The Hela People Project: Scott Phillips

Name: Scott Phillips

Profession: Massage therapist

Dream vacation: Prague, for the history, culture, architecture, and mix of old and new...

Favorite DC restaurant: Open City, for their Gruyere cheese burger.

Favorite beverage: Bells' two hearted ale, it's a great beer with a cool label.

The Hela People Project

I was talking to one of my colleagues a while ago, and we ended up discussing how many interesting people we have at Hela and Ted Gibson, both as clients and as employees.

After mentioning this to our force of nature, and very own Helle Jeppsson, we concluded that we need to highlight this, and share with the world, or the followers of this blog..., who some of these people are. Therefor I started a series of mini-interviews; The Hela People Project.

Here's to people.





Name: Mary Amons

Age: 42

Profession: Mother of 5, Founder/President of Labels for Love, Inc. a non-profit, 100% volunteer organization that supports women's and children's organizations in Washington, DC, Co-Founder of The District Sample Sale a bi-annual shopping event to support the charities of Labels for Love www.labelsforlove.org/www.districtsamplesale.com

Favorite place in DC for a picnic: The Tidal Basin, especially when the Cherry Blossoms are in full bloom!

Favorite place in DC to go for desserts: Leopold's Kafe, an authentic Austrian Kafe in Georgetown with amazing homemade fresh pastries

Dream vacation right now: Paris! Craving to get back to the cheese, wine, cuisine and fashion in Paris!

Favorite treatment at Hela: Since the doors opened, I have been a Hela Spa fanatic! A few of my favorite treatments.... a deep-tissue massage with Jessica and a "The Greta Garbo" Facial with Brianne or Leslie....Laser Hair removal and Botox with Dr. Rachel! ...and can't leave out my love for Ted Gibson and the hair team at The Collections!




Name: Neven Radovic

Age: 30, just turned last week...

Profession: Hair Stylist at Hela Spa and Ted Gibson at The Collection.

Favorite place to eat in DC: Leopold's, for their croque monsieur.

Dream vacation: Hawaii, where I just celebrated my 30th birthday, for the unbelievable beaches, the sunsets in the North West, and the big lazy turtles that crawl out of the water and hang out in Turtle Beach :)

When I'm looking for a night out with drinks and dancing I go to: Croatia...one of my favorite places is Sontana, where people go to dance and sing. It's mixed ages and I think the whole scene is pretty much a local phenomenon...

Last time I had a fun night out: was when I went to L2 and then Lima. The music at Lima is great for dancing.

Favorite spa product and treatment: Robin's or Theresa's massage here at The Collection. And I would not want to live without the Ted Gibson Beautiful Hold Hairspray. It gives the hair a perfect hold, is very light and has a great smell. I love hairspray...



Name: Danielle Martin

Age: 21

Profession: Visual arts teacher at CHAW (Capitol Hill Arts Workshop).

Favorite neighborhood in DC: Mt. Pleasant. For it's mix of people, openness, and great coffee shops such as Dos Gringos! Don't miss their weekend brunches..

Dream trip: Spain, for an indefinite amount of time.

First experience at Hela: In a word: lovely. Jessica found areas of tension that she worked on and the treatment felt customized.




Name: Zahra Choudhury

Age: 21

Profession: Student at Georgetown University

Favorite thing to do on a rainy day: Wear matching rain boots and umbrella and splash in puddles. *Big smile

Favorite quote: Every day should be a good day to die.

Skincare product I prefer not live without: Night Therapy by Neova ProCyte.

If I could only have one more spa treatment I would get: The microdermabrasion with a deep cleansing facial (the hand massage is to die for).




Name: Tiffany Spruill

Age: 29

Profession: Aesthetician

What is you favorite place for dinner: I'm going to have to say the Cheesecake Factory -- for the variety!

Favorite place for dancing: Zanzibar at the water front in South West DC. Their happy hour goes on until 8pm. Do I have to say more?

Best place to shop: Lord & Taylor -- I just love their shoe department.

For peace of mind and tranquility I go to: Hanes Point, to look at the planes coming and going from National Reagan Airport.

Favorite skincare product: M.D. Forte's SkinRejuvanation Lotion II. It's a lotion that is packed with vitamin A and E and it just makes my skin the softest... *smiles

Feet!

Ha! Check this out. One of our favorites among the skincare brands that we carry -the Swiss darling Alchimie Forever- has a tribute video to their foot cream, 532nm!

Although it's not hard to praise AF's products, this one is special to me. As a choreographer, I am in desperate need of relief for my feet regularly.

The only downside with this cream, and this is a bit of a trauma, is that I once sent it to a couple of relatives in Sweden, as a gift. -- Now they are angry with me for having introduced a cream to them that they are hooked on but can't buy there...! Ada, get on the Swedish market!

Say hello to Ms Erb!

Hela Spa welcomes nurse practitioner and sparkling personality Melanie Erb to our medical team. We are really happy to have Melanie on board. Yes, she brings a wealth of experience from her work in the Division of Plastic Reconstructive Surgery at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University Hospital, but we are mostly excited because her first proposed project was to throw a party!

Melanie is hosting our first Swedish Mother's Day event on Sunday May 10th. Party favors include $100.00 gift cards for botox treatments, and $50.00 gift cards for spa/salon treatments... Fun!

Melanie will be on hand to answer any question (yes any question) about her favorite subjects: Botox, Restalyne/Fillers, IPL, Laser Treatments.

You might just leave looking a little more youthful than when you arrived:)

RSVP to melanie.erb@helaspa.com

We heart cupcakes

May is here, which is hard to believe. Time goes fast here at Hela Spa and Ted Gibson. In the last few weeks we have worked our way through a few events, for example Spa-Week. This is a biannual event that we have developed a real love-hate relationship with...

We LOVE seeing all the new clients coming in to try our treatments, and sharing their experiences. We do not love as much the Mt Everest of laundry that Spa-Week creates, and that took us two weeks to get through... Yes, the laundry labor is so intense during and after Spa-Week that it made our massage therapist base a storyline for a modern dance piece on it! (Not kidding. We are creative here at Hela and TG).

What else have we been up to... Oh, we decided to spice up a staff meeting with a cupcake battle! As you all know, the cupcake trend reached DC a few months back and there is quite a few different shops dedicated entirely to cupcakes that each Washingtonian has to choose between when the cupcake tooth sets in.

We decided to let the two most popular vendors in Georgetown battle it out: Georgetown Cupcake and Baked and Wired.

Before the storm: Baked and Wired

Georgetown Cupcake....
Packaging is crucial. Georgetown may win at first glance, but B&W's stickers (which is a little hard to see on this picture) is very cool...

Kelly and Michael fighting over the cherry blossom special edition by Baked & Wired.
So what did we think? Who had the bests cupcakes? It was an quite an even race! Mr Ladner pointed out that he prefers the overall vibe at B&W. However, most of us agreed that B&W's products are sweet. Like, really sweet. To the point where you almost pass out from the sugar rush. (Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Unless you have to go back to work after the munching...)

Georgetown Cupcake on the other hand, had a more nuanced flavor, particularly the frosting. They were smaller though. Which didn't roll with most of us. Cupcakes need to not be cramped into tiny cupcake cups. They need space!

But I guess I do prefer a good tasting cupcake, no matter what size, over a less flavorful, but big, cupcake.

As I'm writing this, Kelly shouts that she thought Baked & Wired was way better. I asked her if she didn't think they were too sweet. She said that she likes sweet things...

As you can tell, it's not that easy to determine a winner. I guess we didn't have one winner. We had two.

To check out neighborhood pastry shops go to georgetowncupcake.com (cool interactive website btw) and bakedandwired.com.
Next time, at the next staff meeting, we are going to try the next big thing... Yes, yogurt ice cream. Hey, Sweet Greens and Ice Berry, better watch out!

The product crazy massage therapist

Our massage therapist Mary, is writing about her passion; massage cream...

Hela has changed me. When I started here three years ago my only concern about massage lubricant was the glide... with a vague notion that it should be more or less non-toxic (of course at that time I didn't mind that my skincare routine was ivory soap). I shudder at the thought.

I can pinpoint the beginning of my product obsession. It was when I got it into my head that Hela needed to have a customized massage cream... at which time I learned that I could choose things. Power. More eucalyptus for a sports massage blend, OK.... more natural, sure thing just keep it in the refrigerator. More earth friendly? Just use a emulsifier that comes from a different region of the world. That massage cream is like an expression of my soul.

But obsessions are endless and I wasn't completely satisfied. I had to find the perfect massage oil. I wanted more hydration, more omegas, more organic, more free trade, more Nordic.... nothing would satisfy me. And then finally, after a year of looking I found it. Cloudberry Seed Oil. It has been called the golden oil, and I see why. This is the dream massage oil. I almost cried when my sample bottle ran out. The only supplier is half way around the world and had not yet sold to the States yet, but it is almost year. Any day now my new oil is going to arrive. Its like being a kid at Christmas.... only much, much better.

Would you like to win your own massage cream? And maybe a body polish to get rid of that dry winter skin? Comment on this post and let us know how you heard about our blog, and we will select five winners who's names we will announce on Friday the 6th!

The eye cream that Georgetown is in love with

Everyone at Hela is feeling fresh and rejuvenated. Why? SkinMedica's TNS Night Eye Repair tightens and brightens your eyes to make them look fabulous...and seductive... ;-)

Some people take it a bit too far though. Here's Amber kissing her new BFF...