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The Best of Local Salons and Spas
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Anonymous user Tue Nov 30, 1999 00:00:00 PST
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0 responses 0 comments Your hair isn’t something to mess around with, especially when it comes down to finding a salon that will make you look and feel like a cover model.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting the best, and over the last 20 years salons have become more than hair and nails – they’ve morphed into the pampering palace known as the day spa.
By 2010, it’s estimated we’ll make over a billion trips to our salons each year. So if you’re searching for the perfect salon in Bakersfield, there are three that set themselves apart and each for different reasons.
Tucked away in an upscale corner of the Marketplace is Essentiels Spa & Beaute, owned for the past 16 years by Dee Dee Todd.  She says her salon’s forte is the high caliber of product lines offered to their clients.  “We spend a lot of time researching these product lines, normally products you would have to drive to L.A. or any larger city to purchase,” says Todd.  “The lines we carry are truly exclusive like the Creed fragrance, a Nieman Marcus line, Bumble and Bumble, Kerastase, that’s one you’ll find in less than 1,500 salons worldwide.”
Essentiels has the look of a Beverly Hills salon, with a staff in matching black smocks, a contemporary yet elegant interior and a special bar to select your choice of juice, tea or wine while you wait.  That’s by design, says Todd.  “We definitely wanted something different.  We wanted people to feel like they’re not in town, to make this feel like a retreat away.”
Essentiels also offers the types of services you’d pay hundreds of dollars for in Los Angeles.  Todd says in addition to hair, manicures and pedicures, there are a variety of facials, “Our estheticians are just excellent,” plus body treatments including massage.  And Essentiels is courting male clients as well.
“The first Sunday of each month, we call Gentlemen’s Sunday,” says Todd.  “We open our doors for men who aren’t comfortable in a salon setting.”
What Todd is most proud of is her staff.  “They’re definitely not snooty,” she says, and the entire staff is always looking to make the Essentiels experience better.  “Every time someone comes in, we want to be able to offer them something exciting, something new and not to ever become stagnant,” says Todd.
Pam Oscars, owner of Concept Elite Salon on Stockdale Highway, is proud of her staff as well.  “My husband says we have no staff turnover because everybody loves coming to work here and it’s just comfortable,” says Oscar.  She’s owned Concept Elite for 14 years and is now commuting from San Clemente.  “My husband was transferred two years ago so I’m here two days a week,” she says.  Oscars says she and her husband originally opened a salon looking for a comfortable place for her to work and for her clients to visit.     “I was clueless when I opened my shop, but I’d been in the business since I was 19, so I just took all the things (I’d learned) from the great salon owners I’d worked for and that was how I started.”
Concept Elite is conveniently next to Albertsons and a few steps away from Trader Joe’s, says Oscar. “When appointments are running behind,  our clients can get in a little shopping.”  There are 18 stylists and seven manicurists with a compact storefront shop always humming with activity and buzzing with small talk from clients.  It’s the epitome of a Main Street shop.  “We don’t want people to feel like they have to get dressed to come to a salon,” says Oscar.  “We’re like one big family.”  And that family works hard to stay atop trends in an industry famous for them. “Our staff is constantly going to shows and looking into new product lines that make (services like) manicures and pedicures last longer to make our clients feel like they’re getting their money’s worth.”  Oscars says her stylists are always happy to work around busy schedules to accommodate everyone’s needs. She also urges clients to experience Concept Elite’s esthetician, Marianne.  Oscars raves about her facials and permanent makeup.  “She does a lot of permanent makeup and she’s such a perfectionist.  Everybody here has now had it done.”
Alongside Truxtun extension you’ll see the copper dome that sits atop Paragon Salon and Spa.  Owners Carol and James Wood designed the building with help from David Milazzo and Greg Bynum.  This stylish salon boasts a chandelier in the reception rotunda that’s marked with elegant marble columns and bathed in natural light.  From the spacious manicurist cubicles, to the slate waterfall in the pedicure area, to the hushed elegance of the day spa, Paragon showcases a unique atmosphere of which Wood is understandably proud, yet she modestly says, “Our facility is beautiful, but there are many beautiful salons in town.”
Each area is separate and Paragon’s 38 staffers and clientele love the layout.  “Especially the day spa area,” says Wood.  “That way our clients don’t have to walk through the salon in a gown and there are no children allowed in the day spa,” she says, which probably accounts for the peaceful, almost Zen feeling within those halls.
Paragon offers a full array of salon and day spa services with the exception of tanning.  “The girls will do a bronze glow treatment, a rub on tan lotion,” says Wood   “because we’re trying to keep people from destroying their skin.  We research skin care treatments, facials and peels thoroughly because some should only be done by well- trained doctors.  There are limits on what an esthetician can do.  We make sure that their treatment is something that we can do and the client can continue at home.”  Wood firmly believes in regular visits to trained and qualified estheticians.  “They know what they’re doing,” she says.  “A trained esthetician is a woman’s best friend…and her hairdresser,” she laughs.

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