Beauty Black Book Directory By City: P - Z

Palm Beach: Massage
1 South County Rd., 561-653-6656
2013 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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In a walled-off area overlooking the surf, our visitor felt the warm breeze blow and saw the sun set and moon rise as a therapist rubbed pressure points with Pure Fiji coconut oil. Heads up: The coveted 7 p.m. service is offered only on two or three evenings each month to coincide with the full moon.

• Palos Verdes, California: Massages
• 100 Terranea Way, 310-265-2740
• Price: $285
• 2015 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Considered the go-to staycation spot for L.A. locals, this 50,000- square-foot spa boasts 25 treatment rooms, indoor and outdoor lounges, saunas, steam rooms, cold plunges, and a pool—all overlooking the coastline. In a spa bungalow you can delight in the El Segundo Blue, a body treatment designed to calm the nerves and cleanse toxins using an algae-based paste. The hour-and-a-half session kicks off with a 30-minute lymphatic-touch massage with essential oils and picks up with a targeted shoulder and scalp massage. Finally, a coating of mineral clay is applied and then removed to make skin clean and silky. Our tester left feeling “lighter” and “blissfully relaxed.”

Pasadena, Calif.: Brows
45 E. Union St., 626-683-3308
2013 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Former MAC makeup artist Zoey Van Jones opened her studio to showcase her skill at crafting big, thick—yet clearly defined—brows. Our tester needed that expertise: Her brows were wispy, thin, and hopelessly overplucked. To fake fuller eye frames, Jones used a stencil to fill in her brows, then waxed around the colored areas. She plucked strays and set the look with a few strokes of clear gel.

• Pasadena, California: Nails
• 146 S. Lake Ave., 626-440-9700
• Price: $140
• 2015 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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This airy macaron of a nail studio is a girlie girl’s modern oasis, from the ballet-pink floors to a string of photo-ready blooms strung on the wall. Sipping water from a pink tumbler, our tester relaxed on a blush Blu Dot chair for the Alice Manicure and Pedicure. Technicians worked simultaneously on hands and feet, beginning with a natural Pursoma salt foot soak, followed by a sugar citrus scrub. A mind-numbing massage with an assist from Tata Harper’s line of natural scented oils thrilled our reporter, whose hands and feet were then dipped into peach-scented paraffin wax to soften the skin and seal in moisture. She scored a chip-free week with coats of Treat Collection’s French Vanilla (a grayish taupe, $18) on hands and Summertime (a punchy coral red, $18; beautyhabit.com) on toes.

• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Facials
• 210 West Rittenhouse Square, 215-790-2500
• Price: $140
• 2015 InStyle Beauty Black Book Bonus
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Just off of Rittenhouse Square rests an oasis of natural skincare masquerading as your more typical moodily lit 3,000 square-foot hotel spa. Using only Natura Bisse and Tata Harper lines, this spot delivers everything from exfoliating facials (leaving no skin cell unturned) to anti-aging treatments using LED light therapy. Our 20-something tester was pleasantly surprised by the skill with which her esthetician attacked her blackheads during a Detox Facial, as well as the pure oxygen gel used after extractions to calm and soothe skin.

Philadelphia: Facials
1601 Walnut St., Third Floor, 215-772-2766
2014 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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In this loftlike space, aesthetician Joanna Kula treated our tester’s dry skin with the Bio-Lift Facial. It starts with a heavenly face and neck massage, followed by an enzyme exfoliant. Then Kula uses a hightech tool to deliver a series of lifting and tightening electric currents. (Not to worry, to our tester the pain factor was akin to a light pinch.) Our visitor left with a glowing complexion and hardly a trace of redness.

Philadelphia: Massages
728 S. Fourth St., 215-922-3235
2014 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Housed in a quaint row house, attentive pros tend to you in a room with brick walls covered in small lights, using long, fluid strokes, then a heated stone to address trouble spots. Says our reporter: “My technician spent considerable time working on my face and neck, areas other masseurs treat as an afterthought,” releasing tension she didn’t even know she had.

Philadelphia: Color
258 S. 11th St. 215-568-3040
2013 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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We directed a hair-color virgin to the new midtown location of this Philly mainstay for advice on how to cover her grays. She raved about the rich brown base as well as the subtle highlights she received from Giovanni Mele. Rather than simply paint streaks around her face, Mele “added highlights to the interior hair layers, so the color looked really natural,” she said.

Philadelphia: Facials
1339 Frankford Ave., 215-278-7613
2013 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Skin guru Kelley Hughes takes a natural approach for her customized Ayurvedic facials, which feature homemade cleansers and yogurt masks. She uses milk powder (rich in exfoliating lactic acid) and water to wash and polish skin—and incorporates other herbs depending on skin type (say, cooling cilantro for inflamed faces). Since the products she selects are determined by the individual needs of her clients, no two treatments are alike.

Philadelphia: Haircuts
2101 Christian Street, 267-519-2325
2013 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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The swingy, below-the-shoulders style our tester received at this 2-chair, cuts-only, South Philly salon was finished with a pro blow-dry using a large round brush for extra body. The low-key appointment left her feeling all sorts of glamorous: “I was like I had a wind machine aimed at me while I walked down the street—that’s how breezy and bouncy my layers looked.”

Phoenix, Ariz.: Massages
5200 East Camelback Road, 602-977-6400
2013 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Says our tester of their Renaissance massage, “I sat in a chair with my feet in a copper foot bath filled with eucalyptus and mineral water, looking out the antique wooden shutters to Camelback Mountain while my therapist began to gently rub my shoulders.” Our tester’s service was customized to include “deep tissue on shoulders and a light touch on legs.” She also received a bonus: “the most amazing hand massage of my life!”

Prairie Village, Kan.: Cuts
6960 Mission Lane, #18, 913-671-7777
2014 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Stylist Chloe Brock has mastered the art of classic cuts yet has also honed a knack for snipping modern shapes. After some follicle foreplay in the form of a 10-minute shampoo—complete with a Kerastase conditioning treatment and a stress-zapping head massage with eucalyptus oil—Brock transformed our tester’s look. “I am crazy about my swingy, low-maintenance layers,” she says.

Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.: Facials
Address available upon booking, 310-265-9505
2013 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Seeing only three clients a day in her tranquil studio overlooking the Pacific Ocean lets aesthetician Beven Sangi spend “as long as it takes” on a personalized, multilayered facial that can include exfoliation with natural vegetable fiber, as well as an application of a pH-balancing mask, followed by layers of serums infused with collagen boosting peptides, antioxidants, growth factors, and brightening vitamin C. She also relishes treating guests to her lengthy neck and shoulder massages. How’s that for indulgence?

Red Bank, New Jersey: Nails
73 Broad St.; 732-345-7300
2012 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Stop by the tea service, dip into a bowl filled with granola bars, then prepare for an 80-minute pedicure that pampers more than toes. A heated shoulder pillow eases stiff neck muscles, while feet get a scrubbing, a massage with hot stones, reflexology treatment, and two coats of polish.

• San Diego, California: Cuts
• 1452 Seventh Ave., 619-238-6483
• Price: $60–$70
• 2015 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Our tester says this Cortez Hill salon offers not only iPads loaded with magazines and a minibar stocked with wine but also a reason to feel really good about booking a trim here: All the net profits are donated to children’s and animal charities. For her appointment with senior stylist Julia Baca, our tester arrived with what she called “fluffy,” waist-length, curly hair damaged by a botched balayage job. Baca repaired strands with Unite’s own argan-oil treatment followed by its U Luxury intense mask, snipped off 8 inches, and added long layers. After a careful blow-dry—with lots of instruction on how to section hair and position the dryer to zap frizz-inducing moisture— our tester left with a modern lob and a return appointment.

San Diego: Brows
3650 Fifth Ave., Suite 101, 619-664-4740
2014 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Pros at this hair-removal spot use cotton threads to swiftly clean up brows (and natural sugar wax to tackle other body parts). Our tester, whose skin is “typically discolored after a wax job,” reports that the entire treatment was utterly gentle on her sensitive skin. The new arches gave her tired eyes an instant lift.

• San Francisco, California: Cuts
• 850 Greenwich St., 415-800-7440
• Price: $65–$450 for cut
• 2015 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Located in a quaint residential corner near North Beach, this salon, with its hardwood floors, white walls, and a sleepy French bulldog in the corner, feels homey yet uncluttered. We suggest you put yourself in good hands for both a cut and color with master stylist Christy Dylo and colorist Teddy Greene. Thanks to the salon’s dry-cut emphasis, your shade upgrade comes first, with Greene mixing a custom dye after a consultation (in our tester’s case, a talk about a handpainted balayage approach). The Aveda stylists took our reporter from long and straight with faded highlights to a more layered look with shorter bangs and a color that mixed sun-catching highlights with darker, more intensely dyed ends.

Santa Monica, Calif.: Haircut
1025 Montana Ave., 310-310-3128
2013 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Stylist Shin An has mastered a dry-cutting technique that highlights facial features perfectly (she took our reporter’s long, straight locks and sliced them into light, shoulder-length layers with brow-skimming bangs). She might ask clients to stand up during the last half of their visit to ensure that strands hang at just the right angle. All of them happily comply.

Santa Monica, Calif.: Facials
1025 Montana Ave. 310-310-3128
2013 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Aesthetician Oni Chaves explains her goal: “I want to get every client’s complexion looking so clear and creamy that they won’t need to wear any makeup.” After a bamboo infused scrub, she further exfoliates with a microdermabrasion device. The grand finale of the top-flight Sublime Treatment is an invigorating dose of pure oxygen and vitamin C. “I love finishing each treatment this way,” says Chaves. “The oxygen kills bacteria and hydrates without clogging pores.”

San Francisco: Haircut
73 10th St. 415-240-6738
2012 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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It’s a referral-only hot spot, but consider us your “in” (just say InStyle sent you when you call for the first time). When stylist and co-owner Samera Habib reaches into a jewel-encrusted box for her scissors, get excited: She can tame any texture—she even took the weight out of our tester’s super thick strands to give her hair lots of added body and bounce.

Saratoga Springs, N.Y.: Massages
39 Roosevelt Drive, 866-925-0622
2013 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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The bath house has an elegant, slightly old-timey feel and the buoying mineral baths at the spa—believed to help with everything from metabolism to depression—are heated to a comfortable (if not toasty) 97 degrees before Judith Jackson aromatherapy bath oils are added. Soak in a cast-iron tub a private room for 20 minutes before an attendant returns with lavender-scented hot towels. From there, it’s onto the table, for a customizable massage that you can steer toward your pounding head, crinky neck or achy feet.

Sausalito, Calif.: Massage
801 Bridgeway Blvd., 415-354-8308
2012 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Situated in a bay-front town, this boutique spa sports pristine tiles and dark mahogany floors. Our tester tried the signature Sea to Shore, which starts with an application of steamed towels and ends with moderate-pressure strokes on skin smoothed with calming cypress oil—or ask for anti-inflammatory arnica oil to relieve any soreness.

Scottsdale, Ariz.: Facials
7575 East Princess Drive, 480-585-4848
2013 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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The Fairmont’s customized facial purports to boost cellular regeneration and uses a generous amount of Naturopathica natural products to do so. After a 3-D photo analysis to zero in on sun damage or signs of acne or rosacea come ultrasonic and microcurrent therapies to help the products’ nutrient-rich botanicals absorb fully. All our tester felt? Incredibly relaxed “in my cocoon of duvets while my esthetician uncovered the dewy radiance I’d lost in the Valley of the Sun.”

• Seattle, Washington: Facials
• 411 University St., 206-438-1750
• Price: $299 ($240 for members) for the Perfect Facial
• 2015 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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In the downtown Fairmont Olympic Hotel, this spa exudes old-school decadence with its gilded mirrors, cloth-draped tables, and Versailles armchairs. Here you can pick products from French and Hungarian lines (like Biologique Recherche and Omorovicza) to fit your needs. Our tester loved the immediate plumping effect from the “lifting” massage technique her pro, Icelandic-born aesthetician Gunna Covert, used to coax Biologique firming serums into the skin. All told, our tester discovered “the most relaxing and enjoyable facial” she’d ever had. “My face was immediately tighter and looked more toned.”

Sedona, Ariz.: Massages
301 L’Auberge Lane, 928-204-4321
2013 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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The L’Auberge Stretch massage and creekside experience includes an unforgettable commune with nature. Inside a partially enclosed canopy overlooking a freshwater stream, pro Caleb Davison revives tired muscles by using his own weight as a counterbalance to help lengthen and stretch limbs. After gently warming muscles, Davison transitions into Swedish and deep tissue techniques, which left our tester feeling “lithe and invigorated.”

South Orange, N.J.: Massages
61 South Orange Ave., 973-821-5609
2013 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Our tester tried the Honey Ginger massage, which kicks off with honey or ginger-spiked oils, worked in with long flowing strokes down the back, followed by some knuckling to really help the oils sink in. Next, an application of honey (that’s right, honey), a humectant that pros knead into the body with a combo of round, circular motions, as well as a series of tension-relieving pinches and pats. "I thought I would be a sticky mess, but I wasn’t. And after the sheet came off, the skin on my back felt ridiculously soft and warm—even after I showered, and well into the next day,” says our reporter.

Tucson, Ariz.: Nails
5000 E. Via Estancia Miraval, 800-825-4000
2014 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Prepare to be pampered in Deborah Lippmann’s new salon, tucked inside the famed destination resort, and stocked with her own brand of polishes. The Anti-Aging Manicure begins with a glycolic acid peel to exfoliate skin and ends with Lippmann’s Rich Girl Hand Cream which “made even my desert-worn skin look soft and supple,” says our tester, who called her mani “the most detail oriented” she’d ever received.

Tucson, Arizona: Facials
5000 E. Via Estancia Miraval, 800-363-0819
2012 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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Even if you can’t sleep over at this beautiful 400-acre resort, the day spa rate gives you access to its landscaped grounds, breathtaking Santa Catalina mountain views, and fab services to revive your body, mind, and complexion. End your afternoon with a facial at the Miraval spa with Clarins Sensitive Skin Soother featureing fabulously moisturizing cleanse-tone-exfoliate action, along with a facial massage with essential oils and a hydrating shea butter mask to quench thirsty skin.

• Venice, California: Nails
• 1416 Abbot Kinney Blvd., 310-450-3560
• Price: $30 for a Vinotherapie Classic Pedicure
• 2015 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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With the fresh scent of its famed grape-seed and orange-blossom facial mist mingling in the air, this boutique spa instantly feels like a Zen sanctuary. From the second you step onto its tree-filled patio entrance, your mind relaxes. And once you rest in the individual pedicure station—a purple leather chair behind a gauzy white curtain—you’ll be treated to the French brand’s antioxidant-rich products, like the luxe Overnight Recovery Oil ($52; us.caudalie.com), among others, while pros slough, moisturize, and massage feet. As for polish, the spa’s new partnership with Tenoverten means you can choose from the brand’s well-edited collection of trendy-meets-sophisticated shades, like Smoky Greige and Milky Mint. Our tester’s nude pedicure? It lasted a full two weeks without a nick.

Venice, Calif.: Color
1636 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Second Floor, 310-775-0299
2012 InStyle Beauty Black Book Pick
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After stints at Frédéric Fekkai and Warren-Tricomi salons, styling the likes of Anna Kendrick and Britney Spears, Oregon native Stephanie Hobgood now heads up her own cozy two-chair salon. Whether you want to be a sunny blonde (like her) or are looking for something a little darker, the So-Cal transplant will go to work with the foils and follow up with a reliably awesome blowout.