Beauty & Spas in Ann Arbor

Two-tone lemon-yellow walls and plush white pedicure chairs create a homey backdrop for customers settling in to get their nails done at Nail Studio. Friendly, skilled technicians file, buff, and polish fingertips and toes, rechromatizing them with a staggering slew of hues, using OPI and Essie polishes. The staff amps up the pampering with facials, and refurbishes façades with eyelash extensions and waxing.

From the outside, Salon in the City’s pink frame and broad glass windows etched with cursive lettering evoke a classical, European feel. Inside, however, clients find themselves amid a sleek, modern studio where a team of more than a dozen experienced stylists updates hairstyles with deep-conditioning treatments, precision scissor cuts, and color treatments. The staff showers locks with professional hair products such as Sebastian and Pureology, the latter of which protects color-treated hair by eschewing all alcohol and sulfates.

Equipped with an arsenal of beautification products from brand names such as L'anza, J Beverly Hills, and Dermalogica, the hair designers and spa specialists at Luminosity Salon and Spa rejuvenate clients with services for hair, faces, nails, and bodies. Stylists revitalize hair with permanent waves, highlights, hair extensions, and keratin treatments. Waxing and laser hair-removal treatments rid bodies of unwanted hair. Specialists also soothe bodies with massage styles such as prenatal, hot stone, and personalized therapeutic approaches, which calm muscles more effectively than having them breathe into a paper bag. Elsewhere in the spa, staff members pamper hands with paraffin waxes and shellac polishes, spruce up feet with peppermint foot soaks and foot masks, and administer facials that help repair sun damage and reduce wrinkles.

Beneath a lofted zenith of upward-sloping walls that converge overhead to give the space a quaint yet roomy feel, stylists work diligently at their chairs, expertly snipping locks and coloring coifs. A lineup of waxing services—or a magnet for clients whose hair is literally cobalt—de-fuzzes physiques from eyebrows to bikini line to legs. Cream-colored walls, punctuated by light that drifts in from a trio of windows, lend an air of serenity to the full-service salon and spa. Aestheticians tucked away in private rooms cleanse and exfoliate complexions with six different types of customized facials. Massage services focus on hands, feet, and backs during reflexology treatments and dorsal kneading sessions that, like explaining to a child how one knows what one knows, lasts up to 90 minutes.

Against the minimalist backdrop of the white-walled salon bustles the secret force responsible for the complex works of hair, makeup, and skin artistry that emerge from the shop, where a staff of beauticians spends days focused intensely on gussying up clients. Special events and seasonal treatments, such as cold-weather facials and Valentine’s Day body crystals, serve as pleasant holiday reminders, unlike ice-cream-stained letters on the mailman’s birthday. The salon’s mirrored walls also occasionally reflect glimpses of newly minted bridal parties, who flock to the studio to transmogrify tangled locks into smooth cascades of tresses that trickle gently over shoulders.

Creation Station Hair Salon doesn’t resemble your typical salon. For one, the cozy space houses just two styling stations. Bigger isn't always better, though, and the salon’s intimate size allows its stylists to lavish their clients with personal attention. They specialize in haircuts and color services for men and women, but they can also give young children a sharp look to impress their next playdate.