Is the spa day passé?
The experience of donning a plush robe and slippers for relaxing facials and massages is being replaced by wellness-boosting protocols that encompass an array of modalities, including cryotherapy and full-body compression, as well as actual medical care. The treatments are intended to go deeper than the surface of the skin to address internal issues like inflammation that may cause external symptoms—say breakouts—that send someone running to facials for help. At ambitious service providers, clients can indulge in everything from intravenous infusions to skin-rejuvenating Intense Pulsed Light or IPL. The future of beauty treatments is a biohacked stack of services that make the most of ancient wisdom and cutting-edge science.
“Beauty is the icing on the cake,” says Gerry Curatola, a dentist, author and founder of New York health and wellness practice Rejuvenation Health. “It’s really strengthening the inside of you that’s just as important as making the outside look good. [People] not only want to look younger, they want to live longer and healthier.” Against the backdrop of the subpar state of the American healthcare system, Curatola isn’t surprised that consumers are heading to destinations that deliver medical services alongside spa treatments. He believes this convergence has enormous potential for care. “We all need to come together. To quote a phrase, it takes a village to keep us together and healthy,” he says. “And there is technology is available to do it. We have amazing advanced technologies that are not invasive.”
Thanks in no small part to the pandemic, consumer interest in advanced healing modalities is surging. A survey by beauty and fitness booking software Mindbody found 53% of respondents reported they’re more open to trying services and treatments this year compared to pre-pandemic. The survey also revealed that 12% of consumers have partaken of low-touch services involving cryotherapy, float tanks, salt therapy/caves and infrared saunas even during the pandemic. “This likely means that wellness-focused businesses will see an influx of consumers in the coming months, [presenting] wellness businesses with an opportunity to try offering new services, ” posits Mindbody marketing specialist Mary Borstelmann.
Curatola created Rejuvenation Health out of a desire to bring dentistry into the fold as beauty and wellness merged. His craft had been in a silo. “When I came out of dental school, I really felt like something was missing, that I was very disconnected from the rest of the world of medicine,” he says. “The 800-pound gorilla in the room in terms of wellness was oral health. You cannot have a healthy body or a healthy mind or a healthy gut or healthy skin without a healthy mouth. So, for me, it was a natural progression to try and bring the wall down between medicine and dentistry that illogically went up.”
A client receiving an IV treatment at Rejuvenation Health.
Rejuvenation Health, which opened its location in The Hamptons in 2019 and has a Manhattan flagship slated to open in the next year, is based on the principles of Biologic Medicine, an evidence-based wellness system that recognizes patients’ ability to heal through self-regulation. The concept offers a range of medical and wellness services, including dentistry, body-sculpting treatments, naturopathic medicine, airway health, nutritional counseling, an IV drip lounge and more.
The beauty and wellness world has been buzzing about inflammation (specifically, how to fight it) and lymphatic drainage for several years, and many of the early players in wellness treatment space centered their services on assisting customers in supercharging detoxification processes. Rejuvenation Health is big on lymphatic drainage. After its clients’ dental work is done, Curatola will give them a 30-minute session on Flowpresso, a futuristic body suit providing a three-in-one sensory treatment comprised of compression, infrared heat and deep-pressure therapy designed to aid lymphatic drainage.
“[Flowpresso] helps to move the lymph, it has infrared in it, which helps you eliminate toxins, and helps patients go from the sympathetic mode of their nervous system, which is often called fight or flight, and you can’t heal when you’re in fight or flight, and bring them into what’s called parasympathetic mode, which is a relaxed state of healing,” he says. “After this machine, patients have less swelling, they feel less pain.”
Opened in 2016, Palm Health is another concept fusing traditional medicine, including cardiology, neurology and mental health, with holistic wellness, modern aesthetics and even spa treatments. Memberships at Palm Health’s St. Louis location run from few hundred dollars per year to exceeding $3,000 a year for complete access to its offerings. Since its launch in 2018, Clean Market has opened at least one location every year. Its first location opened in Midtown Manhattan with infrared saunas, whole body and targeted cryotherapy, and Nutridrip IV treatments. Outposts at downtown Manhattan’s Brookfield Place and Wynn Las Vegas, and a partnership with Equinox Hotels through which Clean Market introduced IV drips aimed at improving sleep and performance followed. Additional offerings will be available soon. A third Manhattan location is slated for the spring.
“My partners and I have worked in the wellness and fitness space for many years, and we all had a strong desire to bring our favorite services and products under one roof,” says Lily Kunin, co-founder of Clean Market. “It was essential to sift through the noise in the wellness space and create a trusted space for discovery and recovery. That concept resonated with people right away.” She continues, “Consumers are demanding more in terms of efficacy of treatments and the environment in which they receive these treatments. There is space for both in a wellness routine, and the consumer will demand that both continue to evolve to meet changing needs.” Clean Market has monthly memberships priced at $49 and $99.
Clean Market’s locations feature retail areas selling emerging clean beauty and wellness products. Diana Zapata
Tricked-out treatment destinations like Clean Market, Palm Health and Rejuvenation Health are proliferating quickly. At Remedy Place in Los Angeles, visitors can subject themselves to a six-minute ice bath purported to bestow a litany of health benefits. Vitality NYC in Herald Square specializes in colon hydrotherapy. Fics is a wellness and athletic recovery destination in Manhattan’s Flatiron District. Most wellness destinations had to close as the coronavirus took root in the United States, and there have been shutterings. Fics competitor ReCover NYC closed after two years in business due to the pandemic.
Wellness and recovery franchises are popping up to make up for the losses. Turnkey studios are being established in cities beyond New York and LA. Restore Hyper Wellness + Cryotherapy opened in Austin in 2015 as a single location offering cryotherapy and IV infusions to the increasingly tech-bro Austin population. By 2017, it had become a franchise operation that’s registered explosive growth. In 2020, it sold 241 franchise locations. Restore ended 2020 with 74 locations and will approach 150 locations open by the end of 2021. It currently has over 1,500 employees across its Austin headquarters and locations in 28 states. In June 2020, Restore secured $8 million in a series B round led by Level 5 Capital Partners.
In a speech at the annual Biohacking Conference earlier this month, Bulletproof founder Dave Asprey revealed franchise plans for Upgrade Labs, biohacking centers that offer pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) therapy, virtual float tanks, atmospheric cell-charger pods, ozone saunas and AI-adaptive exercise bikes. Monthly memberships to the studios cost about $500. Non-members can pay a fee per service.
Today, there are Upgrade Labs locations in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and Victoria, British Columbia. Upgrade Labs will premiere a franchise location in Philadelphia area early next year, Asprey projects it will reach over 100 franchise locations by the end of 2022, including international doors. “It’s not fair that only billionaires, celebrities and professional athletes can use technologies to become superhuman. Upgrade Labs is here to bring these possibilities to everyone,” says Asprey in a statement. The founder helms the company as CEO and is no longer working with Bulletproof.
Forward-thinking (and flush) beauty businesses are integrating wellness treatments. In 2017, British department store Harrods opened a 10,500-square-foot Wellness Clinic offering aesthetic and health treatments, including DNA-based skincare treatments, injectables, personal training and nutritional counseling. The retailer tapped luxury skincare company 111Skin for the Wellness Clinic’s cryotherapy chamber and IV vitamin drip. Harrods’ home and beauty director Annalise Fard told the publication Women’s Wear Daily that 111Skin “created a vitamin drip just for Harrods, which has about 20 different ingredients, probably three times as much as most drips you see in the market. It’s an all-in-one treatment, the ultimate vitamin drink you could have.”
Over the past 13 years, 111Skin co-founders and husband-and-wife duo Yannis and Eva Alexandrides have cultivated a thriving business primarily in the traditional beauty and aesthetics arena. The brand began with a single product developed for the clients of Yannis Alexandrides’ swanky plastic surgery clinic in London. Its products have gained a retail presence at Harrods, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Violet Grey, Net-a-Porter and Harvey Nichols.
At its 111 Harley Street Clinic, 111Skin and Dr. Y offer both aesthetic treatments as well as wellness services like cryotherapy.
When they discovered cryotherapy technology five years ago, the Alexandrides stretched from skincare to full-body and localized cryo technology at its in-store facial rooms and key global spa partners, including Four Seasons and Bulgari. “We knew from global sports clubs and athletes who were using the treatment regularly that cryo enhances physical performance and stimulates blood circulation to promote faster recovery,” says Eva Alexandrides. “However, after more research, we started to uncover more benefits around using it to reduce inflammation, improve skin quality, boost the metabolism, and release adrenaline and endorphins, which will help you feel rejuvenated, energized and refreshing the body and mind.”
111Skin doesn’t stop at cryo in its clinic. It has thermotherapy and an infrared pod combining LED with infrared meant to support the body’s heavy-metal detoxing and improve collagen production. “The combination of heat and cryo as contrast therapy improves quality of sleep, boosts metabolism, improves elasticity and firmness of the skin, reduces stress, and promotes mental and emotional wellbeing,” says Alexandrides. “The future is scientific rituals incorporating noninvasive technology to deliver visible results.”
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