Zen Diva Spa

A lady could get used to this: You come home on a Friday night after a long week, put on sweatpants, and spend the next two hours getting massaged and mani-pedi-ed, all in the comfort of your home. That’s the lucky situation this reporter found herself in one recent evening. Exhausted from the past 40 hours of work but excited for the next 48 of play, I found that some time spent having my keyboard-induced hunched shoulders un-kinked and my chipped nails re-polished was the perfect transition from workweek to weekend.

The lady to thank for all that at-home pampering is Dani Piola, the founder of Zen Diva Spa, a Santa Barbara company that brings the spa to you. The concept came to her, Piola said, when she realized how unrelaxing the post-spa drive home can be. And Piola makes every effort — and succeeds — at making you feel at home in your home when a stranger is there, knowing the right mix of chatty and quiet.

To start, she politely refuses to let you help her haul her massage table, towels, and nail supplies into your house, instead insisting that you sit back and mellow out. Piola is quick to set up the table and let you lie down, where — after she gets a feel for how much (or little) pressure you want — you will quickly doze off to the soft sounds of new agey music she plays. An hour later, you’ll wake up, muscles melted, and move over to your couch for your manicure and pedicure.

Piola offers many nail polish colors to choose from, as well as a bevy of scented lotions — try the coconut — to make the experience relaxing for your nose, too. To please her clients who may balk at long lists of chemicals, Piola relies on mostly natural, organic, and locally made products (minus the nail-polish remover). And she doesn’t reuse the nail supplies (file, clippers, and pumice stone), letting the client keep them for touch-ups.

But the best part of the experience comes, as Piola envisioned when she started the company, at the end, when you can walk to your bed and go to sleep and start dreaming — as this reporter did — of the weekend.

For more information, visit zendivaspa.com.