Spa | Beauty and Fashion Tech

Style & Spa Chicago Skin Care Lines and Launch Party

Style&Spa Chicago has launched an all natural skin care line in the Chicago area, available at its spa locations and at Chicago area Walgreens.

Below is the company information about the lines:

Serenity Spa Products– These superior body treatments duplicate the experience of a professional spa therapy at home. The Serenity Spa Line gently exfoliates firms and replenishes beautiful skin with a more radiant texture. The four step line includes a firming body lotion, peppermint foot therapy, hydrating body crème concentrate and an exfoliating enzyme scrub.
Serenity Vitamin Skin Care Products – Our Serenity Skincare Line provides you with five easy steps to cleanse, hydrate and enrich skin to glow beautiful. Vitamin-rich formulas protect skin from environmental damage that triggers premature aging. Skin appears smooth, fresh, and healthy-looking. The five step skincare line includes a Vital Gel/Crème Cleanser, Vital Toner, Vital Moisture SPF15, Vital Nutrifying Crème and a Vital Eye Crème.
Serenity Holistic Line – Designed to fight the effects of environmental exposure, this line is created with apothecary formulas for clients who prefer a pared-down, no-nonsense regiment. The Serenity Holistic Line is bursting with nature’s best fruits, vegetable and botanical extracts. The products are naturally scented and wonderfully pampering and created to nourish skin as they reenergize the senses. The line includes three steps to youthful skin including 3-In-1 Body Oil, Hydrating Milk and a Peel-Off Mask.

I tried out a travel kit with Hydraessence products that anyone with dry skin would love. The kit contained the following:

Hydrating Cleansing Balm: A really nice cream cleanser that removes makeup, but leaves the skin feeling fresh and very moisturized. This was my favorite item in the kit! The texture is thicker than a cleansing milk, but not quite as thick as a true cream.
Essence of Hydration: An intensely hydrating serum.
Hydrating Crème Concentrate for Eyes: A good basic eye concentrate.
Hydrating Protection SPF 30: A nice SPF 30 hydrating lotion that really delivers with the moisture. l
Hydrating Crème Concentrate: This was my other favorite in the package. If you have very dry skin and need a good intense cream, take a look at this one. It has a rich, luxurious feel, provides deep moisture, yet absorbs well, without leaving anything greasy behind. Nice stuff!

If you are in the Chicago area and want to see the products up close, Style & Spa is hosting a Launch Party on October 3 at the East Bank Club in Chicago. The event will include hors d’ oeuvres, a serenity smoothies bar, mini-spa treatments and pampering gift bags. Entertainment will include Shari Addison of TV BET’s Sunday Best and music by renowned violinist, Stephanie Quinn. To be included on the guest list and attend at no cost, reservations must be made by September 25, 2009. For more information visit the Style & Spa Events Page.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Great Holiday Bath and Beauty Kits

Bath and Body spa kits make great holiday gifts. Just about everyone likes to pamper themselves from time to time, yet they might not want to buy themselves individual products to do so. During the holidays, great home spa kits seem to pop up every where. If you are hitting the stores, look in the beauty isles for fun kits. If shopping online, here are three recommended items:

I adore Bliss spa items, so the Best Of Bliss Kit is high on my personal wish list! This kit contains the best of the best from NY’s hottest spa and contains a bliss bag filled with deluxe trial sizes of lemon+sage body butter, hot salt scrub, high intensity hand cream, triple oxygen energizing mask and the youth as we know it moisture cream. $55 at Beauty.com

Another favorite of mine is Caudalie. The Vinotherapie Spa in the Box Set includes luxurious Crushed Cabernet Scrub, Hand and Nail Cream, Vine Peach Shower Gel, French-Milled Soap and Nourishing Body Lotion. $38.

For a value packed full home spa experience, check out the Borghese Essentially Borghese Holiday Gift Set. This kit offers 7 products from rejuvenating Fango Active Mud for Face and Body to gently cleansing Bagnodi Vita Gentle Foaming Bath Gel for Bath and Shower, to deeply intensive and protective moisturizers for face and body and soothing botanical eye compresses. $45

Comparison shop for spa kits

Popularity: 2% [?]

Bliss Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Mask

I love Bliss Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Mask. I seriously cannot quit raving about it! This foaming mask refreshes and makes the skin look great, temporarily at least.

The whole concept of the Bliss energizing Mask is to oxygenate the skin, plumping up skin cells, and making the skin look fresh and renewed. Here is the company’s information on it:

A ‘take-out’ version of bliss spa’s most famous facial, the Triple Oxygen Treatment (a favorite of so many stunningly skinned celebs, we wouldn’t want to dull you with the details). At home, once, twice, or for the obsessive even thrice a week, this flash-action mask will deliver a shot of oxygen, a dose of a powerhouse form of Vitamin C, a smattering of anti-free radicals, and a moisture fix, to instantly spiff up your skin when you find it looking a little ‘low’ life.

with vitamin C, fluid O2™, NaPCA, and EUK-134™ free-radical resisters

A super-quick-fix for dull, tired, sallow, ‘I’m sick of my’ skin. Engineered to mimic the effects of our spa’s famous triple oxygen™ (but in seconds), this fabulous new complexion brightening formula uses every ‘tech’ in the book to work to furnish you with a fresher, younger-looking face.

engineered as a stand-in for our spas’ world famous triple oxygen facial treatment

releases oxygen molecules and detoxifiers

a super-quick-fix for dull, tired, sallow skin

super-strength skincare from bliss, new york’s hottest spa

To use the mask, a layer of light lotion is applied to damp skin and then left on for a few minutes while it turns to foam. During that process, it tingles quite a bit. I kind of thought it tickled at first! Then it is rinsed off. I found that my skin looked and felt great after each use of it. The effects don’t last all that long, but it is a great way to start the day! I use this several times each week regularly now. Great stuff! I highly recommend it!

Buy Bliss Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Mask at Beauty.com

Comparison Shop for Bliss Spa Products

Popularity: 1% [?]

Philosophy Halloween Bath and Body Set

This is a really cute, and nicely scented Halloween set. The Philosophy Haunted House Set includes 6 oz. bottles of black licorice, caramel apple and pumpkin spice muffin high foaming shampoo, shower gel and bubble baths.

These are nice combo items and they really do smell great! I am in love with the black licorice used as a body wash! It is a nice scent for fall that isn’t too sweet.

Buy it for yourself as a seasonal treat (note that the scents will fit in seasonally well past Halloween) or give it as a fun seasonal gift!

The kit is $30 at $30.00 at philosophy.com, or individually in larger bottles for $16 each.

Shop for Philosophy Products

Popularity: 2% [?]

Bioelements Vitalization Body Creme

Bioelements makes many wonderful items, including one of the richest body creams that I have seen in some time. Bioelements Vitalization Rich Intensity Body Creme is lovely stuff. It is a creamy, thick lotion with a luxurious feel and high moisture factor. It also has a wonderful light aroma—the product of ten botanical oils (apricot kernel, olive, rice bran, grape, black currant, sunflower seed, bergamot, cardamom and clove). Red tea is also included as an anti-oxidant.

I find it great for dry skin, after shaving or waxing, or just for a silky soft feel! The tub is big too, with a full 8 ounces.Shop for Bioelements skin care products

Popularity: 1% [?]

Removing Calluses with the Ped Egg

I love my Ped Egg! I seriously think that every callused foot on the planet deserves one!

When I first read about the Ped Egg at Bionic Beauty I wanted to try it. As I mentioned recently, I’m hard on my feet and the callus battle is constant for me. I have had success with various files and tools, but nothing has worked as well for me as the Ped Egg.

The Ped Egg is a little plastic egg with a foot file inside. This is not a callus razor, but is more than a sandpaper or pumice type of file. It generally is similar to a metal foot file, with a cheese grater look to it. Designed to be gentle, you can run it over your smooth skin without a scratch, but on calluses it grates and files them away, and it does so very quickly. The dead skin shavings are collected inside the egg, so there is also less mess. Fine grain file pads are also available for creating a smooth finish.

When I used the Ped Egg, I removed most of a fairly large heel callus in a matter of minutes. I had been doing some preparation using Glycolic Acid from AB Skin Care and some foot cream (read previous article), which also had softened things up a bit. I did find that if I held the egg tilted, too much that the dead skin would fall out, so to keep the skin in the egg where it belongs don’t tilt your egg too much! I finished off my feet with the file pad, added some moisturizing cream, and my feet were ready for a new pair of summer sandals!

The Ped Egg is available at PedEgg.com and other online sources, such as at Drugstore.com.

Shop for the Ped Egg

Popularity: 2% [?]

Kill Calluses and Soften Feet with AB Skin Care Happy Feet

I am a foot killer. I wear shoes that rub, I cram my feet into Irish dance shoes and pound them around for hours on end, and sometimes I cram them into ice skates. The result is dry heels and nasty calluses. But I have found a few fixes. One of those is AB Skin Care Happy Feet.

AB Skin Care is a line created by Dr. Craig Austin, M.D. that focuses mostly on glycolic acid products. They also have some great sunscreens (read review). Because Glycolic Acid is a great exfoliator, it works quite well at assisting in callus removal. At 20% Glycolic, AB Skin Care’s Happy Feet has a nice concentration of it. The packaging is also quite nice, with individual use wipes.

I combined Happy Feet with a bit of Lac-Hydrin Cream (read review), which also contains the exfoliator lactic acid. I rubbed an AB skin care wipe on my calluses and let it dry, then rubbed in the Lac-Hydrin. Another option, albeit more expensive, is to seal in the glycolic with a touch of Creme de la Mer. For a cheaper option, Profoot cream (read review) also works well.

This combo did a good job of softening my calluses. When I combined it with use of a Ped Egg, my calluses basically disappeared. What is a Ped Egg? Well, it is a wonderful little tool for callus removal. Watch for my review of it here tomorrow!

Shop for Foot Care Products

Update: Read the Ped Egg review.