Delaware Guide and Deals

While searching for a location for her salon and spa, founder Janet Conigliaro fell in love with a historic Victorian house on the edge of Wilmington. Deciding the domestic setting would help her clients feel at home, Conigliaro started her business, and more than a decade later, she and her staff are still snipping tresses and pampering skin amid the dwelling’s wood floors, ornate silver mirrors, and flowing lavender and green curtains.

The stylists employ products from Redken, Goldwell, and Framesi as they shift hair shades and craft updos for weddings, proms, and nights of partying at the city’s trendiest gas stations. The rest of the staff stays busy, too: nail technicians layer fingertips with long-lasting Shellac polish, skin specialists concoct custom masks for troubled skin, and massage therapists soothe knotted backs with Swedish, hot-stone, and sports massages. In the boutique, visitors can find jewelry and handbags to add to the wax statues of vacationing Supreme Court justices they sculpt in their free time.

Voted 2012's best men's barber and salon by the readers of Delaware Today, Studio One Eleven surrounds fellas in relaxing, masculine ambiance while polishing handsome exteriors. Haircuts, coloring services, and dandruff-fighting scalp treatments keep dapper Dans looking even dapperer, and waxing streamlines chests for pool season or removes chest-clinging koalas for sweltering summer months. Spa services such as massages and facials melt away stress while keeping skin supple with essential oils and moisturizing emollients. The studio's focus on luxury extends beyond specific services, with complimentary chair massages during every visit, free hairdo touchups between scheduled visits, and an onsite putting green to practice shots while waiting for appointments.

When Pamela Troyan opened Salon Secrets Spa in 1993, she set out with a clear goal: to provide clients with a refuge from their daily pressures via the best possible salon and spa experience. She staffed her salon with highly trained stylists and technicians, many of whom studied at elite academies such as Vidal Sassoon, Toni & Guy, and Aveda. She also enrolled Salon Secrets Spa as a certified Aveda Signature Salon, meaning that all of their services (except nail coloring) would employ all-natural, organic Aveda products. With the salon fully staffed and stocked with elite stylists and luxe products, it was time to open. Since then, not much has changed: Pamela still oversees a team of well-educated stylists and technicians who’ve developed a loyal following of repeat customers and amateur paparazzi. Stylists customize looks with organic Aveda color services, as well as mani-peds, paraffin treatments, waxing, and Xtreme Lashes eyelash extensions. The spa staff soothes bodies with facials, peels, and microdermabrasion, as well as massages and body wraps. The med spa also beautifies patients with cosmetic services such as skin rejuvanation, VelaShape cellulite reduction, and spider-vein treatments performed or supervised by a certified plastic surgeon.

BodiTalk Massage's licensed massage therapists believe that positive touch has the power to relieve stress and tension. To this end, the professional kneaders incorporate techniques from various modalities to address each client's needs—they might glide their hands across backs in slow strokes to stimulate circulation, or flex their fingers, thumbs, or elbows to relieve tensions in thick, deep muscle tissues. In addition to delivering private and on-location massages, staff members invest themselves in the Wilmington community through workshops, fundraisers, and impromptu street parades.