Skin Sense A Day Spa — Local services in Raleigh

Go elsewhere!! Scam of a "service"!! My husband and I decided to get a couple's massage for our anniversary. I booked the appointments, and noticed they also had an extra package for couples, called the "Couple's Suite", which included a "30 minute therapeutic soak for two." It was pricey, but figured why not get a little extra pampering? Terrible idea.

To start off, the massages were fine. We both paid for an enhancement (he got the deep tissue and I opted for the hot stone). We were taken back to the room, which had a nice looking tub in it along with the treatment tables. Only thing off at first was that my masseuse was like, "Ok, I guess I'm working with you". Um, ok? Awkward, but whatever. We both relaxed into our 80 minute massages. Near the end of mine, my masseuse had to pause to start running the bath. He returned as it filled up, and continued the massage, but it was interrupted again since he had to stop and cut the water off. Was a little distracting. Still, not a big deal yet.

On to the "therapeutic soak". It was a large nice looking jacuzzi tub and clean. Full of water. That's it. No oils, bubbles, flower petals or ANYTHING added to suggest it was supposed to be relaxing or therapeutic. Nothing to make it a "treatment". No aromatherapy. Nothing. I mean NOTHING. We were told that we could adjust the water temperature as we saw fit, and at the end of our 30 minutes they would crack the door and flick the lights to let us know our time was up. The massage therapists remade the massage tables and left. My husband and I just looked at each other. We said, ok, well at least it's a jacuzzi tub with jets. Wrong. Well, it was. But none of the controls worked. They were either broken or purposefully not hooked up. No power connected. Didn't know this until we got in. There was also a hand attachment nozzle, it was hooked up, but it didn't work either. At first we laughed at the absurdness of it. Surely, there was some mistake, right? This was a $95 treatment!!! We had no way to signal anyone that we needed assistance or had questions.

We really didn't know what to do. We started to stress. They weren't actually gonna charge us almost a $100 to sit in a bathtub for 30 minutes, right? Unfortunately, worrying about the cost of the "soak" we were in was anything but therapeutic. We completely lost the relaxation we had just gained from our massages as it was replaced by agitation and stress over the stupid bath. Not sure if they forgot about us, or we were just that miserable, but the 30 minute bath felt longer than our 80 minute massages. When someone finally came to get us the spa had closed and we were the only ones left. The water had been collected so we didn't have a chance to get a drink on the way out. We were still warm and and naturally thirsty. Not a big deal. I understand they wanted to get out of there but maybe leave time for the treatments you schedule for people to finish in the future so they don't feel rushed. Upon checkout the receptionist asked if we enjoyed our treatments. We said, not exactly. We told her the massages were good but the bath was awful. We asked if the controls were broken on the tub and if we were supposed to get some kind of "soak" added to the water to make it a soaking experience. She giggled and said, "Oh no, its just a soak. The controls don't work!" We told her that was not worth $95! She ignored that and said she had us all checked out and told us we had a balance of $25 left on our gift card and asked if we wanted to leave that as a tip to to our massage therapists. We looked at each other. This young lady was clearly not a manager. We said yes to the tip and added another $45 to be divided between our massage therapists. It wasn't their fault the bath sucked and as I said before, the massages were fine. Tried calling to get an explanation and hopefully an apology on this ridiculous charge for a bath. Unsuccessful on reaching anyone as of now. We've never felt so ripped off at a spa! ...

So I booked my services online with Skin Sense for 12/23/23. Terrible choice. Why, because the service I booked said Body Works, which took you to a list of massages, so I thought I was getting a massage. However, it turned out to be a body treatment that included: brushing and wrapping of the skin, a chocolate mask, and peppermint lotion which I thought was in addition to the massage. The worst treatment I’ve ever received, due to receiving something different than what I booked.

Upon arrival after changing into my robe and slippers, I was placed in the Relaxation Lounge. After sitting there a young lady who I will not name came for me and I gave her the massage intake form. We went to the room and I was asked to lay on the massage bed, for me everything sounds like I’m headed for a massage. Well into the service, while the technician is applying elements, I say, when will you massage? Mainly, because she’a taking an awfully long time applying potion (but this a holiday service of peppermint truffle). She said, oh, I’m not going to give you a massage, I’m an esthetician. I said, huh? She said, I’m sorry for the confusion, I could hear your disheartening. I said, uh… still stunted. She said, well I know I would be disheartened if I thought I was getting a massage and that’s not what I’m getting. I asked her just before washing the elements off if she could ask for a person to massage me when the peppermint lotion is applied because that's what I came for (over an hour travel). So, she came back in and said, unfortunately all the massage techs. are booked for the rest of today and tomorrow. But, you can talk to our office manager when he comes in at 11:00 to see what can be done. I was livid but did not want to take it out on the tech., besides my body was full of concoctions.

The technician continued apologizing and said, I can see how it can be misleading on the website. I said, yes, (the website has it listed as body works listed as if it is a massage). She said, I can see how that can be confusing. She then tried to comfort me by putting an eye mask with light on my eyes and jokes about doing a little massage-y.

When I was done, I went to the front desk and saw the front desk personnel. He asked how the service was, I said um, I’m sure you’ve already heard that I’m not satisfied with the service and I began to share my experience. He said, yea, but you got the service. I said, no I did not get the service I thought I was getting. He said that it wasn't Skin Sense's mistake of me not understanding the service. I told him that it was misleading online. He said he didn’t think so. I said, I’m telling you as someone that read the services it’s misleading under Body Works. He went on to say, if you had called and booked with a person, we would have told you that your service did not include a massage, but since you did it online we can’t help that you didn’t know. Meanwhile, I’m thinking to myself, if you would tell a person that calls, no massage is included, why wouldn’t you tell a person that comes in, or better yet, when I gave the technician the massage in-take form, why didn’t she say, you are not getting a massage.

At any rate, the front desk personnel and I went back and forth. I said to him, is there no resolution? He was adamant that he couldn’t do anything. I asked him for the person over him, which he refused at first to give. Only by replying with, she’s going to tell you the same thing. I had to ask, how does one submit a complaint? What do you all do for people that are not satisfied? Can you offer a discount. He said, well I can do 10% for your next visit I said, I don’t want to come here anymore. He replied, that's fine. Well, needless to say our experience did not end well.

In order to come up with a resolution, I emailed the name and email he gave me and in that email, I said, I would wait to post a review after hearing from their office. Well to date, I have not heard from anyone. Instead they have continued trying to debit my card! I’m only giving a 1 star because a 0 is...

I was going to wait until Monday when I go back before posting a review, but after reading all the one star ratings... I realize there is a very clear pattern of extremely poor customer satisfaction and people getting charged for services that were never honored.

So I will share my first experience with this spa... I work in a very stressful industry and wanted to go to this spa with a business partner of mine to de-stress and try out the salt caves. When I called to book the appointment I spoke with the “manager” and explained that I had never been to the spa before and that I have never experienced a salt cave so I had no idea what to expect. I also asked what the difference was between the Meditation Salt Cave Session and the Adult Salt Cave Session was. She responded in a rude manner and said “We don’t offer the guided meditation!” O.K. Well there was nothing explained to me about either session and in my opinion if you no longer offer a service you should prob remove it from the list of services you offer?

So again nothing about the experience or what to expect was ever explained to me. However, she did make it very clear that if I didn’t cancel before 24 hours that I would be charged for the entire session AND if one of us were to cancel that I would still be charged for BOTH of us! I thought that was a bit extreme but had already purchased 2 Groupon sessions, so I booked the appointment.

I arrived on time for the session and called my friend/business partner who was stuck in traffic and her GPS said that she was 5 mins away. I told her I would meet her inside the Spa then.

When I walked in I said that I was there for a 3pm appointment and gave them my name. I was immediately told to start going back to the salt cave and I explained that my friend was just a couple mins away. I was told that she would not be able to join me and I was baffled! I said “she’s going to be here in just a minute I can’t wait for her or she can’t meet me in the salt cave?” “No we do not allow anyone in that is late” The back and forth went on for a few moments and I was in shock with the way I was being treated. They said “We ask that everyone get here 15 mins early” I said “Well whatever lady I spoke to on the phone never told me anything about being 15 mins early or that we would not be able to enter the salt cave even a min late!”

3:05 my business partner arrives and at this point neither of us would be allowed in and I would still be charged for both sessions after we took off time in our busy schedule to drive 30 mins and refuse to have the services that I already paid for! I refused to leave and demanded to speak with the owner and I was told that the owner was away for the next week and a half and they can take my contact info and have the owner call me when they get back. NOPE .... I want to talk to the owner right now!

Another customer then entered the spa and they obv didn’t want a scene so I was asked to step into another room with the manager. At this point I was shaking I was so angry. The manager had a very rude demeanor from the start. Once we entered the room we continued to go in circles and continued with the fact that I should have been informed about arriving 15 mins and that when I explained that I had never done this before and that I didn’t know what to expect THAT is when an expectation should have been set.

She was very confident in saying “fine I can pull the phone call recording to see if I disclosed that information” I said “OK! If I am wrong and you told me to be here 15 mins early then I will apologize to you and you can charge me for the service and I will leave”

Well of course she didn’t listen to the phone call in front of us so that we could hear... but she did go back and listen to it and when she returned had a complete attitude change. It wasn’t until that moment that she was nice and offered to let me reschedule and not charge me for that days session.

I mean... at this point do I even want to go back to this place??? I went there to de-stress and my stress was only...