Pavia Desiderata - The Newsletter of Pavia Day Spa

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1. PAVIA DAY SPA FEATURED IN DAY SPA MAGAZINE: Okay, I'll admit it, I was "googling" Pavia one day just to see what would come up, and much to my surprise, it looks like I completely missed an article published in Day Spa Magazine back in January 2007 in which we were featured prominently. Titled "Where It Hurts," the article showcases Pavia's Certified Neuromuscular Therapist, Daniela Marinescu, Ph.D., and other day spas who are helping their clients manage chronic pain with specialized expertise. Click here if you'd like to read it!

2. NEW SECTION ADDED TO NEWSLETTER: Thank you for your responses to the inaugural "Tell Mare What You Think." I have another thorny topic this time, so I'd love it if you would chime in with your opinions.

3. NEW BLOG: I've updated my blog...you can click "Confessions of a Day Spa Owner" to read all about my ups and downs of owning a day spa.

I have been saying for so long that drinking herbal teas is good for you that my face IS blue. As well as being pleasurable to drink, herbal teas can tone, soothe, and balance the body when used regularly. But here are some general tips for how to BEST enjoy those herbal teas to the fullest:

DO...

Use perfectly fresh or carefully dried herbs. This is a must for preserving the delicate flavor and active constituents within the tea.
Use a teapot made from ceramic, porcelain, china, earthenware, glass, or enamel. But stay away from metal teapots, because not only can it produce a metallic taste, the metal can also interfere with the active constituents of the herbs.
Drink 3 cups of herbal tea per day, preferably using blends that correct some imbalance for your body.
Drink tea AFTER meals, not before. This way, you won't dilute your gastric juices nor interfere with digestion.
Use honey as a sweetener or a slice of lemon.
Make ice cubes from strained tea, or you can even add flowers like borage, violets, lavender, and rose petals to the water before freezing.

DON'T...

Steep herbal teas for too long. Lengthy steeping can extract too much tannin from the herb, which may alter the action of the herb dramatically.
Add milk or creamer to herbal teas. It tends to mask the delicate flavor of the herbs - sorry, Brits!
Use summer as an excuse to stop drinking herbal teas! You can make delightfully refreshing summer's day drinks by serving iced herbal teas (be sure you steep to a desired flavor that is slightly stronger than that which you would serve hot - the ice tends to dilute the taste somewhat).

HOROSCOPE UPDATE!

Theresa Hatcher's horoscopes have been moved to a separate newsletter called "Pavia Soul-itudes." If you'd like to get the Libra horoscope and subscribe to the Pavia Soul-itudes newsletter, please click here to update your profile and answer "Yes" to the question, "Would you like to subscribe to our Pavia Soul-itudes newsletter?" Thanks!

If you've called us lately, chances are that the friendly, smiling voice who greeted you on the phone is our veteran spa coordinator, Julia Pierce. Some of you may remember Julia from her days as a massage therapist, but now she mostly acts as the "glue" of the spa, holding it together and keeping operations running smoothly.

I ask a lot of my spa coordinators, so it's a difficult job. Not only do they need to be professional and courteous on the phone and in person, I also want them to memorize clients' names, offer water or tea, give tours, make notes of special client request, schedule appointments efficiently and correctly, and plain old get everything right! Julia (I call her "Jewels") is definitely a gem, able to juggle several her schooling (she is studying interior design), her family, her friends, and her job, and make it all look easy.

Because our skin absorbs up to 60% of everything we put onto it, we shouldn't be slathering anything on our faces and bodies that we can't ingest. When I learned that women "eat" 4-6 pounds of petrochemicals every year just from wearing lipstick, I decided to create a category of all-organic, ingestible facials that would only utilize the purest ingredients.

As you may have noticed, since we launched the new menu in July 2007, each newsletter has featured a service special that allows members to try one of our new menu items all-month long. In July it was the new salt glows, August was our new Hot Towel Massage, September featured our new Hand/Foot Paraffin Treatments, and this month, it will be our Ingestible Facials!

Although each of the four Ingestible Facials solves unique imbalances in the skin (for example, Berried Treasure is for devitalized, generally malnourished skin, while the Spice & Ice is great for sluggish, congested skin), all of them utilize the Eminence line of handmade, organic skin care products. As many of you may know, the standards for "certified organic" in Europe are much higher than here in the U.S., so you can be certain that these products truly are top-of-the-line, natural, and fresh-picked.

If you elect to try any of our 4 Ingestible Facials during the month of October, you can do so at our OFF-PEAK price, even if you do it at a PEAK time...please just tell the front desk when booking the appointment or checking out that you are a newsletter member taking advantage of the OCTOBER ORGANIC FACIAL PROMO. Enjoy!

TELL MARE WHAT YOU THINK

Thank you VERY MUCH to those of you who responded to my last question. To refresh your memory, I asked: "What do you think a therapist should do if a client wants something that the therapist KNOWS is not good for them?"

The gist of your responses was that you are interested in hearing from the therapist if they feel that what you have chosen is not the most beneficial for you, but that you still wish to make your own decision about it after all the information is presented to you. I will certainly pass these responses along to my staff. But I do want to thank you all again for at least being OPEN to the possibility that what might feel good for you at that moment may not be the best thing for you.

Now, onto my next question, and it's another thorny one: What do you think a spa's cancellation policy should be? I have wrestled with this one for the last 4 years. Currently, we are asking for 24-hour notice for cancellation on a weekday, and 48-hour notice for the weekends. Cancellations within these periods are charged 50% of the services that would have been rendered, while no-shows are charged 100%. That's the theory, anyway.

This policy is the same as that of most other day spas in the Bay Area, and all of us require a credit card or gift certificate to book the first appointment. Most of them also say that no exceptions are possible - and they mean it. I have had the experience where I was stuck in another city due to bad weather once and could not make it back in time for a spa appointment, but was charged for the whole amount anyway (at a very prominent Bay Area spa). I didn't like it, but I understood the need.

While we could excuse clients for medical or emergency reasons, there is no way to know if the client is telling the truth or simply invoking that as a convenience. I used to think no one would ever lie about something like that, until I received a phone call from a client who had just walked out the door of our spa after having a facial. She said, "Hi, I was calling because I missed my appointment! A tree fell on my car in the driveway while my daughter was inside it and I was just so frantic that I couldn't come this morning." I replied, "Huh? But you were just here - you just walked out the door! Is your daughter okay?" And she laughed and said, "Oh shoot, I called the wrong spa. I realized that I had a waxing appointment at another spa today at exactly the same time, and I was just making up an excuse to get out of paying their cancellation fee." Hmmm - my eyes were definitely opened!

The bottom line is, when we book an appointment, we secure a therapist and a room, and we do not book anyone else in that same spot. So if we get a cancellation, it is almost impossible to fill up that same spot with another client with only a few hours' notice. Meanwhile, we have lost the revenue we would have generated from the original client, as well as incurred the opportunity cost of turning away other clients for that same spot. It would be just like missing an appointment with any other professional who reserves time out of their day for a client: a doctor, an attorney, an accountant, a hair stylist, an interior designer, or a contractor, etc.

On the other hand, I do understand that it is upsetting to be charged for a service one did not receive. This is the classic conundrum: if we do charge, client goodwill is damaged, but if we do not, then the business as well as the therapist has suffered. We let it go the first time a client does violate the cancellation policy, but this has encouraged repeat "offenses."

If you have any thoughts or feedback or insight on this tough issue that you would like to offer, please send them my way via email - as always, I would like to hear your opinions.

When you pay us the compliment of referring your friends to Pavia, we will express our appreciation for this gesture by sending you a $20 spa credit (good for 6 months) for each friend or family member you refer (make sure they mention your name when they come). You can then save them up for a nice spa treatment for yourself!

SPA FINDER & SPAWISH POLICY

We are happy to take Spa Finder and SpaWish cards as payment for services and products at Pavia Day Spa, but we cannot combine them with product discounts and specials any longer. The nature of the Spa Finder/SpaWish program is such that we must accept a significant discount on the services/products to begin with, and then to combine that with any of our corporate, series, rebooking, birthday, or newsletter discounts would greatly injure our business.

Therefore, SpaFinder and SpaWish cards will only be accepted as payment for full-price services and products at Pavia. Thank you for your understanding.