The Founder
Functional Biology Skin Therapist
Jamie Leigh is the founder and visionary behind THE LIVING™ Spa + Wellness — a Functional Biology Skin Therapist and pioneer of holistic beauty in the Southeast, known for her nervous-system-led, whole-body approach to healing, beauty, and the deeper intelligence of the human form.
In 2008, Jamie left Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for Atlanta to study the skin not as surface, but as a reflection of the body’s inner ecosystem. She earned her Esthetics license from the Atlanta Institute of Aesthetics — 1,000 hours, graduating with honors in 2009 — and in 2010 joined the inaugurating team of Exhale Spa at the Loews Hotel, where within six months she became Lead Esthetician and Trainer.
In 2011, a request arrived that would change the course of Jamie’s career. A woman from Hungary — newly enrolled in a clinical trial at Emory’s oncology center — was searching for someone who could give her a facial. She spoke barely any English. She was terrified to remove her headscarf and reveal her bald scalp. She had come thousands of miles for treatment, and she needed someone who could meet her with safety, gentleness, and skill.
Jamie took the call.
She had no formal training in oncology esthetics. No protocol to follow. No precedent to lean on. What she had was a deep, unshakable knowing — and she answered it, receiving the woman with quiet hands and steady presence.
In that treatment room, holding a stranger from across the world through one of the most vulnerable moments of her life, Jamie understood something the beauty industry had not yet awakened to: women walking through cancer were being underserved, misunderstood, and turned away by spas that lacked the training — and the heart — to care for them.
When the service ended, both women wept. And in that moment, Jamie made a quiet promise — to honor every woman like her, with compassion, with skill, and with the dignity of feeling beautiful through one of the body’s most critical fights.
Jamie has never forgotten her. To this day, she carries a dream: to open a first-of-its-kind Oncology Spa as a non-profit, where every woman walking through cancer can be received the way that woman from Hungary was — with quiet hands, steady presence, and the unwavering belief that beauty belongs to her, too.
Less than a year later, Jamie earned her certifications in Oncology Esthetics under Tina Y. McLendon and her international oncology training from Morág Currin. That work opened a deeper inquiry into the chemicals saturating the beauty industry and their effect on women’s health — the seed of the Holistic Skin Movement.
After stepping back to raise her two daughters — years she spent studying lymphatics, integrative practice, and energetic anatomy — Jamie opened MODERN Holistic Skin in Inman Park on September 1, 2018: the first true holistic skincare studio in Atlanta and the Southeast. In March 2019, The Atlantan Magazine featured the studio — and the brand broke through into major recognition. One year after opening, on September 1, 2019, she opened a second studio in Historic Downtown Roswell — running both until 2021, when she closed Inman Park to give herself fully to Roswell, where THE LIVING™ lives today.
That name was where it began — but it had become too small for the work. Over the last 7 years, the practice grew from the skin into the whole person: MIND, BODY, SKIN, and SPIRIT™, alongside Functional Wellness that now extends to children and to women walking through cancer. THE LIVING™ brings every belief and every training under one name.
THE LIVING™ is its evolution — weaving Manual Lymphatic Drainage, Connective Tissue Manipulation, Gua Sha, Facial and Vagus Nerve Reflexology, Buccal Sculptural Lifting™, Facial Cupping, Thai Herbal Poultice, and energetic healing into care that addresses not just the skin, but the nervous system, stored tension, and the body’s capacity to heal.
“For two decades, I have studied the skin — and through it, I have come to understand the body. My work is not about chasing youth, covering imperfection, or arriving somewhere new. It is about return — return to the nervous system, return to the lymph, return to the connective tissue and the inner intelligence that has always known how to heal. I want to accentuate women, not alter them. This is why I do not align with the Medical Aesthetics world. The skin is an organ — our largest external protector — and it should never be intentionally damaged in the name of beauty. Women deserve to know there is another way — one that supports the body instead of working against it. Real beauty does not live on the surface. It lives in the system beneath. And it is my honor to call it forward, one face at a time — to return each woman, not to someone else, but to herself.”
— Jamie Leigh, FounderJamie lives in Roswell, raising her two daughters — her greatest teachers. You’ll find her on Georgia’s hiking trails, on her yoga mat, or gathered around her table with the women she loves.
