Spas have become so prevalent that it’s hard to imagine a new take on pampering.

But Lydia DiCello has found one. She’s created a spa with an exceptionally personal touch — by offering massage treatments and facials to only four clients a day.

That means customers don’t have to wait in a busy waiting room, and she can attend to each service with a focused, unhurried approach.

“I didn’t like waiting at spas and felt myself getting anxious when I had to,” said DiCello, 31. “I wanted to provide wiggle room between clients, so if an appointment took a bit longer, that was OK. I want to really be able to concentrate on the treatments.”

For DiCello, owning a spa is the result of a journey that led down a few different paths. A graduate of Aurora High School, DiCello got a bachelor of science degree in exercise physiology and anatomy from the University of South Carolina. Then she headed to New York City where she modeled for a year, having signed with the well-known Ford Models.

She moved back to Ohio to get a master’s degree in education from Ursuline College, then worked in medical and pharmaceutical sales.

But after a while, DiCello, who lives with her lawyer husband, Nicholas, in Cleveland’s Little Italy, decided she wanted a different type of career.

She went to beauty school at the Brown-Aveda Institute in Mentor, and something clicked. “I loved doing it, loved the manual labor of it and the holistic approach,” she says. “And it helps people feel good.”

She went on to get her license as an aesthetician, so she could provide facials, massage and waxing services.

In opening her own spa, DiCello said a number of things were important to her — including that it be as “green” as possible, which also meant offering organic products. She picked the Eminence Organics line, with ingredients made from organic vegetable and fruit pulps and extracts.

At Pure Skin, the ambience is cozy but not oppressively so. The rooms — on the second floor of a building in downtown Chagrin Falls — are smartly furnished with attractive re-purposed items. Those include a bistro table and chairs for enjoying a cup of tea, and a roll cart from a now-closed local hospital that holds waxing products. Her mother-in-law donated her taupe and olive-green striped drapes, right off her windows.

If the spa feels homey, it’s partly because DiCello and her father put the place together — they painted the walls, put in the hardwood floors and changed the lighting.

A client feels soothed just by entering. DiCello offers a beverage, like green tea or, on a warm day, some lavender lemonade.

She’ll have her clients soak their feet in a foot bath with bath salts while discussing what might be bothering them physically. Then, it’s time for the treatment — a facial ($65), or maybe an enzyme peel ($95) or a 75-minute relaxation massage ($90).

DiCello also offers a variety of waxing treatments, from brow ($15 and up) to Brazilian ($65 and up).

DiCello, who also does makeup, has become a favorite of local brides and their attendants. The powder room at Pure Spa features a number of the photos she took of her favorite looks.

Joyce Calabrese, designer sales manager at the Beachwood Place Nordstrom, first heard of Pure Skin from a woman who works for her. She’s become a big fan.

“Lydia’s attention to detail and her follow-through are so impressive,” says Calabrese, who lives in Beachwood. “She started in a tough market, and she’s making it because of the caliber of service she offers. Lydia has made it a personal and lovely place.”

Pure Skin & Spa has been open a little over a year, and DiCello says it’s word of mouth that’s filling her appointment book.

“This place is exactly what I wanted it to be,” she says.

Full Article and credits

Day Spa, Ohio Day Spas

Bedecked in more than $2 million of decorative glass, massage chairs and a shower that rains in color, Mitchell’s Salon & Day Spa will open its new location April 15.

The salon, at the developing Kenwood Towne Place in Sycamore Township, is about a third larger than its 21-year-old space down the street on Montgomery Road, and includes the added services and breathing room to use it. Employing a staff of roughly 80, salon founder and owner Deborah Schmidt expects to add 10 more, and sales are projected to increase over the next 12 months by 10 percent to 15 percent (prices for services will not change).

“We definitely want this to be a resort atmosphere,” Schmidt said, after passing through the granite-counter bathrooms and dimly lit relaxation parlor, with its chaise lounges of muted gold. “When you are here at the spa, we want you to feel like you are at a resort.”

Schmidt and Michael Batchelor, general manager at Mitchell’s, took time a few days before the opening to provide a tour. Schmidt invested $2.2 million in the new space, and it shows. The 13,600-square-foot location, with its expanded manicure and pedicure rooms, spacious salon and 10-room spa, is adorned with quartz-tile walls, locally produced art and custom-made glass throughout. The wall of the main entry is slate, and the Mitchell’s sign hangs against backdrop of highly polished copper.

Accessing that main entrance may take a while, however. Kenwood Towne Place, also anchored by Crate & Barrel, the Container Store and Kroger Marketplace, has been mired in liens and lawsuits filed by subcontractors who say they have not been paid in months. But several of the tenants are up and running, and Mitchell’s is easily accessible from the elevators in the parking deck.

“This is a magnificent location,” Schmidt said. “I think the building will ultimately be successful. It just ran into a hiccup.”

The Mitchell’s space can best be described as handsome. It is not gender-specific, not ultra-feminine like many salons and spas. This is intentional, Schmidt said. Roughly 17 percent of her clients are men, and the figure is growing. So there is a men’s locker room along with the women’s, and the colors, lighting and fixtures all were carefully selected to appeal to both.

Overall, the style is minimalist. The tables and bureaus, for example, are dark paneled and the colors lean toward warm earth tones. The chandeliers are simple wheels of dark copper, and the floors are porcelain tile, one of the few surfaces that can withstand the chemicals and beatings a salon dishes out.

Many of the amenities at Mitchell’s current location – the refreshment area, the Macintosh computers, the catered lunches – will carry to the new locale, but with more space. The salon in particular is much more capacious, each of the 29 work stations is equipped with two right-angle mirrors and streamlined cabinets to handle laundry, trash and anything else that might pull a workers from her space. Of the added amenities: a photo booth, where clients can have their new style photographed, or e-mailed, for future reference. It will be available within 30 days of the salon’s opening.

“You haven’t seen anything,” Schmidt said. “Wait until you see the spa.”

Separated from the rest of the salon, the spa is beyond a glass-paneled door. Down a long hallway stand 14 rooms, for treatments, relaxation, changing and, at the very end, dining. Schmidt walks through each, pointing out the custom cabinets that hide the hot stones and facial scrubs. Gilded art work and glass-tile trim adorn the walls. Four rooms are for massage, five are for skin treatments, and one is the water treatment room, where a client can have a luxurious vichy shower, with seven massage heads, followed by the multi-colored waterfall shower, also new.

“It feels,” Schmidt said, “like you died and gone to heaven.”

The dining room, which seats 17, will be catered by the Cheesecake Factory next door, at Kenwood Towne Centre.

Running a salon of this size requires a lot of maintenance. Behind the scenes, two industrial-sized washers and dryers handle dozens loads a days. There are five water heaters, and a kitchen where incoming food is plated and garnished (dishes from Crate & Barrel).

A salon of this size also requires a lot of staff. So in addition to the stylists and manicurists (of which there is always a shortage), there is a graphics designer, a vice president of education (for staff) and a bridal coordinator. Schmidt shares her office, she said, with the head of information technology.

Winding up the tour, Schmidt remembers that Mitchell’s was recently chosen by Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG) as one of five U.S. flagship salons to carry its Sebastian products. With so much going on, it just slipped her mind. She still had to say goodbye to the old location.

Mitchell’s closed its former location, at 8118 Montgomery Road, April 11. The staff held a sleepover there that night.

Mitchell’s operates locations in Hyde Park, West Chester, Northgate and Tri-County and also owns Pump Salon in Norwood. A second Pump is opening May 15 at Kenwood Towne Centre in the former Walden Books locations.

Full Article and Credits

Mitchell’s Salon & Day Spa Corporate Profile

Day Spa, Ohio Day Spas, Spa, Spa Openings Cincinnati beauty salon, Cincinnati day spa, Facials, hair salon, pedicure - Mitchell's five locations in Cincinnati Ohio

Time and privacy might be two of life’s greatest luxuries, and they are artfully integrated in the experience guests receive at Spa Walden.

When Bonnie Barenholtz, who owns the Inn at Walden with her husband, Manny, first had the idea of creating a spa here, she knew she would incorporate those two principles.

Spa Walden opened last spring, and today, guests are indulged not only by services such as massages and facials but by the setting itself.

What: An intimate, elegant day spa (or overnight spa, if you stay at the Walden Inn). There are 23 overnight suites at the inn and four villas off-site.

Where: 1119 Aurora Hudson Road, Aurora.

Call: 330-995-9SPA (9772)

Prices: Sixty-minute massages and 60-minute scrubs are $125; prices higher for longer services.
At many day spas, you change in a common dressing room or locker room. Here, a spa guest is led to a private suite, where a bubbling Kohler tub awaits. You are given a plush robe and a half-hour to soak in the bath salt-scented water. Then you can just drink tea and read Vogue while lounging on a pillow-strewn window seat, awaiting the massage therapist.

“We’ve arranged it so people can’t help but have to relax,” says spa director Jenessee Taylor. Taylor used to work for celebrity skincare expert Sonya Dakar and moved here from California to take the job of spa director at Walden.

After a massage that lasts a full 60, 90 or 120 minutes, you can have a steamy shower or just continue relaxing for another half hour. Even if your massage is just 60 minutes, you’ll have your suite for two hours.

Bonnie Barenholtz recalls her pet peeve when she’d get a massage, as she has at day spas around the world.

“Afterward, the therapist would say, ‘Take your time getting ready,’ but you’d hear them waiting outside the door with a bottle of water,” she says. Not here — you really can take your time. And bottled water is in the room’s mini fridge.

The architect for the Walden Inn and Spa was John Terence Kelly, the famed Cleveland modernist architect who died in 2007. Donald Doskey did the interior design for both. Golden yellow, deep greens and chocolatey browns — earthy, substantive colors — seem to bring the outside in.

Manny Barenholtz, who also made a point of visiting spas around the country before building Spa Walden, noted that many spas favor stark white colors and marble, typical ways to convey luxury.

But for Spa Walden, he wanted something more soothing and earthy — a look that paid tribute to the greenery that abounds in this part of Aurora, the heart of the Western Reserve. So favored materials include bamboo and natural stone.

“The mission here is grass-roots luxury,” says Taylor. “There’s definitely an Asian inspiration, but we also wanted to incorporate the countryside.”

Another thing that’s different here is that spa guests choose their treatment from a menu, which is based on one of five themes: nourishing, balancing, tranquility, energizing, rejuvenating.

“Once they read the descriptions, people know which one they need,” says Taylor. The selections have been chosen based on energy chakras, but you don’t have to busy yourself with the details. One will resonate for you.

So, if you choose “rejuvenate,” for example, the music that plays in your private suite will create that feeling. Also customized: the aromatherapy scent used in the bath salts, the color of the water in the high-sided tub and the lotion the massotherapist uses.

The products used, though, also change with seasons, just as our skin does, Taylor says.

As at most spas, massages are the favored treatments here, followed by facials (which also incorporate some massage), then body treatments, including scrubs and wraps.

There’s also a hair salon here, and a separate area for manicures and another private area for pedicures, on the level below the private suits.

There are nine private suites, plus three large enough for couples.

After your treatment, you can linger in the spa lounge, across from the centered fireplace. Order a glass of wine or a spa lunch: perhaps a grilled chicken wrap with carrot-ginger gazpacho, followed by mini-chocolate macaroons.

All the attention paid to architecture, service and ambiance details here have been noted. Walden is the only AAA five-diamond inn and spa in the Midwest.

Full Article and Credits

Ohio Day Spas, Ohio Resort Spa Aurora Ohio Spa

This article brought to you by http://www.spavelous.com

In the rushed and busy world we’ve created for ourselves, it’s hard to find time for quietness. And when those down times do come, sometimes we can’t let go of the day enough to relax.

Aesthetician Carla Beard knows how the power of human touch can release tensions and anxieties, and make relaxation a simple thing to find.

As an aesthetician, Beard offers all of the services of a massage therapist, plus a whole lot more. Her license allows her to also perform facials, body wraps, waxing services and make-up application.

She offers relaxation massage and healing touch therapy in a quiet room inside Country Hair Creations and Day Spa in Woodville. Healing Touch is a skill Beard learned at a course sponsored by The Bellevue Hospital. It is often used on cancer patients.

“Healing Touch uses energies to promote healing,” she said. “A lot of people don’t know how to calm themselves down, how to relax. On my table, with the music and the lights down, they can relax.”

One client comes to Beard because she has trouble sleeping, so Beard helps her to relax. “When she leaves, she always says, ‘I know I’ll sleep tonight,’” said Beard.

Essential oils like eucalyptus, lavender, sage, and peppermint, are used to relax and heal. “They help decompress people,” she said. “If I have the room smelling like lavender, they’ll instantly calm down.”

“I work on feet to break down the toxins. Peppermint helps to stimulate.”

In addition to massage and healing touch, Beard also offers complete body exfoliations, which include facials and body wraps. “I do a salt and sugar scrub, cocoon the body in warm towels, and then rub with oils and lotions.”

Body treatment choices also include thalassotherapy seaweed and honey body polish. Beard offers several different types of facials to meet individual skin types.

She uses mud for pain and seaweed for detoxification, and offers cellulite treatments.

Often, bridesmaids will purchase spa treatments for the bride. Beard recently did a body treatment on a bride who had trouble tanning, but wanted to look and feel great for her wedding day. After the spa treatment, Beard applied tanning lotion and tanning spray. “She looked golden. She told me it was one of the best treats she’d ever had,” said Beard.

Making people feel beautiful is as important to Beard as making them healthy, so she offers make-up and false eyelash services. “I do a lot of make-up and false eyelashes for proms and weddings, and for people who just want to look good for the weekend.”

Beard offers gift certificates for all of her services. Services are $45 and up for an hour of treatment.

“The elderly love this,” said Beard. “I work with them getting on and off my bed. My bed raises and lowers. I have one 90 year old client that comes in once a month.”

Finding a way to relax isn’t as difficult as it seems. An hour with Beard can make all the difference in an anxiety-filled day.

“People don’t realize the healing effect of intense quietness,” she said.

Spas in Ohio

Woodville Ohio Day Spas

Day Spa, Ohio Day Spas, Spas in Ohio