Wekiwa Springs, FL Spa and Massage

HLC Lake Mary Spa’s quiet interiors and welcoming personnel envelop each client in a reassuring cocoon that blocks out the stressors of the outside world. The spa began as a compassionate center for weight loss and smoking cessation, soon adding high-tech spa treatments and noninvasive wellness procedures. Cream-colored walls and draped windows dress treatment rooms with an aura of home to help relax clients there for body-wide cosmetic boosts from LED teeth whitening to red-light skin therapy. Clients can feel confident in their therapists, each of whom is a licensed aesthetician trained in laser procedures. The clinic has also made the pages of Lake Mary Life magazine for its antiaging laser photo facial treatment.

Whereas most people enjoy retirement by relaxing, Mary Lou Boyle has enjoyed hers by helping others relax. By transitioning from her radio job to her current role at Saving Face Skin Care and Massage, Boyle returned to her original career path: More than three decades ago, she opened and operated one of Oviedo’s first full-service salons. Years later, she garnered more experience as a cosmetologist at an upscale salon, where she also delved into aesthetics. Boyle left for a stint in media and, after retirement in 2008, opened Saving Face. Now, equipped with years of experience and a license in massage therapy, she relieves pain and tension through massage therapy and rejuvenates skin with a collection of facials.

Licensed massage therapist Dorothy Mallett has been soothing sore backs for long enough to understand that no two are the same. In order to heal the wide range of ailments she confronts on a daily basis, she integrates several ancient massage techniques into her sessions. Though her targeted strokes are effective enough on their own, Dorothy often enhances them with warm oils and creams, hot stones, and moist heat to melt away tension and prevent friction. Massages aren’t the only spa treatments she has mastered. Her organic facials tend to skin above the shoulders by removing oil from pores and embarrassing traces of mom’s lipstick from cheeks.

For more than 20 years, the trained techs of The Loft at Dawchers have kept beauty belts packed with Redken haircare products while also offering customized hair, skin, nail, and massage services. Nestled in the building's second floor, the New York City–style loft welcomes guests into a tranquil beauty haven where relaxation is doled out in the form of aromatherapy massage, exfoliating facials, and informative makeup lessons. The salon and spa's connecting outdoor patio displays an open-air space, complete with a rainbow-hued sun mural, where clients can show off their best downward dog during yoga sessions or host private parties to celebrate selling a house that’s haunted by very nosy ghosts.

Along with her partner, Arturo Diaz, Paola Salamanca decided to open Studio Spa Garden of Healing in 2009. A renovated two-story cottage lit by ample windows, the spa represents a tripartite marriage of Paola's interests in television and film, her family's work in the beauty industry, and Arturo's career in acupuncture and natural medicine.

This harmony among diverse elements becomes apparent as soon as one walks in the spa’s front door and encounters, amid shades of pale lilac, Arturo crafting herbal remedies or redirecting energy pathways with acupuncture. Not far off, beyond a skin bar stocked with Dermalogica products, guests sip sangria or herbal tea in a dimmed relaxation room as they await appointments for facials or a variety of massages, including deep tissue, Thai massage, and "tui na," a Chinese therapeutic massage.

Having traveled abroad to locales such as Spain, Colombia, and India, the spa’s staff boasts knowledge of basic skincare techniques as well as advanced or alternative methods such as vacuum therapy and fire cupping. For her part, Paola works with actors and models and often travels on-set to share her wisdom—a fact that may explain her penchant for adding a dramatic musical score to each of her treatments back at the spa.