East Lansing, MI Spa and Massage

If a cornucopia could grow to the size of a city block, it would look something like Lansing City Market. On a typical day, baskets brim with peppers, squash, and turnips from local farms, and homemade pies flaunt fillings as sweet and colorful as the rainbow that fathered Shirley Temple. Nearly 20 year-round merchants chat with passersby, telling the stories behind handmade wares such as soaps, chutneys, and garden statues. At Caruso's Candy Kitchen, kids ogle hand-dipped chocolates and bins of bulk candy, which teem with gummi bears and Jelly Belly jellybeans. Adults gather around the tables at Uncle John's Fruit House Winery, drinking in the flavors of Michigan's orchards with free samples of cherry wine and apple brandy. To make shopping as enjoyable as possible, Market Place Massage's trio of therapists melts muscle knots and undigested cheese logs with trigger-point therapy and flowing Swedish massage strokes.

Like a successful quarterback who got his start tossing a football on the back lawn, owner Kian Edmonds unknowingly began his career by giving massages to family members. Emboldened by the positive feedback, he decided to embark on formal training and soon found work in hospitals administering massages to exhausted EKG machines. Now the head of Heaven's Door, Kian mollifies aches and relaxes tense bodies with deft aromatherapeutic massage.

Resident massage therapist Alicia Bruce frees long-held tension from her clients during private sessions. Her carefully trained fingers ease aches during relaxing Swedish massages and precisely place heated basalt stones during hot-stone massages to warm deep-seated muscles that are sore from their owners posing as Atlas. Reflexology sessions focus on trigger points in the hands and feet, working to release congestion throughout the body and stimulate circulation. Alicia also packages massage sessions with spa services such as mani-pedis or facials to create an afternoon of pampering.

Massage therapist Aja Fortenberry trained in the 1,100-hour Baker College program, where she learned to incorporate Swedish massage, active stretching, and deep therapeutic bodywork to ease tension. Now, with more than 10 years of experience, Aja provides clients with her healing touch at Verity Life Massage Therapy. She offers her signature Swedish massages in 60- and 90-minute iterations as well as short chair-massage sessions.

Throughout her training and more than 13 years of professional experience, certified massage therapist and Lighthouse Massage Center founder Elizabeth Everett has learned to treat patients with more than just her hands. She performs 11 types of massage, including Ashiatsu oriental bar therapy, during which she uses her feet to deeply manipulate muscles in the back, glutes, and legs. Her hands work in tandem with warmed stones during hot lava-stone treatments as wafts of smoke from white sage fill the air with a calming scent. Raindrop-therapy sessions use the aromatic blends of Young Living Essential Oils and ancient Lakota techniques to target both physical and energetic toxins acquired from carrying whiny backpacks. Elizabeth, who has used her capable hands to soothe the stage-weary muscles of musicians such as Alice Cooper and Alicia Keys, is also a certified yoga instructor, and leads Vinyasa classes at Hilltop Yoga.

Salon 130’s owner, Jena—a 28-year veteran of the beauty industry—graduated from MaChere Beauty Academy and worked as a hair-color educator before opening her full-service salon and spa. Along with a staff of licensed manicurists and aestheticians, certified massage therapists, and experienced stylists—including Niki LaBelle, who earned the _Lansing State Journal_’s People’s Choice Award for Best Stylist in 2011—she pampers patrons with a range of spa and beauty services.

Pale green trim and pastel walls invoke a playful ambiance in the salon, where stylists cut, color, and coif hair. Manicurists pamper hands, feet, and eagle talons with traditional, Shellac, and acrylic nail services, including one-hour pedicures set in private spa rooms. In the spa, three soothing facials and two body wraps purify skin, and chemical peels, spray tans, waxes, and makeup applications augment clients’ beauty. Cares wind away as massage therapists draw on Swedish, deep-tissue, sports, and trigger-point techniques to knead away aches and pains.