Get Skin Deep in Magic

It’s an old-time magic that enchants Santa Barbara’s store-salon hybrid Skin Deep with the power to dispel even our most torturous daily anxieties. Recently, I decided to take a dive into the Deep, where professional beauty products, luxurious soaps, and miscellaneous sparkly trinkets candied the walls and lured me into a sweet escape. By the time I reached the salon area toward the back of the store, my tensions had melted alongside the ice cubes in my complimentary lemon water.

What makes Skin Deep so spellbinding is the exceptional customer service with which the store-salon has retained a loyal clientele and customer base for almost four decades. “We have accompanied women through many phases in their lives. We have watched them go from teenagers to career women to mothers,” explains Training and Promotions Director Nina Meyer.

Meyer and her sisters — Tina Hasche, current store owner, and Gina McKee, marketing manager — also grew up alongside the store, which was opened in 1980 by their mother, Evelyn Hasche. “Our mother taught us about the importance of genuinely caring for our customers,” she said, and the sisters indeed do a beautiful job at keeping their mother’s legacy alive. Deftly blending poised professionalism with motherly care, the sisters invigorate the space with a progressive feminine energy and a deep understanding of women’s various needs.

As women’s responsibilities have multiplied over the decades, so have the store’s. Skin Deep was originally dedicated to retail before expanding its services to include hair design, massage therapy, nail services, facials, and other salon treatments. “We’ve designed our store to minimize women’s workload. Here, women can get many things done in just one stop,” Meyer explains. Now in her sixties, Meyer exudes youthful exuberance with skin that any 20-year-old would envy.

The store-salon continues to evolve with every emergent trend in the beauty industry. In addition to Nina Meyer’s frequent training sessions, aestheticians are required to attend classes in Los Angeles to master the latest advancements and ensure the best service.

Indeed, for 16 years Skin Deep has been voted Santa Barbara’s Best Place to Get Facials, according to this paper’s Best of Santa Barbara® Reader’s Poll. Aestheticians take your skin on a luxurious journey with the highest quality technologies, such as the new Aquafuse Triple Layer Microderm treatment, which exfoliates and deeply nourishes at once.

Deep’s recently incorporated line, Jane Iredale Natural Mineral Cosmetics, feeds women’s cravings for the natural, no-makeup look. The doctor-recommended line hybridizes skin care and cosmetics, serving an empowered generation of women for whom beauty and pragmatism go hand in hand.

Skin Deep’s care reaches beyond its clientele and out into the community. It makes frequent donations to hospitals and schools as well as nonprofit organizations, including the American Heart Association, the Cancer Foundation, and the Family Service Agency, to list just a few.

With heart-warming kindness and awe-inspiring generosity, the Skin Deep sisters embody the very lessons their store-salon teaches: “Beauty comes from being healthy and taking care of ourselves and those around us.”

Skin Deep is at 3405 State Street. For more information, call (805) 687-9497 or visit skindeepsalon.com.