Mount Holly, NJ Spa and Massage

The techs at all eight Victoria's Nails & Spa locations have one thing in common: they pride themselves on running clean shops where clients can come to get their paws pampered. Techs do their best work at the foot of comfortable pedicure chairs, where they apply polish to toes to make them more attractive and less likely to be mistaken for weird bugs and stepped on.

Nestled inside Concord Health, EZZ Bodyworks offers a quiet respite where clients can expect individualized attention during personally tailored massages that work to relieve stress and physical pain. The studio’s trained massage therapists work with their clients to ensure that each massage addresses their individual needs, whether the client needs to increase circulation, relax knotted muscles, or ease the pain of a sports injury incurred while challenging oneself to an arm-wrestling match.

Inside a spacious home office warmed by a crackling fire, Venus Salon and Day Spa's three-person team uses products from brand names such as Schwarzkopf and Bioelements to restore softness and glow to clients’ hair and skin. In the salon, stylist Amanda Smart draws upon more than 10 years of experience to fashion updos, condition tresses, or permanently or temporarily imbue hair with custom color.

Meanwhile, licensed aesthetician Andrea exfoliates bodies with chocolate cherry sugar scrubs and faces with diamond microdermabrasions. She can also treat men’s skin concerns, removing blackheads and uncaught baseballs from pores during custom facials. Licensed massage therapist Mark kneads muscles with four variations on massage, including prenatal and hot stone.

Salon Norman-Dee's beauty services put the aesthetic back in anesthetic by letting you close your eyes and bliss out in a stress-free sanctuary while surgical stylists operate on you from head to toe, skipping only the gall bladder, because it's already sexier than it has any right to be. The salon's seasoned scissors-snippers can manage and mold any mop with a cut and style ($40+), coax manes into an anti-grav updo ($65+), or trim bangs ($10+) back into shape after a long winter of stress-eating. Prices increase for services booked with a senior stylist. Otherwise, skip taming in favor of total termination with waxing services such as an eyebrow shaping ($14) or a Brazilian bikini wax ($50) to prevent samba-related thigh burns. Non-hair-related beauty rescues include nail treatments such as the rejuvenating spa manicure ($24+) or pedicure ($45+).

Inside a 12,000-square-foot facility brimming with therapeutic waters and polished marble, visitors in bathing suits reap the time-honored health benefits of Russian and Turkish baths. The spa's 190-degree Russian bath invites bodies to recline on three tiers of pinewood benches and billows steam when guests pour water or toss old ice sculptures onto river rocks. The high-humidity Turkish bath, built from red brick and granite, refreshes bodies in conjunction with a cooling shower. Plunges into a 47- to 55-degree cold pool stimulate internal systems, and stints in private hydrotherapy massage tubs work deep layers of muscle with 132 jets of water.

Beyond the traditional treatments, visitors can have massage therapists knead muscles into a relaxed state, gild their bodies in a vertical tanning bed, or recline and sunbathe in an outdoor courtyard. Inside the onsite restaurant, chefs prepare Russian and American specialties, such as platters of lox and red caviar, lamb shish kebabs, and new york steaks. Juices freshly squeezed from fruit hydrate bodies, and a lounge with pool tables gives visitors a place to relax and use pool cues for something other than poking a drowsy bear.

Fantagio Spa doesn't feel like a spa as much as it exudes the air of a Middle Eastern palace. Potted palms and other tropical plants gently sway with each robed guest that shuffles by, as sand-colored brick and pyramid-shaped awnings remind them of an Egyptian pharaoh's quarters. In this palatial space, guests bask in soothing facials and mani-pedis, while treating their statures to tranquil massages and body wraps. Chocolate mud treatments awaken the body's senses and uncontrollable urge to nibble on its own arm with antioxidant-packed dark cocoa. Spa packages, meanwhile, combine facials, massages, and mani-pedis for up to four hours of blissful pampering.