San Marino, CA Spa and Massage

Licensed aestheticians, massage therapists, and permanent-makeup technicians work as a team to beautify clients from the forehead to the smallest toenail at Uptown Face and Body Care. Dull complexions disappear after infusions of vitamin C, minerals, and glycolic acid during facials and peels. Tense bodies melt under Swedish or deep-tissue massage techniques, and a misting of tanning spray makes people look as if they have spent the day basking in the sun rather than watching reruns of Are You Afraid of the Dark.

Candlelight illuminates a swirling jacuzzi at Spa Pura, a 7,000-square-foot relaxation mecca where clients shed stress as they don a robe and slippers before indulging in one of the spa’s many services. Aestheticians perform a full spectrum of facial treatments that leverage clay masks, SkinCeuticals products, and vitamin infusions to help the skin to regain its glow. Teams of massage therapists welcome clients onto beds and pore over muscles with relaxing strokes, and body scrubbers and waxing technicians exfoliate and smooth frames. Clients hesitant to return to the outside world can bide their time in the spa’s raindrop showers or eucalyptus steam room, which doubles as koala heaven.

Inside Ambiance Salon & Day Spa, lavish black leather chairs cocoon forms as stylists flit about crafting new 'dos with products from Goldwell, Joico, and Moroccanoil. Their services include piling hair into dramatic updos, adding color and dimension with highlights, and toning down frizz with Brazilian blowouts.

Past a hallway festooned with white chandeliers, private treatment rooms stand at the ready for the salon's more soothing services. Trigger-point, reflexology, and aromatherapy massages help quiet tightly strung muscles, and ancient cupping techniques boost circulation and decorate the back with handy coasters.

Light from hanging chandeliers bounces off the cream-colored walls of Atelier Sav, where stylist Anna Mansoorian creates hairstyles as elegant as her surroundings. She specializes in updos, extensions, and treatments such as Pravana’s Keratin Fusion Texture Control, a formaldehyde-free formula that smoothes hair with natural amino acids. The salon's styling chairs are covered in cushy golden upholstery, making them a convenient place to relax after a night of racing go-karts through local malls.

There aren't many parts of the body the technicians of Rejuvenation Spa can't revitalize. The center's aestheticians smooth the skin with four types of facials—including one designed to brighten the complexion with vitamin C—as well as an exfoliating fruit-enzyme peel for the body. The staff also beautifies nails using gel enhancements and Minx nail covers. Like a nonfiction account of the dog who saved Arbor Day, the spa even makes clients feel better on the inside; two colon hydrotherapists use an FDA-register colonic system that includes a built-in ultraviolet water-purification system to neutralize odors and a regulator to control the pressure and temperature of the water.