Gertie Hillman puts her best face forward with new skin therapy business

“I woke up one morning and said, ‘Gertie, you look old.’”

That was the motivation for 75-year-old Gertie Hillman to take her decades of nutritional and nursing experience, and open The Jet Plasma Center, offering non-surgical anti-aging skin and beauty treatments. 

“I don’t do facials,” she said. “I call it ageless radiance.”

The new business is located in Vivian’s Style & Spa at The Crossings in Lewes.

“I was in Dallas for a wedding, and I needed a facial. I met an esthetician who was telling me about this little gadget called a Jet Plasma,” Hillman said. “When I came back, I looked for it here in Delaware and couldn’t find it.”

She did find a fellow registered nurse doing Jet Plasma therapy in New Jersey. 

“After one session, I saw a difference, so I signed up for eight,” she said.

Hillman said Jet Plasma produces 14,000 volts of plasma energy to stimulate collagen, tighten skin and remove wrinkles. 

“You’re not going to look 35, but you’ll look better than when you came in,” she said.

Hillman is no stranger to healthcare and nutrition, as she’s been a registered nurse for more than 25 years. Hillman spent time as an operating room and critical care nurse.

“I was ready to take a break, if not early retirement. One day at work, a guy said, ‘Gertie, you need to teach people how to eat, and I have the name of your store, ‘Gertie’s Greengrocer,’” she said. 

So, in the early ’90s, Hillman opened Gertie’s Greengrocer on Second Street in Lewes. She said it was the first full-service health food store in Sussex and Kent counties.

“We had tofu ... nobody knew what tofu was. I would buy different cheeses that nobody had. We had fish from Alaska. I had area chefs in once a month, and we set up a little area in the back of the store and they would make food from the foods we had. I brought in international experts on nutrition,” she said.

“I became an herbalist, did research, studied and learned how to teach people how to eat,” she said. “The more I got into nutrition, I thought there’s a lot more to do.”

She then started her own nutritional practice.

“I had a doctor sign off; [patients] could go to the hospital, get their blood drawn and a urine sample. We would send it to a lab, get results and do a whole profile, and make a multivitamin to fit all their needs. They would see a difference in a week,” she said.

That practice led to Hillman becoming an international lecturer and published writer on nutritional issues.

She said she was forced to close that business during the recession of 2008. She then took a refresher course and returned to nursing in 2018 at Bayhealth. She worked in the COVID unit during the pandemic, which she called traumatic. She still works three 12-hour shifts a week at the hospital.

Hillman is now using all her experience to help women and men look younger.

“I just did a gentleman who was going to a wedding [who had] a lot of loose skin. His jawline was more defined when he left. He was very happy,” Hillman said.

She said Jet Therapy will also grow hair.

Hillman said she is the only one in Delaware doing Derma Frac, which uses micro-needling to deliver serum to the skin, and the first in Delaware using a machine called Skin Classic.

She said she also does skin peels and other non-invasive procedures. 

“I don’t do anything where your skin falls off [or] that causes any type of pain,” she said.

Hillman said the treatments she is doing are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but are not covered by insurance.

“Being a nurse has really kept me humble,” she said. “I’m your advocate. Nurses are advocates for their patients, and I don’t take that lightly. I’ve adopted that to this.”