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subscribe to beauty blog via RSSKiehl’s Spa 1851 Is Open For Business
July 20, 2011 12:34 pm
“I’m so happy you’re in my neighborhood,” Justine Koons told Chris Salgardo, president of Kiehl’s U.S.A., at the brand’s newly opened location on the Upper East Side last night. “Now I don’t need a passport to go to your store!” Koons and Salgardo had gathered a group of friends like Alan Cumming and Sky Ferreira to fête the fourth free-standing Manhattan location of the legendary East Village apothecary. In honor of the occasion, Kiehl’s made a large donation to the Koons Family Institute, which Justine and her husband, the artist Jeff Koons, run in conjunction with the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
This wasn’t your average store opening. Kiehl’s was debuting another milestone in the form of a three-treatment-room spa situated on top of the retail location—the first of its kind for the company. “Three and a half years ago I saw this space and I fell in love with it,” Salgardo told us of the split-level, 950-square-foot spot on the corner of 64th Street and Lexington Avenue. “But I didn’t take it then. It was a question of when could we devote the time to get it right.” Divided into specific zones, the spa features an Apothecary Room, showcasing artwork from Curtis Jinkins; an Adventure Room, with wallpaper created out of images from Kiehl’s-led expeditions to Mt. Everest and the Mojave Desert; and the Rainforest Room, which displays artwork from David LaChapelle.
Oversize lab jars filled with add-ons like rosemary, arnica flower, ginger root, and sugar line the shelves in each room to allow aestheticians to customize the facials and body treatments that utilize existing hero products from the Kiehl’s line. That’s the major selling point with Kiehl’s expansion into spa. “Our customers like facials but they never get [them with] products that they like,” Salgardo pointed out. Kiehl’s male clientele also stands to benefit from its new venture, thanks to a two-chair grooming station that offers haircuts, shaves, beard and mustache trims, and brow maintenance. “Formula 133 is great for our beards,” hirsute designers Robert Tagliapietra and Jeffrey Costello said of Kiehl’s Hair Conditioner and Grooming Aid. “And we’re ready for facials.” Them and everyone else. The spa is booked until September.
Kiehl’s Spa 1851, 157 East 64th Street at Lexington Avenue, NYC, (888) SPA-1851, www.kiehls.com/spa1851.
tags: Chris Salgardo, Jeff Koons, Justine Koons, Kiehl's Spa 1851, Skincare
