cassie j.

Re-Fresh-A Day Spa

"Disappointment! I go to spas pretty frequently, probably every other month. I've been to Refresh day spa twice. Both times I decided to go because my mom had gotten me a gift card for my birthday. I'm sad to say that I was disappointed during both times that I've visited the spa. But I'll start at the beginning. The front desk staff was nice, helpful and warm, and the environment was also very nicely decorated. The locker rooms are nice, but they don't really provide much amenities except for the sauna and steam room. They provide you with a hair dryer, but no brushes. I found this a bit weird. They also provided Q-Tips, but nothing much else. I was also disappointed by the fact that, considering this is a spa, the shampoo, conditioner and body gel was very generic and did not have a fragrance at all. I expected something more scented and fragrant. But oh well. The lounge where you wait for your services was very small and not very relaxing, but luckily, I didn't have to wait long for my services in their lounge. My first experience wasn't all that great. I was greeted by my therapist Sarah, for the Hawaiian Salt Scrub with Kukui nut oil massage. The service was alright, but my therapist didn't seem to have much of any reactions to me. She didn't say much except "Hi, I'm Sarah" and rarely smiled. Her sullen reaction to me made me feel a bit uptight from the start, making me feel like she wasn't excited about her job. The room where the scrubs are performed was very nice, with a long moving shower that they run all over your body to remove the salts with. That was a very relaxing experience. However, from this moment, on, I was very disappointed. I was lead into the massage room, for my swedish massage. Once I layed onto the bed, I remembered that I had forgotten my locker room key in the previous room. When my therapist came back for the massage, I had asked her to retrive my key from the room, and she had responded by saying that she was going to get it after my massage. I didn't want to say anything at the moment, because I tried not to make a big deal out of it, but I was really pissed off inside. The locker room keys in a day spa are supposed to be guarded considering we have all of our belongings in our lockers. True, I should've been more cautious about my key, but I was so relaxed after the scrub and I was looking forward to my massage, my mind slipped. Needless to say, my massage was shot to hell. The whole time, I was thinking about who might notice my key in the room, and that they might open up my locker. I was extremely disappointed. Was it that difficult to get my key from the other room? It was only about 10 steps away.

I must say that I've been spoiled, since I usually go to Spa Fusion,downtown in the Hilton. They provide their guests with everything. My first experience at Refresh, I had high expectations, and decided not to being a hairbrush thinking they would be provided. Obviously they were not since I had stated it earlier. So that was my first experience at Refresh.

My second experience at Refresh, was a little better. My massage therapist Darryl better. Not much more to say there. After my massage, I had an appointment for an eye brow wax from Leslie. And again I was disappointed. Not only did she wax little sections at a time, but when I asked her to make it a little thinner, she responded by saying that "They normally don't wax that part." I'm thinking to myself, "What part?" You left the bottom part of my eye brow unwaxed and I saw little hairs still there. I was disappointed. $20 dollars for a mediocre wax. They don't even trim the longer hairs, I had ask her to trim. She spent 25 minutes on something that could've taken 10 minutes.

All in all, I was really hoping that my second experience at Refresh was going to be a lot better. But they were pretty much the same. Needless to say, being an obsessive spa-goer, I won't be returning back to Refresh. Consider other day spas in San Francisco as well."