North Charleston, SC Spa and Massage

After graduating from Miller-Motte Technical College with degrees in massage therapy and aesthetics, Amy Johnston opened Total Transformations to help evict tension from clients with meticulous massage and skin treatments. During massage sessions, soft music wafts through the air as she focuses on individual needs, customizing treatments to each client and never letting muscles fall asleep angry. As a master cosmetologist and Dermalogica expert, Amy skillfully nourishes skin with sugar scrubs, sea-mud treatments, microdermabrasion, and PCA skin peels. When she isn't mending muscles or purifying visages, Amy makes up for missed birthdays with ear-candling treatments.

Twenty years ago, Laurie Premo opened Premo's Barber • Spa as a modest, one-chair barbershop adjoining her home in New York State. Her business has since traveled south and expanded to include a private treatment room with a full menu of massage and spa services.

Antique hair dryers now hang over plush couches in the spa’s lobby, giving first-time visitors a hint of Laurie’s eclectic tastes. If that weren’t enough, an antique wooden workstation embedded with a granite sink completes the charm as Laurie grasps shears and trims locks or beards. Across the salon, none other than Laurie's daughter, Justine—a licensed massage therapist with practice in Eastern and Western modalities—eradicates muscle knots and soothes necks sore from stretching for fruit on out-of-reach trees.

As a teenager, Andrew Browder enjoyed playing soccer and wrestling—at least until he began to suffer pain in his knees and feet. He ended up in the office of an orthopedic surgeon, who didn't seem to understand his ailments and couldn't offer a solution. A decade passed before Andrew made his first appointment with a rolfing therapist. Almost immediately, the pain he had been feeling for years began to dissipate and his posture improved.

At his own rolfing practice, Andrew treats patients with the same techniques that did so much for his own health. During sessions, he manipulates the body's connective tissues, gently realigning joints with a focus on the entire body as opposed to the source of symptoms. Patients often visit because of one particular issue, such as an injury or posture thrown askew by a childhood spent sailing the high seas, but Andrew's treatments seek to restore all-around balance.

At Glitz-N-Glamour Eyelash Bar & Spa, the staff believes that cosmetic treatments not only have the power to beautify but also to relax. Clients can recline as aestheticians clear the pores with skincare products from Dermalogica, creating a clean palette for a decorative application of MAC cosmetics or a marker mustache. The team also applies eyelash extensions, meticulously grooms nails, and kneads weary muscles with a variety of massage modalities.