Shawnda Dorantes

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES: Beauty Lounge Founder Grows Staff, Services in ‘Uncertain Times'

Shawnda Dorantes is not one to shy away from challenges.

The San Diego native triple majored in Biological Sciences, Women's Studies and Nursing at California State University San Marcos in the 2000s.

Dorantes went on to work as a nurse in the acute care setting for more than eight years, specializing in medical, surgical, telemetry and hospice care, before founding Beauty Lounge Medical Spa in 2018, where her approach is to seamlessly enhance each client's natural beauty and self-confidence.

Dorantes, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, has been a high achiever for decades. Recently, she successfully scaled her business over the past four years – seeing it through the Covid-19 pandemic -- and provided 10 new medical professionals with steady employment during those uncertain times. She also expanded the full-service aesthetic spa to a brand-new, state-of-the-art facility during the height of the pandemic.

Dorantes was names by the San Diego Business Journal as 2022 Business Woman of the Year for private small companies with five to 49 employees.

Proven Success

A powerful force in the beauty industry for the past 15 years and a registered nurse of more than 11 years, Dorantes' tailored expertise and innovative service offerings have paved the way for Beauty Lounge's proven success.

The medical spa is best known for its non-surgical PDO thread lifts and minimally invasive lip and nose transformations. Beauty Lounge's service offerings include Botox, fillers, laser treatments, microneedling, non-surgical facelifts, body contouring, teeth whitening and results-driven skin care treatments.

She previously worked in an acute setting for more than eight years as a certified hospice and palliative nurse. She then made the decision to combine her passion for beauty and nursing and open her own medical spa, intending to provide safe aesthetic treatments to her patients and improve their confidence.

Dorantes is a proponent of continued education, constantly earning more certificates and doing additional medical training so that she can offer her patients the newest advancements in aesthetics.

In similar fashion, she also stepped up to help Del Norte High School make its Biomedical Pathway Program graduation ceremony special by donating the funds for each graduating student to receive an embroidered white lab coat.

Committed to Philanthropy

Dorantes is an avid supporter of local youth sports, serving as a team sponsor, and she regularly donates to neighborhood football, volleyball and lacrosse programs.

Committed to philanthropy, Dorantes also participated in a medical mission providing medical aid to remote villages throughout Cusco, Peru with Flying Doctors of America in 2017.

In 2022, she made generous silent auction donations to Father Joe’s Villages' 37th Annual Children's Charity Gala and the San Diego Food Bank's 10th annual Chefs, Cork & Craft Gala: Hang Ten.

In honor of Mother's Day earlier this year, Beauty Lounge partnered with the San Diego chapter of the national charitable Latinx organization, MANA, to provide nine mothers who were nominated by their daughters with complimentary facials.

Her entrepreneurial spirit was ingrained at an early age when she began helping her parents run their family-owned business. She attributes their guidance to her robust career as a Latina entrepreneur. Dorantes, a former longtime in-demand makeup artist, began as a Beauty Advisor for Estee Lauder and later became a freelance professional makeup artist for several other prestigious cosmetic lines.

After securing multiple credits in film, print, and television for her work, she joined Estee Lauder's Regional Artistry Team while working her way through college.