Massage in Alaska

The best way to describe Pamper Me Spa is a strategic color eruption. Between pink and neon yellow-checkered floor tiles and a vibrant fuchsia ceiling, the walls display an enormous abstract cityscape, with sponge-painted skyscrapers and a blue twilight backdrop. Amid these glitzy accents, skilled stylists bedeck tresses with bold color highlights and customize haircuts to clients’ preferences and lifestyles. The salon also offers private rooms for soothing massages and waxing services as well as a free play center for children and the Muppets who follow them, awaiting the right moment to burst into song.

The massage therapists at Wellsprings Medical Massage focus on medical bodywork that’s designed to reduce pain. Upon establishing the source of the pain with an evaluation, they ease aches by drawing from several types of massages, such as hot stone, trigger-point therapy, and myofascial release. Techniques and tools such as accucupping and the Miracle Body Buffer further heal and relax clients. Afterward, they extend postmassage relief by arming clients with detailed aftercare instructions.

The staff at Alaska Nails, a professional nail salon and school, paints digits in dapper shades while pampering limbs with a variety of spa services. Clients and comrades can perch on multiple pedicure chairs or in-house high wires as technicians brush coats of polish onto outstretched phalanges. Add-ons such as long-lasting Shellac, hand and foot massages, and paraffin dips soothe appendages as patrons repose near the salon's hanging tapestries. Adept artists can also scribe custom nail designs onto tips, ranging from glossy bow ties to accurate topographical maps of the moon. Alaska Nails is open seven days a week until 6 p.m. or 7 p.m.

Stationed at her stress-free oasis inside Salon Glow, massage therapist Liz Morse draws on her extensive training and years spent working in a chiropractic office to dissipate tension with therapeutic massage techniques. Like a poorly trained team of synchronized swimmers, Liz changes her strokes constantly, mixing a variety of modalities into each of her therapy sessions. Her techniques range from flowing Swedish strokes to concentrated deep-tissue pressures, encompassing specialized methods that target neuromuscular junctions or melt away stress with heated bamboo. Along with her regular services, Liz triggers mutual relaxation with couples massages and tends to sore muscles on their own turf with in-home treatments.

Kristen and Seth Wood first experienced the therapeutic benefits of acupuncture as patients, although it wasn’t long before they established expertise behind the fine, sterile needles. After studying the medical art form, they opened their own studio, Snow Blossom Acupuncture, in order to help share acupuncture’s empowering effects. Now joined by a naturopathic physician, a certified rolfer, and a licensed massage therapist, Kristen and Seth are able to increase their clients’ levels of well-being holistically through a blend of Chinese medicine and Western therapies.

Community-acupuncture sessions allow patients to remain fully clothed and relax in a group-treatment setting, although private treatment rooms are also available for more in-depth sessions. Cupping, moxibustion heat therapy, and Chinese herbs rely on historical techniques for relieving pain and bolstering constitutions. For more spa-like sessions, the therapists can also use classic Swedish massage to soothe overstressed muscles and aromatherapy oils to revitalize fading scratch ’n’ sniff stickers.

With the rise of environmental illnesses and cancers in recent years, Dr. Thomas Taylor and his staff at Alaska Healing Touch have a healthy distrust of chemicals. That's why virtually everything that might touch clients' skin during their massage or chiropractic evaluation is chemical free and organic. Organic, food-grade massage oils come completely free of allergens and fragrance, as do the soft, organic sheets—which have been cleaned in a facility equally devoid of chemical fragrances and detergents. Dr. Taylor's massage expertise is treating auto- and work-related injuries.