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By Susan Elise Campbell
If beauty were only skin deep, innovative professional aesthetician Denise Dubois would have had no need to evolve her day spa into Complexions Spa for Beauty and Wellness.
A 1984 graduate of Catherine Hinds Institute of Esthetics, Dubois opened Complexions Spa in 1987 when “a day spa was not really heard of,” she said.
“The foundation of the business has always been skin care,” said Dubois. “Originally, Complexions occupied 1,200 square feet and had four facial rooms. Besides me there was one other employee who did make-up and answered the phone.”
Today Dubois and her licensed staff offer non-surgical cosmetic procedures, wellness and nutritional consultation and coaching in addition to facials, massage, hair color and design, manicures and pedicures, and more.
Services are performed from two addresses, in Albany and Saratoga Springs, but with one overarching holistic approach.
“Lifestyles impact how we look and feel,” said Dubois. “There is a range of medical spa services we can use once we understand what’s going on in the inside and what a client’s lifestyle is like.”
Dubois said that 10 percent of aging results from genetics. The rest is “extrinsic aging,” or the environmental factors that cause the type of conditions that MediSpa modalities can often address.
“We ask clients discovery questions to get to the root cause of a condition,” she said. “There may be pain, acne, brown spots on the skin, many of which are induced largely by external factors.”
Often the root cause is stress, according to Dubois.
“Stress reduction is the number one reason clients come to the Spa,” she said. “Stress triggers stress hormones that impact health and well-being.”
In 2007, Dubois had the opportunity to purchase 221 Wolf Road nearby the original spa and rebuild it to meet LEEDS Gold specifications.
“The building was completely gutted. Only the foundation and four original masonry walls remained,” said Dubois. “It is the first LEEDS Gold spa in the U.S. for new construction. And this accomplishment took us into our ‘green and clean’ mission.”
Dubois said the additional overhead of obtaining Gold status was quickly recouped by the building’s energy efficiency, and that reducing the carbon footprint is its own reward.
The second location on Broadway in Saratoga was opened in 2014 to “branch out into the community and allow clients another destination,” she said.
Looking back over her decades of entrepreneurship, the green building was one of the top highlights of her professional career. Another is the recent launch of the skin care product line that carries her name.
“Dubois Beauty is a clean product line and a collaboration of two laboratories and several chemists,” she said. The products are designed to clean, clarify, detoxify, nourish and protect the skin using “the best clean, active ingredients and inspired by the nature and spas of upstate New York,” she said.
Educating people has been a goal of Dubois, who earned her life coach certification from IIN, the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, along the way.
“I enjoy every opportunity to work with clients and extend nutrition and wellness consulting to them, but also to mentor team members and see them grow over the years,” said Dubois.
Facing COVID together challenged the business, she said. The staff has not yet been fully replenished since the pandemic, but Dubois said that while some providers had to close their doors, Complexions Spa is once again in a growth phase.
“I plan to continue expansion into the medical spa arena with some new procedures,” she said. “I am always looking for ways to grow and help clients.”
One client has been with Dubois since before she started her own spa, and several employees have worked alongside her for more than 20 years.
“It has been a wonderful 35 years,” said Dubois.
Dubois said the industry today looks like it did “hundreds of years ago when people went to European bathhouses to get spa treatments for their health. When day spas started to become popular, many thought of them as a place for pampering. Now we are treating people to help them look and feel their best in body and in mind.”
Visit complexions.com and duboisbeauty.com for more information on products and services or to make an appointment at one of the two Complexions Spa for Beauty and Wellness locations: 221 Wolf Road in Albany and 268 Broadway downtown Saratoga Springs.