Nurturing Your Inner Beauty at Tranquil Touch
An East Greenwich aesthetics boutique offers free facials and massage to worthy people.
We all know someone who deserves it: An hour of quiet luxury, set to a soundtrack of tinkling music, where one can drift from reality to a place of peace and locally made spa products. Colleen Collins, owner of Tranquil Touch Aesthetics Boutique, wants to treat that person to something nice.
Collins, who executes masterful facials in her sweet, historically appropriate studio at 13 King Street in East Greenwich, offers free services — an hour-long facial or massage — to one cancer patient or survivor and one caregiver every month. She takes nominations on social media (#givetolive) and via email from friends and family, who deliver the news to their loved one for privacy reasons.
“Let’s face it, if you’re in this business, you’re a nurturer,” Collins says.
Her facials are rife with the good stuff. Clients cozy up on a thick, heated massage bed that’s situated beneath a woodsy tree motif adorned with glowing orbs. The star of Collins’s services is Farmaesthetics, a gentle, fragrant skincare line made in Portsmouth. Each sequence is better than the one before it, and the regimen is tailored to the client. For some, it might feature a toning cleanse, then a gentle cornstarch-based scrub, then a wave of balmy steam, then a neck and foot massage while you wait for an aromatic mask to set.
“This is a way of life for some people,” Collins says. “But for other people, it’s a nice, needed break for them.”
In the past, Collins says some of her #givetolive clients have felt uncomfortable accepting the complimentary service. They’ve offered to pay, or insisted on a tip. Other campaign winners never claim their facial or massage at all.
“I do it because I want to,” Collins says. “It’s the right thing to do. I have my health. I have everything. I want to give back.”
Tranquil Touch’s massage therapist Allison Deckman agrees.
“It’s such a trying time for people; it can be so mentally exhausting,” she says. “It’s nice to give them a break — help them to slow the mind down.”
The aesthetics boutique also collects spare change and food for the House of Hope Community Development Corporation, which helps house the needy in West Bay. And clients who bring in a toiletry item for Amenity Aid — even a $1 toothbrush, Collins says — receive 10 percent off the service of their choice. If a client forgets the toothbrush, $2 from every full-price service will help send two kids to the Autism Project’s Camp Wannagoagain this summer.
“I’m blessed to be able to do what I love for a living,” Collins says. “To me, the only way to live is to give back.”
To learn more about Tranquil Touch, visit the Facebook page here. To nominate a friend or family for a complimentary facial or massage, email Colleen Collins at cmcollins214@yahoo.com.
