Tiffany Moon, MD on Beauty Standards as a Doctor and Female Entrepreneurship

Tiffany talks about her relationship with beauty as a Chinese immigrant and female doctor, and her latest entrepreneurial venture as the founder of LeadHer Summit, a women’s leadership and empowerment summit taking place in Dallas from November 8-10, 2024. 

Below the Surface is an ongoing series featuring friends of Motif, who are on their path to greatness doing things they love. We sat down with our friend, Tiffany Moon, M.D. — mother, wife, entrepreneur, anesthesiologist, and TV personality. Tiffany lives in Dallas with her husband, 4 children, and 2 dogs.

Who are you?  

I am Tiffany Moon. I am a wife, mother of twins, an anesthesiologist, clinical researcher, and entrepreneur.

Tell us about your relationship with beauty and people in your life that have shaped beauty for you.

I was born in a small town outside of Beijing, China. I immigrated to the United States when I was six years old. I had a typical immigrant upbringing — my parents came over to have a better life for themselves and for their children. Everything was about academic achievement, which through the lens of my parents, was the key to success in America.

From a young age, I saw my parents working really hard and busting their tail. My dad was in school full time, and also washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant for $2/hour and then coming home to study. We grew up being very frugal and knowing the meaning of money. As far as beauty goes, I learned as a child that beauty was frivolous.

Those who cared about beauty didn't care about academic achievement. And I really thought that they were mutually exclusive. 

Of course, since becoming a teenager, young adult, and now an adult with children of my own, my relationship with beauty has changed vastly. I care about what I look like, I love skincare and perform it nightly as part of my self-care routine. When I was young, I only ever saw my mother doing self care when she was washing her face and putting these lightening and brightening serums on her face. For people of Asian ancestry, there is a belief that lighter skin is better. I don’t believe that skin color has anything to do with beauty so I'm glad that that's not really a construct here but it’s funny that you can grow up with certain constructs that are given to you by your culture and your upbringing. And then, as you come into your own and start to make decisions for yourself, some of those can change.

I agree that there is this dichotomy between being a smart or pretty girl, or that a smart girl can't be pretty. And it's frivolous to try to be. I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you overcame that. 

Well, you can do both. I think it’s insulting to make women choose this dichotomy of smart or pretty. It’s like people think you can’t possibly be both — or if you're smart, you shouldn't care about being pretty. And if you're pretty, then you can get away with being dumb. It's just so trite and outdated.

As a female professor who works in an academic medical environment in anesthesiology, which is male dominated, I felt in the early part of my career that I needed to look, act and speak a certain way for the surgeons to take me seriously. I wore minimal jewelry, a little bit of makeup, and tried to look older. I spoke without any slang. I didn't make jokes, I just kept it very prim and proper, because I felt I was being judged in a way. 

Little by little as I became more established in my career, I started to reveal the different layers of my onion, and talk about beauty and skincare on social media.

When I first started doing it, I did get some criticism, like “It looks bad when you make funny skits with your kids or you're always buying new purses and shoes. It makes doctors look bad”. Which is absurd because they only say this to women — there’s a double standard. Men can play golf and go to UFC but when I talk about my 7-step skincare routine, it’s frivolous and unprofessional despite the fact that I still provide competent, compassionate care to my patients. These are my hobbies and my version of self care. 

Tell us what self care means to you? 

I used to think that self care was going to a yoga retreat or hiring a meal delivery service or something like that. But true self care comes from within. And it looks different for different people. For me, I block out two hours on Sunday, look at my calendar, meditate, and read. It's blocked in my schedule. And my family knows it. They call it mommy time. My husband will get groceries with the kids or take them to the park if the weather is nice, but I have set that boundary with my family because this is what I need to set myself up for success in the week ahead. 

I love beauty treatments. On vacation, I always book a spa appointment. Self care looks different to different people. Unless you are proactive about it, and set that boundary, it's not going to happen. 

Tell us about your current entrepreneurial ventures.

The first entrepreneurial thing I ever did was a wine company, Three Moons Wine, with my husband. We started our own private production small batch winery in 2009. In 2020, I turned my hobby of candlemaking into a business called Aromasthesia because I make these triple scented candles that are hand-poured in Dallas and non-toxic. I started selling those on the internet in 2020 and within a year, we were a six figure business and I was like oh my gosh, am I an entrepreneur now? I did not know what I was doing at the time and I made so many mistakes, but I’ve learned so much.

This year, I created a women's leadership and empowerment summit, which is called LeadHer Summit. I wanted to create a conference that was for women from all different professions – medicine, business, finance, law – to come together to learn from one another.

I was tired of going to the same old stale medical conferences that are so boring. I started this by reaching out to all my girlfriends who are leaders in their respective fields and asking them to speak. Most women want to help other women rise and uplift one another. The Summit is at an amazing five star hotel – there will be a glam gala on Saturday night, plenty of opportunities for networking, panels, and breakout sessions. I’m even going to be giving away an Hermes Birkin from my personal collection at the Glam Gala! 

What do patterns mean to you in your life? What are some patterns that you're looking to make or break in your life right now? 

It’s important to build good patterns or habits. Your habits become who you are. If you have a habit of being late, if you have a habit of forgetting and then subsequently having to apologize to people because you dropped the ball or you forgot there was a meeting, if that becomes a habit and not a once off thing, that's what you start to become to people. By and large, I want to be known as someone who is capable, competent and reliable. 

What are your expectations from the beauty industry and from beauty brands? 

Traditional beauty standards that we were fed on TV in print for decades are slowly changing. I love to see women of color, women with different body shapes and sizes and with imperfections, like cellulite and pimples and hyperpigmentation. That is how real women look. I'm tired of seeing a perfect 20 year old white girl with blonde hair, perfect skin, no cellulite, it's just not realistic and I don't want that to be the ideal to which my daughters aspire to. I love the brands that are more inclusive and are more transparent – that have truth in advertising and aren't making bodacious claims. 

What brands are resonating with you right now?

I love Motif. I love the packaging. I love using the product because it does not irritate my skin.

I'm very careful with the products that I use because I have sensitive skin, but I love Motif in terms of skincare. Revive has an eye cream and moisturizer that I like and I tried Augustinus Bader last year, it was good. I love the resurfacing pads from Elemis. I love sheet masks – my favorite are from SK II which I’ve been using for a decade. I recently started using Timeline’s skincare system which is scientifically-backed and it’s been amazing especially since my skin is sensitive to retinol. If you looked at my bathroom counter right now, there's probably 15 brands of skincare on there because there are so many good products coming out right now and I just want to try them all.