Thursday, June 07, 2007

Vanity Works Salon, Day Spa open in Rosario Strip, Limketkai Center


CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY - (PR / June 7) - Salons and spas seem to be sprouting everywhere in the city like the proverbial mushrooms now the rainy season is creeping in, but there’s a new twist to this new one which just opened (bloomed?) last week at the Rosario Strip in Limketkai Center.

“It’s a salon and day spa rolled into one,” says budding entrepreneur and self-confessed kikay Roselle Paras, daughter of Oro Chamber President Elpie and the moving spirit behind Vanity Works Salon & Day Spa. “I wanted to put up a salon with the ambience of a spa where clients could be more relaxed and laid back while having their hair done or their feet scrubbed.”
True enough, the ambience when one comes through the door is more spa than salon, with the soft pink motif done in girlie-girlie kikay style by Roselle’s Ate Roxanne Paras-Uy, an interior design graduate of the College of the Holy Spirit. Roxanne is also the designer of the family’s other enterprises like Coffee Works (Roselle’s first business venture) and P.Joe’s Diner.

Vanity Works is also probably the only day spa or salon in the city where you can find Crocs, and imported cosmetics like Yardley, Color Workshop, Victoria’s Secret and Pierre Cardin, all outrageously priced low! This she says is possible because she sources them straight from the U.S.

To the uninitiated, a day spa is a spa sans the full menu of services one associates with the genre. It’s a “Day” spa because its schedule (1-10PM daily for Vanity Works) allows workers and clients go home at a decent hour.

But you still get the full menu of spa services like facials, waxing, glow bodyscrub, seaweed slimming body scrub, eyelash perm, bikini facial and luxurious footspa.

Waxing is done using the “roller head system” which is cleaner and guarantees no chances of getting “burned” as the temperature is regulated. All services are rendered by professionally trained cosmetologists who have also been selected and trained for their personal courtesy and decorum (no noisy, nosy and tsismosa attendants here, sorry!)

Check out the exclusives: probably the only place in town now where one can get a bikini facial (treatment includes removal of ingrown hair caused by shaving) for only P250, and a Sphinx/Totally Bare Down There Wax (a type of Brazilian wax) for P600. For the squeamish, there’s topical anesthetic available, but you’ll have to cover the P600 cost of the entire tube.

And check out the prices: facials use Babor (Germany) cosmetics, one of the world’s top 10 cosmetics, yet are only priced at one half or one third of virtually the same service in Manila’s top salons and spas. A Premier Facial, for instance, will only set you back P800, whereas the same service using Babor cosmetics in Manila would easily cost you P1,200.
A Babor Body Scrub in Vanity Works only costs P500 vs. P1,200 up in Manila while a Luxurious Footspa using seven (7) Babor cosmetics with the full soak, scrub and lotion routine with anti-callous, mask, lightening and some reflexology is only P380 vs a minimum of P500 in Manila (where it’s better known as a phyto pedic footspa).

The salon is open from 10AM-9:00PM and has a “semi-private” room in the spa area for clients having their nails done or maybe getting a footscrub. Some indicative prices for some services: haircut with shampoo and blow-dry (P110), manicure/pedicure P80/90, Express Footscrub P200, L’Oreal Hairspa w/ vial P550+, Powerdose P480 up, Hair Reborn P600 up, and L’Oreal Xtenso Rebonding P3,000++.

And consider the little extras that naturally come with the location: just a step away from Limketkai Mall and Big R Supercenter, right in the middle of Limketkai’s entertainment and food center, the Rosario Strip, free parking. All clients are entitled to free ice tea and coffee while those wanting to order something more can easily order from Coffee Works next door which is not only delivered free but with a discount pa! (sobra!)

Any more? Unbelievable, but yes! Very soon, Roselle promises a free Wi-Fi connection for clients who want to do their work or surf the net while having their hair done or getting a foot scrub…so, those guys and gals with the laptops can give now work while being pampered head to foot. Now that’s the totally celebrating vanity!