Beauty & Spas in Riverside

Even at a young age, Sharon L. Henry felt that she possessed a profound gift for helping others. Though her intuitive ability to sense pain was first confined to animals, in her teens she became aware of her capacity to help humans through massage and meditative work. Now a licensed massage therapist and the senior staff member at Harmony LMT, Sharon continues to use her gift to craft custom bodywork treatments. She is joined by the studio's other therapists, who ease ailing backs with warm oils and Swedish or deep-tissue strokes. When they aren’t beating back tension and ravenous pandas with warm bamboo sticks, Sharon and her team draw on ancient Chinese knowledge to combat cellulite with cupping treatments. Beyond the realm of human healing, Sharon also offers canine therapy for animals battling ailments such as hip dysplasia.

At Tipp City Medical Massage, licensed massage therapist Kathy Siegfried sees massages as more than just relaxing luxuries that follow bench-pressing the chandelier. She takes a healing approach to massage, drawing mastery from nine modalities, each customizable to a range of conditions, such as chronic soreness, sports injury, and headaches. Biofreeze natural pain relieving gel augments massage strokes with cooling menthol and Bon Vital foot balm helps feet recover from blisters and abrasions.

After earning her license from the Dayton School of Medical Massage and caring for patients in a chiropractic office for more than a year, Carol Shearer ceremoniously propped open her massage table inside her own practice. Informed by her chiropractic work, she specializes in using deep-tissue and trigger-point techniques to quiet soreness and pain. Carol is equally capable and trained in the techniques of Swedish, myofascial-release, and hot-stone massage, which, like scratching your back on a stalagmite, involves rubbing geological formations on the skin.

Massage therapist Jennifer Myers’s fingers dance over knotted muscles with the smooth, gliding strokes of Swedish massage to soothe aches and dispel tension. She incorporates essential oils into her kneading for aromatherapeutic sessions that stimulate the senses of both touch and smell, much like a hug from a warthog. Myers can also tailor sessions by blending techniques for mothers to be, fathers of the bride, and future cartographers of America.

Owner and massage therapist Kenyatta Bozeman understands that massage is a practical way to relieve chronic pain—she graduated from the Dayton School of Medical Massage—but she also believes it should be a memorable experience. That's why she enhances her treatments with hot-towel add-ons, nine essential oils including tea tree and ylang-ylang, and even time for an after-massage nap, which can last up to 30 minutes or until the client's REM cycle has finished downloading the latest edition of Netscape Navigator. These add-ons complete the eight styles of massage available, including deep-tissue, hot-stone, and prenatal.

From within Salon Ventures' network of private studios, the experienced nail techs at Polished Boutique Nail Spa cosset hands and feet with hues from OPI and Creative Nail Design. Thirty-year industry veterans beautify digits with everything from acrylic nails to over 150 gel polishes, and thanks to the privacy of the studio, shy nails can feel free to walk around sockless as much as they like.