Put your fingertips at your temples and press. Move up an inch. Then to the base of your skull, where your neck begins.

You just found it — the tight band that shows up around three in the afternoon and that you've been calling "just stress" for years. It's a real muscle, and it has been holding on all day, every day. You stretch your back. You've never once done anything for the muscles on top of your head.

That's what this is for.

What's included

A deep scalp cleanse. Your scalp is skin — the same organ as your face, with pores and oil glands and a barrier — and it's the only skin you've never given any real attention to. We work through your hair in sections, down to the skin, clearing what daily shampooing genuinely doesn't reach: styling product, hardened oil, dry shampoo residue, mineral deposit, sweat. Nearly every client says "but I washed it this morning." Nearly every time, the water disagrees. That's not a knock on your shampoo — it's that ninety hurried seconds on a scalp you can't see is a different activity than thirty methodical minutes.

An extended head and shoulder massage. Slow, deliberate pressure through the temples, hairline, crown, and the ridge at the base of the skull — then down through the neck and across the shoulders, because head tension and shoulder tension are the same tension from two ends. Two things happen that are worth knowing in advance: your jaw lets go without you noticing, and you will probably fall asleep. Both are fine. We don't wake anyone up.

A full shampoo, conditioning, and dry. Correct water temperature the whole way, rinsed properly, finished soft rather than stripped. You leave dried and comfortable, not walking out with a wet collar.

Refreshments. There's a window at the end where you're not quite ready to be a person again. Most places hand you your coat during it. We give you somewhere to sit and something warm, so you leave actually relaxed instead of relaxed-then-startled.

Why this deal

This is introductory pricing on a new service. We set it where we did because we'd rather you try it and decide for yourself than be talked into it.

What you get is what's described above — the scalp treatment, the massage, a full shampoo and dry, and refreshments. Nothing added at the counter, no product you're meant to buy on the way out. The price is the price.

If it turns out not to be your thing, you'll have had a quiet half hour, which is a perfectly good outcome. If it turns out to be the thing — and for a fair number of people this becomes the appointment they keep — you'll know by the time you stand up.