SoHo Health & Beauty

The Skin Lab evokes a ramped up version of what you feel slathering on The Rich Cream (or any other totally amazing Augustinus Bader product)—luxurious, refined, completely innovative, and located at the intersection of indulgence and science. The studio is complete with the classic Augustinus Bader–blue, copper detailing, and the most high tech facials. You start off with a skin consultation with an expert and choose your preferred treatment. We love the Ultimate Facial, which combines customized skincare picks, exfoliation, micro current, oxygen therapy, ultrasound, and LED—all completely tailored to your skin’s needs. Even better, they have a three-treatment approach to help you find the best route for your glowiest skin ever.

Oula—a maternity center that combines midwifery and obstetrics for prenatal, delivery, and postnatal support—is an incredible option for pregnant people seeking low-intervention births. The staff of midwives is brilliant—friendly, vivacious, knowledgeable, supportive (there is zero judgment whether you want an epidural or drug-free delivery)—and visits feel unhurried and comfortable. They take insurance including some Medicaid, and are committed to inclusive and equitable care to serve a diverse patient base. There's another location in Brooklyn.

Visit world-famous brow expert Jimena (pronounced him-eh-nuh) Garcia at her Soho studio on Broome Street, at Chanel’s atelier down the street (she’s the brand’s first-ever brow artist), or in LA or Paris, where she travels to see clients (she also offers virtual sessions). Wherever you catch her, rest assured her face-transforming powers are in full effect. Garcia is amazing at creating flattering, natural-looking brows, and she’s full of tips on how to maintain them at home, too—embrace a little imperfection is a crucial one. But get in to see her, if you can—she’s the ultimate brow whisperer.

Get a facial with aesthetician Crystal Greene at her serene SoHo studio and walk out looking—and feeling—fantastic. Her treatments are a beautifully pampering haze of face massage, firming laser (she uses the obsessed-over LYMA), gentle exfoliation, powerful masks, and a custom blended serum infusion she concocts on the spot for clients’ specific skin concerns. She’s intuitive, radiates calming energy, and her hands—not to mention the results you see—are pure magic.

Scoring a facial with the actual Joanna Czech is like hitting the skincare lottery—though one with any of her personally-trained aestheticians at her new, soaring downtown studio is, too. Famous for her signature, manual sculpting massage which includes intense massaging and “slapping” (which is more invigorating than painful), Czech’s seemingly-simple methods keep her extremely well-known clients’ skin glowing and healthy. Every facial focuses on skin support at every turn, starting by treating the lipid (top) layer of skin, and moving on to microcurrent, hyaluronic acid patches, oxygen infusion, microneedling, and more as needed. Czech’s eponymous skin care line is clean and absolutely fantastic. There is a second location in Dallas (and a residency at Blackberry Mountain in Tennessee).

A boutique facial studio on the border of SoHo, Ställe Studios is one of the most sought out facials in NYC. Founder and head esthetician Elizabeth Grace Hand (she worked previously at L’Oreal and Dr. Barbara Sturm) knows how to transform skin into the glowiest, freshest-looking version of itself. Each treatment starts with an in-depth skin analysis to create a treatment exquisitely tailored to your skin. Whether it’s the buccal massage, sculptural facial, glass skin peel, or signature facial, each treatment is out-of-this-world incredible.

This airy oasis for gua sha facials, holistic skin consultations, and acupuncture sits at the top of a glamorously ancient walk-up on Spring Street that’s more Venice Beach bungalow than SoHo loft. Hanging plants, beautiful raffia chairs, and so much sun pouring through the enormous windows it’s hard not to squint are lovely flourishes that make it hard to leave, but the true draw is how beautifully nurturing their treatments are. Founder Britta Plugg is a master of gua sha, the ancient Chinese therapy of smoothing a sculpted stone tool across skin to support lymphatic drainage, ease tension and puffiness, and boost glow. She and two cofounders—an acupuncturist/herbalist and a product developer/herbalist—have a gorgeous gua sha skin-care line, Wilding, which turns the therapy into a beautifully soothing at-home ritual.

Face-framing, feathery brows are Robin Evans’ specialty. Over her almost 30 years of experience, she’s figured out the perfect technique: you sit upright while she uses a combination of waxing, tweezing, trimming,and tinting to perfect your brows. Evans’ likes to keep the area beneath the brow clean and polished, while leaving the top’s natural, for perfect-amount-of-groomed brows. (Bonus: She also does facials using Tata Harper products.)

This spa inside the swank 11 Howard hotel has somehow managed to make sweating in an infrared sauna sexy. You get an entire hotel room to yourself, with a spacious personal sauna kitted out with music and even chromatherapy (everybody looks better in a red-tinted light) that combines near-, mid-, and far-infrared waves to heat the body from the inside out, resulting in a major detoxification sweat. The rooms have private bathrooms, so you can rinse off in the shower and start (or end) the day feeling utterly renewed.

One session at this airy, light-filled studio—a slice of heaven among the rickety lofts that line the Bowery—and you’re hooked. They use the Reformer (versus mat-based Pilates), a machine that adds resistance to exercises using springs to sculpt, tone, and strengthen the body. The instructors are dynamic and personable, not to mention lithe and statuesque (Pilates is known for its elongating, posture-improving benefits). They sell kombucha on tap, as well as an assortment of gluten- and refined sugar-free cacao balls (the turmeric-dusted variety is insane) that are delicious, nourishing, and supremely satisfying after an intense class.