Beauty & Spas in Gresham

Chariets Salon & Spa owners Keri and Jami became fast friends in beauty school while apprenticing together at the elbows of some of the industry’s leading names. After graduating, the newly anointed stylists found themselves serving as independent contractors at The Bob Shop. Over martinis one night, they fatefully decided to found Chariets Salon & Spa, a name inspired by the Greek goddess of joy, charm, beauty, and martini bars.

Between the corner salon’s baby-blue walls, Keri and Jami compose color services, precision cuts, and keratin treatments, spritzing heads with Sebastian and Aquage products. Each of their shears’ deft movements are reflected in the salon’s glossy, dark-hardwood floor, simulating the experience of being a spoon that’s hovering over a large cup of coffee.

Skinspot's owner, Kelli, is both a licensed aesthetician and a certified holistic health coach. Thinking back to her own struggles with acne as a teen, Kelli began to research the intricate relationships between clear skin, complexions, and emotional well-being, all of which are tied to healthy habits and healthy eating. With this experience in tow, she invites clients to learn and benefit from her knowledge. In addition to wellness workshops, she offers skin-strategy sessions that shed light on common products and misconceptions. While leading grocery store tours, she reveals the best purchases from health-food stores and how to get into the secret, diamond-encrusted produce section.

To understand Rolfing, it’s helpful to examine Ida P. Rolf’s founding philosophy on the subject: “As in all matter organized into biological units, there is a pattern, an order in human bodies. Rolfers make a life study of relating bodies and their fields to the earth and its gravity.” While certified Rolfer Michael Valenti holds this notion dear, his bodywork approach is more direct. By manually lengthening the connective tissue through kneading techniques, Michael hopes to ease his clients’ chronic tension, improve range of motion, and make them all tall enough to reach the cookie jar.

In the cozy confines of a baroque-decorated salon, owner Liz Haynes leads a team of 10 skilled stylists who tend to clients amid delicate red star-shaped lanterns that dangle above retro stylist chairs. Staffers run products from locally owned Sidlab through locks, remove unwanted hair with warm wax, or ease tension with massages, leaving muscles as relaxed as a mattress salesman who’s been locked in the store overnight. A red and black chessboard table invites guests to challenge their brains as they await appointments, while a boutique stocked with handmade soaps, perfumes, apparel, jewelry, and other baubles offers one-stop gift shopping.

Voted Best of Citysearch in the hair-color and mani-pedi categories in 2011, Hair Architects prettifies the hair, nails, and skin of its clients with great success. Channeling years of experience, the staff administers a full menu of salon and spa treatments for which they adopt the latest techniques, including Japanese permanent straightening, Shellac gel polish, and Brazilian waxing. For special occasions, stylists use L’Oréal and Redken products to sculpt hair into elegant updos ideal for looking resplendent at weddings, making a splash at proms, or smuggling candy into a movie theater.

Like a fingerprint, a snowflake, or a social security number, every piece of body art created by Aardvark Tattoo Company's tattoo artists is unique. Unlike those at other tattoo shops who work from preset designs, co-owners Risa Stevens and Paul Thomas lead a team of artists who create custom designs based on clients’ input. Each artist specializes in a different style, such as portraits, photorealism, art nouveau, feminine tattoos, and proper spellings of extremely long words. Meanwhile, the shop’s piercing specialist safely and precisely helps clients add jewelry to any part of the body.