Beauty & Spas in Concord

The Barber Crew's rich leather couches and dark stained wood welcome men looking for a smartly decorated salon and a dapper cut. The warm and masculine environment fosters comfort and camaraderie, as customers sip on a complimentary beer or nonalcoholic beverage and shoot the breeze with their stylists or fellow males whose hair doesn't cut itself. Guests recline back, keeping one eye over the TV at each station as hot towels open pores and stylists shape scalps to one's preference. The hair experts trim or remove all the sundry hairs that creep up on a man, from waxing brows to trimming beards and mustaches. Their sessions can include a dash of testosterone-friendly products from American Crew or Paul Mitchell, and stylists offer paraffin hand treatments to restore digits to equilibrium before thumb wrestling a grizzly bear tilts the scales back toward unadulterated masculinity.

Both co-owners of HealthPoint RX help patients decide what to put in their bodies—family nurse practitioner Ginger Dailey by recommending medications and delivering injections of Botox and Juvéderm, and licensed dietician Annsley Ulrich by designing nutrition plans. Together, they run a facility where sclerotherapy vanquishes spider veins and appetite suppressants curb the urge to splice your genes with those of a cake. Perhaps most importantly, their monthly nutritional counseling outfits clients with personalized meal plans, a practice that helps them lose weight without endangering their health.

Owner and aesthetician Katrina Barringer opened Skin Essentials Laser and Medical Spa in 1999, and has since recruited an elite team of eight that includes a physician and a licensed acupuncturist. Each of the women on staff boasts a specialty such as bamboo-fusion massage, eyelash extensions, or aromatherapy that smells like colors. Barringer's interests are of an academic complexion, as she penned an award-winning paper and is one of 67 laser technicians without an M.D. degree to be accepted into the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery.

Housed within an inviting red-brick home, Cassandra’s Family Salon and Day Spa ushers clients into spacious rooms filled with natural light. Hair services commence at sleek white porcelain shampooing stations, and facials and body-sculpting treatments transpire in private treatment rooms dimmed by sturdy curtains. The salon also comprises a toddler-friendly playroom with books, toys, and a racecar activity rug where kids can get an early start on parallel-parking skills.

Licensed massage therapists with a minimum of 10 years' experience each knead curmudgeonly knots and help correct postural imbalances with massage modalities influenced by a variety of international techniques. In Tribal sessions, therapists grab bamboo sticks to smooth out tight muscles and communicate lullabies to sinews via Morse code. Zen sessions employ hot stones and towels soaked in green tea and essential oils to release deep muscle tension and restore bodily balance. Specialists pour warm, organic coconut oil over stressed sinews to facilitate the Cashmere massage while calming nerves, fighting fatigue, and softening skin to hush sensitive sweaters. Clients revel in deep-tissue primordial pampering during the Ancient of Days massage, which is performed on a floor mat and combines Fijian barefoot massage with Thai, Hawaiian, and Persian techniques.

Throughout her personal-training career, Vikki Artuso always longed to start her own gym. With the help of her brother, an army veteran, she opened Better Body Women's Fitness with the goal of offering women a relaxed environment with plenty of resources to get fit. Today, she channels 20 years as a professional trainer with her experiences as a wife and mother into equipping her gym to welcome all women, whether they're new to fitness or looking to push themselves further. When ladies walk into Vikki's fitness center, they don't have to fend for themselves. The staff is on hand to answer questions, provide guidance, and help them learn to use the cardio equipment, weight machines, free weights, or cable machines. Vikki, Joy, and a team of instructors also lead group classes that get students swinging kettlebells, hustling to step aerobics, and furiously pedaling spin bikes away from the motorcycle class that takes place one room back. In addition to coaching one-on-one workouts, personal trainers also help their clients meet their fitness goals with nutrition guidance tailored to their lifestyles. Complimentary childcare hours enable clients to focus on reaching their sweat quotas as their kids do activities, play games, and put together puzzles in a space with a window for them to see the gym. There is also a separate room for infants, who prefer to lift weights alone.