AMN Healthcare, Inc. All Rights Reserved.