Escape Day Spa
Photo by Megan Smith
0513: Carrie Wheelock and Alicia Liddon
Sisters Carrie Wheelock and Alicia Liddon run Escape Day Spa in Edgewood.
Escape Day Spa is located on the traffic-heavy corner of Broadway Street and Oxmoor Road, but it’s interior boasts a serene contrast.
Guests are greeted by soft green walls and cream molding, dim lighting, candles and decorative lamps. There’s even a blue brick tile path embedded in the wood flooring that creates a Zen-like river through the space. A playlist of tranquil music plays continuously, ranging from running water to flutes and muffled chimes.
According to sisters and co-owners Carrie Wheelock, 35, and Alicia Liddon, 33, life is stressful, and sometimes it’s necessary to just escape from everything.
Guests can choose from aromatherapy, deep tissue, mommy-to-be, hot stone and relaxation massages ranging from $80-135. Typical massages last 60 or 90 minutes, but 30-minute massages are offered for $45.
The spa offers facials, manicures, pedicures, DermaSweep, hair removal and air brushing.
Escape also features Xtreme Eyelash Extensions. Liddon, a licensed aesthetician, is Alabama’s only certified Xtreme Lash professional.
The sisters are proud to call their spa organic.
“I was getting a massage a few years ago, and I started thinking about what I was putting on other people and what was being rubbed into their skin,” Wheelock said. “So everything is organic.”
Their top product is Hylunia, a line of creams that is advertised as natural, organic, green, holistic, clinical, vegan, gluten-free and paraben-free. The nail polish used, “spa ritual,” is vegan. Escape Day recently started offering a gel nail polish brand that is infused with B vitamins so there is no need to pre-soak fingers in acetone.
Adding to the clean and green ambience of the spa, Wheelock hand-makes body scrub products.
“I use 100 percent dead sea salt, Epsom salts and 100 percent essential oils,” she said. “They come in different scents like peppermint orange, lavender-geranium rosemary and tranquility blend. I like using scrubs because it takes that top layer of dead skin off and makes it easier to absorb healthy oils and lotions.”
Wheelock, who has been a massage therapist for 13 years, first looked at Escape’s current building four years ago when she was considering going into business on her own.
She ventured into her own practice in 2008 as “Escape Massage Therapist.” Two and a half years ago, she teamed up with her sister and started Escape Day Spa in Crestline and eventually expanded to include 19 other employees.
Then in October 2012 the sisters moved to downtown Edgewood because they needed a larger location. Wheelock said revenue has almost doubled since leaving the Crestline location, but that that could be from previously turning down customers because of space limitations. Regardless of location, Wheelock has always tried to make her practice affordable for everyone who needs to relax.
“We like to keep our prices reasonable,” Wheelock said. “I think it’s made us stand out in hard economic times.”
Escape Day Spa
100 Broadway St., Homewood, Alabama
Monday: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.