Beauty & Spas in Rancho Santa Margarita

The knowledgeable staffers at Planet Beauty stock the store’s shelves with enough top-quality beauty products to outfit a regiment of beauticians. Guided by experience as aestheticians, stylists, and makeup artists, they help guests navigate the roster of premium brands, which includes bad-hair-day-banishing products from Frederic Fekkai and Kérastase. Skincare potions from Dermalogica and Peter Thomas Roth clear facial canvases before applications of Smashbox blush brighten cheeks or Divaderme lash extender make eyelashes visible from orbit.

At Zerona Laser OC, a team led by Dr. Matthew Goda zaps away extra inches with the help of cold laser technology. During sessions, Erchonia's signature Zerona lasers liquefy lipids in stubbornly plump body areas, shrinking fat cells without affecting any other tissue or government-implanted homing chips. After each 40-minute session, extra water helps flush away the fat floating within intercellular space, with light exercise burning off what remains. To achieve optimal results, Dr. Goda recommends at least six sessions, spaced two days apart.

Dr. Charles Sarosy and Dr. Salma Aziz, DPM, take the lead at Pure Beauty Skin Care and Medical Spa, where an experienced team of doctors and nurses helps to banish signs of aging with nonsurgical treatments. Laser-based procedures scan the treatment spectrum, helping to smooth wrinkles and even out complexions on the face and banish scars, spider veins, and hair along the body. Injectables by Botox and Juvéderm aid in temporarily erasing fine lines, and products such as Latisse help to boost lagging lashes.

Taking their name from the 18% chromium and 8% nickel that transform regular steel into stainless steel, the staff of 18|8 Fine Men's Salons master grooming services to transform their clients into chiseled gentlemen. A greeter waits at the salon entrance with a complimentary beverage for each client and guides him to his stylist's booth or to a private or semiprivate treatment area for facials, massage, and other grooming sessions. Stylists carefully cut and color the hair of their clients, finishing Executive cuts and styles with five-minute shoulder massages and Bay Rum hot towels.

Technicians groom hands with MANicures and faces with straight-edge blade shaves and hot lather eos moisturizing shave cream. Guests can relax during 20-minute therapeutic massages to finish their visit and ease any tension built up in hands and forearms by excessive whittling.

The threading specialists at Muskan Threading & Beauty Bar uses a cotton thread to shape eyebrows and remove hair from the upper lip or full face. It's a gentler process than using hot wax or thousands of stickers to remove body hair. The beauty bar offers eyelash extensions, too, including individual, semi-individual, and strip lashes.

Helmed by board-certified specialists, Facial Aesthetic Concepts was recently recognized as the Best Place for a Nip and Tuck in the Orange County Register's 2010 Best Of Orange County and enacts glowing dermises with a variety of services. Fit for any skin type, the seasonal signature facial fortifies human fabrics with a blend of deep pore cleansing, steam, exfoliation, and gentle-cycle hydration. Meanwhile, the ultimate one-hour chemical peel exorcises the specters of dead surface cells to help halt acne, rosacea, stage productions of Casper, and sun damage. Safe and effective laser systems penetrate the cheeks in the full-frame photofacial (IPL), which works to stimulate collagen production, mend broken capillaries, and minimize hyperpigmentation.

Inside the Ayres Hotel and Spa in Mission Viejo, Athena Spa is a calming oasis with large and spacious cream-colored rooms. The full-service spa upgrades traditional spa treatments with deluxe add-ons. Facials, for example, intensify with the addition of freeze-dried seaweed compresses or the rejuvenating extracts of caviar and pearls. The contents of body wraps appear to be plucked from a five-star restaurant, with ingredients such as crème fraîche, papaya, pineapple-salt mousse, and pomegranate. In their signature massage, therapists don’t restrict customers to a single style of touch, but combine several modalities, including Swedish, shiatsu, deep tissue, and the grizzly-bear womp. In addition to these aesthetic treatments, an onsite yoga studio invites customers to relax from the inside out.