Biography of Karen D. Jennings
It took a painful burn injury in her teen-age years to propel former fashion model Karen D. Jennings to her present calling as an educator on the topic of skin care and the effects of premature aging. Jennings, a California-licensed esthetician, has devoted more than 15 years to researching the causes of - and remedies for - women's and men's skin problems.
"Consumers today are very confused about how to take care of their skin," says Jennings, who resides in Orange County, Calif. "I've made it my mission to help educate the public and clear up as much of the confusion as I can."
Holder of a degree in business, health and aging from California State University Fullerton, Jennings is a popular speaker at women's networking groups and seminars throughout California and around the nation. She is founder and president of Karen D. Jennings Skin Care Treatments, a fast-growing company that specializes in making and distributing highest-quality anti-aging lotions and cremes that work. Jennings also writes a column for various newspapers called "Skin Clinic" in which she answers readers' questions about achieving healthier, younger-looking skin.
Jennings' interest in skin care is personal as much as professional. At 16, on the eve of an important school dance, she suffered gruesome second-degree burns to over 90% of her face and neck as a result of accidental overexposure to a tanning lamp. Her injury was not permanently disfiguring, but nevertheless greatly accelerated the aging of her skin. By her early 20s, her face began looking years older. "I was devastated," she recalls. "I didn't want to be wrinkled like a prune. I was too young."
"So I devoted myself to years of research, finding out what makes skin look that way and what could be done about it. From there, I started giving seminars, sharing with others what I had learned. I know I've helped many people over the years who were frustrated by skin disorders."
Jennings religiously practiced what she preached, to good effect. A test conducted on her skin gauged Jennings' skin now to be more than a decade younger in appearance than her chronological age. "I know that you can really change the quality of your skin, if you do the right things for it," she says. "The challenge is in knowing what the right things to do are. I want to make sure people are clued in properly."
Jennings, trained and certified by the Skin Culture
Institute of New York, was previously a partner in the skin care treatment division of Dr.
Helen Pensanti's medical practice in Tustin, Calif., among the largest and most successful
in Orange County during the late 1980s.