By Lauren Saslow | Photos by Frank Edmondson
The price of living in the Sunshine State is the toll the sun can take on our skin. Those who spend extended time in the sun — at work, at the beach, the pool, or at kids’ sporting events — can suffer short- and long-term skin damage that may include wrinkles, dryness and hyper-pigmentation.
The licensed aestheticians at Bliss Facial Spa (located in front of the Super Target on the northwest corner of Bruce B. Downs {BBD} Blvd. and County Line Rd. in Wesley Chapel) will tell you that, in addition to the necessary preventive care of daily sunscreen use, having regular facials and non-invasive skin treatments can add elasticity and a healthier glow to your face. Regular facials also can benefit teens or adults who suffer from acne.
Bliss offers a wide range of facial treatment options, including LED Therapy, cellulite reduction treatment, waxing services, eyelash extensions, massage therapy and skincare products with competitive pricing.
Owner Vicky Lysenko maintains a spa license for the business and leads her team of five licensed aestheticians — Natalie, Kristie, Brittany, Lauren and Bianca — each with additional product training, and two licensed massage therapists (LMTs) at this 1,400-sq.-ft. spa. While Lysenko does not have a cosmetology license and therefore doesn’t treat clients herself — the Arizona State University (in Tempe) graduate is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) by trade — she is proud that the aestheticians and LMTs at Bliss help her maintain a successful business that, she says, “offers the best technology without being a med spa.”
(Note-A medical spa, or “med spa,” by contrast, is an establishment offering advanced medical treatments, which oftentimes include more invasive and, therefore, more costly procedures, for skin and body beautification that under State law, requires licensed healthcare professionals under the direction of a medical doctor, as well as licensed aestheticians.)
Lysenko says she happened into this business almost by chance. In fact, she claims she never even had a facial before opened Bliss, thinking it was only for “high-maintenance women,” until becoming more educated about the industry. Her daughter, Shayla Herring, a licensed cosmetologist, was working at the front desk of Face Logic, which was a spa franchise in the same location that Bliss Facial Spa now occupies.
“Eventually, the entire Face Logic franchise went defunct,” explains Lysenko. “When we moved from Arizona to Tampa in 2008, Shayla suggested I invest in this spa. I called the bank and negotiated buying the assets of this location and hired two of the existing aestheticians. We opened in August 2010, and now I do the marketing and social networking, while the professional skin care therapists run the day-to-day business of booking appointments and treating clients. We have about 200 members who come every month for services.”
A Soothing Environment
Upon entering the spa, clients will find an attractive lounge area across from the reception desk, with comfortable brown leather chairs and modern dark wood furniture. A mix of calming lyrical music plays gently through overhead speakers, while a flat-screen TV loops videos of the spa’s treatment options with before-and-after photos. The walls at Bliss are lined with their various skin care products, so that clients can continue their skin care routines at home. Some “starter” kits for sale include a sampling of several of the products for clients to try.
“Seventy-five percent of skin care is what you do at home,” insists Lysenko. “The other 25 percent are the treatments you get at the spa, where facials help to take off the top layer of dead skin to help your skin become healthier. We’re all about taking your skin care to the next level.”
Because some of the treatments require follow-up home skin care in order to maximize the benefits and see more drastic and lasting results, clients are encouraged to try the skin care lines available in the spa, including Image Skin Care, which is the spa’s main product line. Image, founded in 2003, is an international skincare company which designs and distributes scientifically engineered pharmaceutical-grade products.
Lysenko is confident that Bliss offers, “the latest and greatest” in both skin care products and technology, based upon each product’s reputation among the industry colleagues Vicky has met at trade shows, as well as from the feedback she gets from the spa’s customers. She also recommends that you try the sunless tanners at Bliss as an alternative to tanning salons. The Xen-Tan self tanners and bronzers available at Bliss have an olive undertone that appears more natural than many competitors’ brands, which often leave you with that fake orange tint.
Affordable Prices, Too!
Bliss clients are escorted down a hallway — with low lighting, wood laminate flooring, a cool color scheme and soft instrumental music playing overhead — to to the eight treatment rooms, each with its own privacy curtains.
The menu at Bliss Facial Spa offers clients more than ten different types of facials and a dozen upgrades to appeal to each individual’s personal and budgetary needs and time constraints. The Signature Facial, for instance, offers a 50-minute treatment that includes a thorough skin analysis, deep cleansing, exfoliation, steam, extractions, a treatment mask and therapeutic massage of the décolleté (the chest area below the neckline), as well as shoulders, arms and hands.
For those on a time crunch or a tighter budget, the spa also offers a 30-minute Express Signature Facial, whereas the Elite Facial, a one-hour treatment, includes the luxuries of the Signature, but uses stronger Image Skincare products to address specific skincare concerns.
Thirty-minute teen facials, intended for clients ages 13-23, address the needs of young adults battling acne by offering deep cleansing. Lysenko boasts that her teen facial rates are “the best around.” All facials offer optional upgrades to suit the needs of the individual, including the Lightwave blue-and-red-light therapy, a pain-free alternative for treating acne. The blue light kills Propionibacterium acnes or “P. acnes,” a bacterium that colonizes in the skin and hair follicles, and is the primary cause of most acne problems. Those receiving Teen Facials can add this service as an upgrade upon request. The red and infrared lights also can be used to heal and polish the skin after plastic surgery or other skin treatments, in 20-30 minute sessions. Lysenko explains that it is the same technology NASA has used to heal astronauts in space where “the light penetrates deep below the skin level to heal from the inside out.”
During the holidays, the spa offers seasonal facials. In November, this author got to enjoy a unique Pumpkin Cheesecake Facial (which smelled as good as it felt), and for December, Bliss is featuring a “Peppermint Twist” facial, consisting of a cleanse, an orange-berry enzyme mask, a winter mint hydrating mask, an optional upgrade to a microdermabrasion, extraction and a Vitamin C green tea serum.
Another therapeutic skincare treatment offered at the spa is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved Cavi-Lipo, an ultrasound machine that vibrates on the surface of the skin until the fat cells below the skin burst and liquefy, draining through the lymph system, leaving the remaining body tissue unharmed. The term “cavi” comes from cavitation, which is the collapse of a solid surface resulting in the formation of cavities that are commonly known as cellulite. Bliss aestheticians say that Cavi-Lipo treatments are recommended for small, problematic areas on the body, such as cellulite and sagging skin, and can oftentimes result in losing inches in the desired areas. In order for clients to experience maximum results, they must stay hydrated, continue a regular exercise routine before and after the treatment, and return for at least five more follow-up treatments.
Lysenko also reminds potential clients that facials are not only for women. She describes a male military client who recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan. He came into the spa for the first time because he had been exposed to intense sunlight and heat in the desert during his deployment, without the assistance of sunscreen, and was concerned about his skin’s pigmentation.
Photographer Frank Edmondson also experienced his first ever microdermabrasion in November of this year. Bliss aesthetician Kristie — a Licensed Paramedical Aesthetician and Wax Specialist, who earned her credentials from the Florida College of Natural Health in Brandon — offered him a beneficial skincare assessment and educated him about proper skincare routines during his treatment. While hesitant to try a facial at first (Frank didn’t realize it would be beneficial to an African-American male), he now is considering taking a membership at the spa.
As a former University of Florida football player and now a lead vocalist in many of the Busch Gardens shows, Frank explains that playing sports and performing in outdoor venues has caused some variations in skin pigmentation over time.
“After just one treatment, my skin felt great!,” Edmondson said. “It’s so smooth. Kristie did a good job removing the ingrown hairs along my beard line with the extractor. It was relaxing and didn’t feel ‘girlie’ at all.”
Rave Reviews!
Wesley Chapel resident Kristen Jacobs boasts of having “tried almost everything on the Bliss menu including: a hydrofacial, a massage, microdermabrasion, peels, facial imaging products, and make-up products.” Jacobs points to her favorite product on the shelf: Ormedic Balancing Lip Enhancement Complex, an all-organic product which she jokingly refers to as “lip crack” because it works to hydrate her lips so well she hates to ever be without it. Even when Jacobs moved to Washington for a period of time, she continued to order skin products from Bliss Facial Spa.
In addition to the skin care products, Jacobs says she remains a loyal Bliss client because of Natalie and the other aestheticians who work there. Jacobs says they have all been accommodating and they always take the time to answer questions and educate her about the products and treatments.
In fact, she enjoys the services that Bliss Facial Spa has to offer so much that she says she asks her husband and best friends for gift cards to the spa at Christmas time so she can use them year-round. She is also a member of Bliss Facial Spa’s Skin Care Club which allows her to save money with exclusive members-only pricing and Spa Reward Points.
“I work full time and have two little people at home,” Jacobs says of her two sons. “I meet my best friend here for ‘girl time’ because it’s the only peace we get.”
In order to give back to the community and create awareness of her spa, Lysenko contributes gift baskets to local schools and nonprofit organizations; one was donated to the New Tampa YMCA as a prize for one lucky participant of the 2013 Wiregrass Wobble Turkey Trot 5K and 1-mile fun run road race. The winner of the basket received a $100 gift card to Bliss Facial Spa, along with other skin care products.
Bliss Facial Spa is located at 1059 Bruce B. Downs Blvd. and is open Mon. –Fri., 10 a.m.–7 p.m., and 9 a.m.–5 p.m. on Saturdays. After-hours appointments are available on Thursdays. For more information, call 428-5991 or visit the spa online at BlissFacialSpa.com.
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