Meet the skin clinic founder who has saved lives following her own cancer diagnosis and treatment
Meet the skin clinic founder from Northampton who has saved lives following her own cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Larissa Warren set up The Expert Skin Clinic in April 2024, having parted ways with two former business partners who had different visions for their futures.
The clinic moved from St Giles’ Square to Dallington Fitness in April this year, to make the business as inviting as possible and to develop the sense of community.
“I needed to be somewhere in Northampton that offered free parking immediately outside,” said Larissa. “People do travel from different places as what we offer is not widely available.
“Dallington Fitness is also the largest independent gym in Northampton and has a really nice community feel to it. It’s all about looking after your health and that is aligned with me.”
The Expert Skin Clinic is proud to offer skin and blemish consultations with a view to treating any benign findings, as well as looking after general skin health – including ageing, rosacea, pigmentation and acne, just to name a few.
Larissa is passionate about the role she can play as a cosmetic practitioner and although she cannot diagnose, she works under consultants to screen things that may need further attention from medical professionals.
An important part of Larissa’s work is the ‘Map My Mole’ service, which she introduced in October 2024 at around the time of her own experience with skin cancer. Larissa has since found deadly cancers with the service and is saving lives as a result.
“My main focus was advanced skin treatments using different modalities of machines,” said Larissa. “When my skin cancer happened, it was so insignificant in how it looked. If I wasn’t a professional, I wouldn’t have noticed and had my diagnosis.”
Larissa sent her Map My Mole report to the NHS and if she had continued to wait, she still would not have been seen yet as it was not a life-threatening type of cancer. Instead, she took matters into her own hands and went private.
“I leant into it,” said Larissa. “I look after my skin and this can happen. I shifted my focus to looking for skin cancers and treating blemishes, and I documented and shared my whole journey.”
Larissa opted to seek private treatment with Dr Toby Nelson, the founder of Map My Mole. As her cancer was located in the middle of her forehead, she wanted someone she knew she could trust.
The business owner said: “People trust in how I’m going to look after them by looking at my skin and I didn’t want a large scar. I felt seen and heard by Dr Nelson.”
They both felt passionately about using Larissa’s journey to educate their audiences, which was immediately met with positive feedback from the wider community.
As a result of her shifted focus to spotting cancers, Larissa is proud to have helped people reach diagnoses for melanoma – which has ultimately saved their lives.
Map My Mole returns detailed reports in between two and 48 hours, offering advice to the individual as to whether action is required. Larissa also takes her clients through the next steps when she knows they have received the report.
The specific surgery that Larissa underwent is conducted by only a few consultants across the country, and the skin cancer was 100 percent gone on the day of her treatment. This is because the tissue is tested at the same time to see if more needs to be removed.
“People think my journey is amazing and show gratitude for sharing,” said Larissa. “It shows it can happen to anyone and we should check our skin more. It can be tiny little things that you look at and think are nothing.”
Larissa now offers to check the skin of all clients across their bodies – even if they only come in for a facial treatment – as she realises she was missing a lot of cancers by not offering her expertise previously.
She continued: “A couple of years ago I never would have said I would find these cancers on people and save lives. If you act quickly, you can get rid of it.
“Early detection means you’ll live a long and happy life. With the impact of the clinic, I’ve now trained to be a global impact speaker.
“I’m taking this to the stage at events, companies and businesses for bigger audiences. People always come up to me at the end and say they’re going to get something checked. It’s so powerful.”
Looking to the future of The Expert Skin Clinic, Larissa wants to massively increase the visibility of the brand to help people on a much wider scale.
By developing even closer partnerships with Map My Mole and skin cancer charities, Larissa hopes to continue reeducating people to make healthier choices in her clinic and on stage.
“We can protect our skin and prevent skin cancer with education,” she said. “It’s the one cancer we can see and we don’t need to die from it. Our skin is the biggest organ and we can see it.
“If I had waited with the NHS, my skin cancer would have been left to grow for another year. Mine was not life-threatening but that could be the difference between living and dying for someone if there’s is cancerous.”