I was born and raised on the south side of Milwaukee. I remember loving all things beauty since I was a little bebe. I was always wearing the most extra stuff (usually sparkly and furry) and was always the one her friends would come to when they needed their makeup/hair done. I went to St. Veronica’s Catholic school from kindergarten until 8th grade. This was where I met most of my current besties, we have all been friends for over 25 years!

My parents were divorced, however you would never know it. They continued to be best friends all throughout my childhood in order to give me the best life possible for the situation. The older I get, the more & more I admire them both. My mom remarried my late step dad, Mike, who was the best second father I could have asked for. In fact, my parents were such good friends that my dad would go on vacations with my mom and Mike! I was so blessed to have 3 loving parents. My dad was the creative entrepreneur and I am thankful for his genes! We would dream about opening a candy store together one day, so Sweet Tox is pretty dang close.

I went to Oak Creek High School where I played soccer, tennis and basketball! I ended up tearing my ACL when I was 15 and required surgery (this is when I discovered I wanted to be a nurse).

During high school I also met and started dating Brady our CFO (Chief of Fiancé/Finance Operations). He has been such an amazing support to me all throughout my life and we have had the amazing pleasure of growing together over the past 12 years.

I was accepted into UW-Milwaukee’s BSN Nursing program and I graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2015. I had always talked about opening up a med spa with my college friends because I knew I wanted to do something different with my degree, but it was just a figment of my imagination at this point. After graduation, I started in the CICU (Coronary Intensive Care Unit) at St. Luke’s Hospital. I had intentions to either get my Nurse Practitioner’s license or my CRNA license— both which would require high level acuity nursing like the ICU.

The ICU was fascinating but dark and sad. It was only about a year after being there that I knew this wasn’t something I wanted to expose myself to every single day. I wanted something more positive and uplifting.

The honest to god truth is that I had an AWFUL day on my unit that would change my life forever. A patient ended up passing away because of negligence and physicians not listening or taking me seriously. Here I was, working my butt off to literally SAVE LIVES and I still wasn’t making the kind of difference that felt good to my soul.

This was when I googled “happiest nursing jobs” and when I saw “aesthetic nurse” I knew exactly where I belonged.

Some of my friends from the CICU remind me of all the long night shifts I spent studying my injection books! It took a whole year of this before I could inject because of legalities and getting my business plan in place. During this year I researched every single aspect of injecting. I would have the best needles, the best devices, the best trainings. I never. gave. up

After my night shifts I would go home and sleep for 2 hours and then get up and head to inject. It’s crazy how fast things happened and eventually I was getting burnt out from my CICU nightshift job and wanted more stability in my schedule for my clients.

I then applied and got a position at a plastic surgery office and this was one of my favorite jobs. I was able to have normal hours and worked with some of the BEST humans. You’d think that I would get some injecting experience here, but NOPE. It did, however, open my eyes to my own level of expertise. After working with some of the plastic surgeons who would “inject” on the side, I realized how much more experience I had compared to them (sorry, humble brag). They would even ask me for advice! It’s so funny when a patient would come in and say “I only let a plastic surgeon do my botox” not knowing that I do these injections and see 50x more patients a week than what this plastic surgeon was doing! Surgeons are brilliant in surgery— where they make their magic happen, but there’s something to be said about someone who does injectables day in and day out instead of once every couple months.

I would work 8am-4:30pm at the hospital and then go to Sweet Tox and work from 5-10pm. Can you guess what happened next? Yeah I burnt out. My health started to deteriorate. I was diagnosed with Meniere’s Disease, an inner ear issue (from stress, duh) where I lost half of the hearing in my right ear and started having debilitating vertigo spells/passing out episodes. I had to get a hearing aid and this was when I decided to quit my job and take on Sweet Tox full time.

Quitting my hospital nursing job was one of the most freeing and best times of my life. My mom was freaking out, but I was absolutely certain that this was all going to work out.

As soon as I quit, I had more time to fit everyone in and my business BOOMED. You might have remembered my 12 ft x 12 ft room inside of Salon 147. After 2 weeks of being off and on my own, I knew it was time for bigger and better, so I signed a lease for the first portion of the New Berlin space. The place that was there before me (a happy ending massage parlor) was gross and it took about 8 months to renovate. I had a kick butt grand opening party where literally there were so many people, there was no space to move in that 750 sq ft. spot!

When I opened, I also hired my first employee, Dani. This girl is my DAY 1. Dani totally changed the game for me. She was a great assistant in the rooms and would take amazing care of the patients when they would check out. We actually had too much fun. Think about working with your bestie every damn day. Not soon after I opened, the pandemic hit and we had to take an unfortunate hiatus.

As soon as we were allowed to come back, the schedule was too much to handle. I was so booked and I knew I needed help. Insert Ashley. Ashley was my first injector hire and this girl has such a special place in my heart. She was everything and more and it is amazing how she has become such an integral part of Sweet Tox.

A couple of months after we returned from Covid, our next-door neighbors decided to end their lease. With us rapidly growing, it made perfect sense to knock down some walls and combine two spaces for an expansion less than a year after our first one. Oh- AND I decided to go back to school to get my Master’s Degree in nursing so that you can call me a Nurse Practitioner.

This was when my family and friends were like “can you just sit still for like 2 seconds?!” After the expansion, we decided to bring on more hands and get as much help as we could. Brady quit his job at Northwestern Mutual and we took on working together. I was terrified at first, but it has been such a beautiful blessing getting to be teammates with him. We got engaged and bought our second home and adopted our girl LuLu (a sheepadoodle).

Since opening our doors, we have been building the perfect Sweet Tox team and it is growing faster than I could have imagined, hence the purchase of our building in Menomonee Falls. Here we will continue to build on the Sweet Tox brand through quality and community with new opportunities and treatments.

We now have multiple nurse injectors, estheticians, admin, assistants, management, in-house marketing, HR and leadership positions making Sweet Tox what it is. Our team is the foundation of what makes all your experiences here so special.

When I invite someone to be a part of Sweet Tox I mean it as a type of forever thing. I want nothing more than to grow old with these babes. These guys and gals have changed my life and I am so grateful for each and everyone of them.

PHEW, that’s a lot of information. If you made it this far, thanks for reading. If you can’t tell, this is my absolute passion.

There is something magical in the air at Sweet Tox that keeps growing each and every day with every new bestie that walks through the door. I am so excited for you to be a part of it, too.

Thank you. I love you.

-Katie