1st Arrondissement Health & Beauty

Clients like Rihanna and Naomi Campbell leave sessions with facialist Sophie Carbonari looking sculpted and luminous. Go to her chic studio at the Palais-Royal for some serious pampering—lymphatic drainage, acupressure, and Japanese Kobido are just a few of the massage therapies she uses. “The idea with face massage is to get energy flowing and to support circulation,” she says. “Stimulating the muscles helps refresh the skin.” We love her ebullient energy, magic hands, and the custom botanical blends she mixes up for clients’ skin.

The treatments at the Ritz Paris’s spa are as luxurious as you'd expect: Aestheticians use sound and light to ease you into total relaxation, then they go to work. The fascia massage, in which the membranes coating the muscles of the face are manipulated to ease tension, is amazing, and getting slathered in a collagen-infused formula leaves you smoothed and soothed. When it’s all over, delay the crushing return to reality by retreating to the neoclassical swimming pool with one of the spa’s fantastic beauty-elixir cocktails.

It may be a cliché that Parisians have perfect, perfectly imperfect hair, but it's probably a cliché for good reason. That tousled sensibility is partly because of Delphine and her team, who stand in the shadows behind some of the city's best heads. While the services here are top-notch, there's nothing intimidating about the girlishly glamorous salon, and the menu is well-priced considering the quality.

Vaulted stone ceilings and walls (vestiges from its first life as a 17th century wine cellar) may not immediately channel comfort and warmth, but Spa Nuxe is balanced by any number of tropical flourishes, like palm leaves, rattan, and a cozy pool for Watsu (there are multiple outposts in Paris). The gentle, plant-based Nuxe line never gets any complaints from us either, particularly when administered during a soothing facial.

Much like his culty product range, Hervé Herau's dermatology practice is not widely publicized—in fact it's almost exclusively a word-of-mouth operation. We first heard about his restorative treatments (each one is 100% personalized, which explains why there's no treatment menu on his site) from a friend who swears that a session with him is like hitting the beauty jackpot.