I have now been to Sparadise on a couple of occasions. Mostly for pedicures, but this past visit…read morewas on a great package they offered.
Sparadise is located on the busy street of Wellington in Central, tucked up on the 4th floor. They are a small salon, more boutique service geared versus serving the masses and have a lot of organic product lines for sale. When you are at 60 Wellington Street, go down the alleyway and you will see the entrance to the elevators on the right.
Sparadise is intimate, cozy, bright, airy, light colored and clean. When you walk off the elevator, you walk into the small reception area and pedicure area. The staff is welcoming and friendly (Amanda, Rose and others all are smiling and accommodating...if you watch them while getting your service, you can see kindness and care in their actions). After going a couple times, it is nice to see the same friendly staff faces since it is a small group for the most part. The owner is often around and welcoming and friendly as well. My only thoughts about the owner is that she has on occasion treated her staff curtly in the ear shot of customers like me and that kind of turned me off a bit. Kind of cracking the whip on the staff, but smiling to the customers...seems like there might be a better way to manage staff in the presence of customers, that's all.
It seems like all staff are trained in all areas. Your pedicure person might also be giving you a massage or your facialist might be giving you a pedicure as well. Kind of cross trained I suppose. I would imagine with the more technical stuff (micro derm abrasion or something), you might have to have a specific person.
The pedicure is good. They have the eco-friendly product nail color line of Sparitual, which I like. They also carry OPI as well, if non-eco-friendly is your thing. Both are good polish. They only file my heals a bit with a foot file, although I prefer a deeper skin layer to be removed via a shaver or a grader, but this is OK. The green seating bench has a firm upright back, which you are either going to like or not like. There are pillows to accommodate if need be to help with this. They serve a lovely lemongrass tea too that is really quite delightful.
This spa has a very aggressive package program. I am not a package person, because I like to jump around to different salons/spas and try new things. As such, I am OK with being firm when they start to give the "pitch" about buying a package in advance. I sit at my pedicure bowl and see lots of people come in and use services on their packages and re-sign up for packages too. Although it seems to vary, basically if you cough up money in advance, they seem to kick in an extra service or two and then offer you a 10,20,30% discount when you come in for services. For loyal customers, this would be a great deal. For me, I always turn down the package and simply pay the price for the service. They welcome that too, just know their "pitch" before going. I like the pedicure experience, so I have no problem paying full price.
The spa has an equally aggressive e-mail marketing campaign that rolls out once a month. There is a different "package of the month" each month. This past month, the offer was this: either to be redeemed all at once or you could break it up and come in over time... coconut & raw sugar scrub (30 min), head & neck shoulder massage (30 min), aroma body massage (60 min), foot massage (30 min), express spa pedicure (30 min)...an $1860 value, for $900. This was a deal!
I redeemed my package all on the same day for a 3+ hour spa experience. Amanda was the staff that was assigned to me for all the services (thus the cross training I mentioned earlier). For spa services outside nails, they escort you to another floor. The treatment rooms are small, well appointed and clean. The one I was located in was divided from another room with someone else getting a facial by a heavy velvety curtain versus a regular wall. That seemed kind of odd, but nothing that bothered me too much. The shower I used in the room after the scrub seemed recently redone and was contemporary and nice.
I will go again and always keep my eyes peeled for their e-mail promotion to hit my in-box.
