Five Spa Trends for 2009

At Spa Beautifully, there’s a few sites that I follow religiously to find out about some upcoming trends, top tips and latest products, and Spa Finder is one of those that I just can’t live without. 

Each year, Spa Finder’s annual spa beauty forecast has actually proven pretty accurate over these last few years…and it’s certainly an interesting year for the spa beauty world, given the current economy.

Here are Spa Finder’s top five trends for 2009:

1. Multi-Tasking, Money-Saving, Products

The explosion of targeted skin-care products in recent years will give way to products that have two, three, or four beautifying uses, such as Joey New York’s Quick CTSM2, an all-in-one cleanser, toner, scrub, and mask. Multi-taskers are good for both a drooping face and dropping dollar. Another result of the heightened rallying around value and affordability: more do-it-yourself and at-home spa-treatment-inspired products like facial kits, etc.

2. Brand-Name Facialists

Dermatologists Murad, Perricone, and Wexler are being joined by a new generation of facialist-branded skin-care treatments and products. Fifth Avenue’s Tracie Martyn and Los Angeles’s Kate Somerville are becoming franchise-facialists with treatments at spas besides their own, and the skin-care lines of facialists Eve Lom and Tammy Fender are some of the new group of ‘faces’ that will reach the retail big-time.

3. Gem Stoned

Move over gold, silver and platinum…spas worldwide, such as New York’s Cornelia Day Resort and The Park Hyatt Dubai, are now boasting the benefits of beauty products infused with precious and semi-precious gems. Whether gem extracts are as beautifying as the real thing has yet to be scientifically determined, but more spas will swear by the subtle healing energies imparted by them.

4. The Skin-Care Diet

Food is the new skin care, reflecting a return to the inner-beauty mantra that a good diet begets good skin. Organic-derived ingredients, topical probiotics (the beneficial bacteria) in brands such as Bioelements and Nude, and a growing number of beauty supplement-like beverages are on the rise. [Ed note: I've already started to see this take place, and expect to have some reviews and tips for you myself soon].

5. Antioxidant Free-for-All

All manner of teas, hearty alpine herbs like edelweiss, and rare fruit extracts will be joined by more–and possibly increasingly obscure–sources of skin-benefiting antioxidants. For instance, next up, suggests a recent article in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology…burdock fruit.