Lake Forest Park, WA Spa and Massage

Aveda’s botanical-based products are at the forefront of any treatment at Ra Salon & Spa. Massage therapists use its line of aromatic oils and nourishing lotions to knead knots, and stylists pull from its line of nourishing conditioners and styling creams when trimming split ends, adding color, or twisting hair into enchanting updos. Likewise, aestheticians use its eco-friendly serums to provide gentler forms of facial treatments. The line’s natural extracts take the place of glycolic peels to fade pigmentation and tourmaline sloughs away dead skin cells in lieu of microdermabrasion wands or tiger kisses.

Spa Blix is a full-service salon dedicated to providing maximum beauty impact and minimum environmental impact. The classic manicure and pedicure includes a complete extremity spa dunk, hand massage, and salt scrub followed by mineral mask for the feet. After the included cuticle care, nail reshaping, and buff or polish, fingertips will be poised to install contact lenses without fear of impolite eye gouging.

A beauty-industry veteran for more than 20 years, owner Inez Gray fosters a creative environment at Habitude Day Spa and Salon, where her energetic staff beautifies clients with customized hair-, skin-, and body-care services. Her team of innovative stylists and aestheticians enhances exteriors with the aid of Aveda and Bumble and bumble products and goes to great lengths to ensure each client's experience parallels the calm obtained from a bedtime story read by Morgan Freeman. While clients indulge in such services as essential mani-pedis and Brazilian blowouts, Habitude's eco-friendly space wraps around them, helping to soothe their senses with its contemporary western decor and eco boutique packed with fair-trade gifts and trinkets. The salon makes regular donations to its good-karma bank by continually giving back to the community and by serving as a training ground for up-and-coming green stylists, who earn their shears through the Crux Academy.

Downtown Banya looks and feels like an old-world bathhouse, but it's blessed with some distinctly new-world amenities, including a bistro that serves dumplings and beer and spa services such as massages and facials. The main draw is a sauna composed of two rooms—Russian and dry. A third-generation Russian stove maker crafted the Russian sauna, which has a low-humidity environment that allows temperatures to soar higher than they could in other types of saunas. The wet sauna, meanwhile, dangles the prospect of aromatherapy—clients may buy herbs in the lobby and waft them throughout the room so that no one will question why their hair smells like chicken fingers. After they’re done loafing around the sauna rooms, clients can dip into cold pools that help the skin maintain elasticity. Or instead, they can sink into a warm jacuzzi equipped with a flat-screen plasma TV overhead.

Owner and aesthetician Cortney Moody draws on more than a decade of experience to share her passion for skincare through custom treatments performed with natural botanical products and essential oils. A blend of products determined by a thorough skin analysis swathes faces to fight aging, reduce acne, or ward off dead skin cells. Her collection of facials fight specific skin concerns and add-on treatments employ ingredients such as baobab oil to reduce fine lines or vitamin C to revive ho-hum skin. The extreme lip treatment softens chapped pouts, and a collagen eye treatment unpuffs puffy eyes and sends dark circles to the space between Saturn's rings.

Within Blend Herbal Spa's coffee-hued cottage, aestheticians attend to guests with a menagerie of services. Patrons cruise past potted herbs, ready to conceal or remove unwanted hair with waxing, threading, and tinting treatments. Cobalt-blue bottles conceal products from NYR Organic, which flaunt cleansing and age-concealing abilities and rely on the natural powers of plants unlike an overbearing scarecrow.