Santa Barbara Wellness Professionals Integrate Innovative Holistic Practices

Santa Barbara Wellness Professionals’ recent grand opening on Upper State Street celebrated four holistic-minded businesses coming together under the same roof: Life Vessel, Hands of Soleil, The Wellness MD, and Forever Beautiful Spa. The new center, located at 3015 State Street, Suite A ([805] 898-2211; santabarbarawellnessprofessionals.com), now offers more than 30 different services, ranging from ear coning to long-term intensive programs with a doctor, altogether providing multiple options for relaxation, detoxification, lifestyle coaching, and natural alternatives to conventional therapies.

The Life Vessel, owned by Becky Witt and Stephanie Badasci, is one of only 10 Life Vessel centers in the world. The bamboo-and-pine box uses vibrations and frequencies of sound and light to heal the emotional and physical body. They cite studies that show the system can balance automatic nervous systems. (Read a previous Life Vessel article here.)

Witt and Badasci also cater to mental and physical health with other services, including the use of EVOX computer software, which detects emotional and physical pain in a patient’s voice, then helps change their perception on the problem. “First you talk about something you have an emotional charge to, and EVOX records it,” explained Badasci. “Then it sends impulses through your hands that break up congestion in the emotional body.”

Hands of Soleil, owned by Michelle Soleil, offers colon hydrotherapy services, also known as colonics. Colonics are a safe, FDA-approved, and nonaddictive way to remove waste from the colon without dehydrating the body with drugs and laxatives. Soleil says some people can have up to 10 pounds of waste stuck in their bowel. After colonics, they leave with flat bellies, feeling clean and light.

She also offers different types of massages and body scrubs, including the Bio-Electric Lymph Drainage Massage, which many customers follow with a body scrub, shower, and colonic. “When I do that,” said Badasci, “I basically float out of here.” Many customers come in to get a Bio-Electric Lymph Drainage Massage, followed by a body scrub and a shower, and finished off with a colonic. “When I do that,” said Badasci, “I basically float out of here.”

Mark D. Butterfield, the Wellness M.D., is a conventionally trained physician who’s always understood the power of natural health. He specializes in holistic wellness consultations and programs that treat and prevent chronic symptoms like issues with energy, mood, sleep, weight, and inflammation. “Most common health issues are lifestyle created,” explained Butterfield, who offers three-, six-, and 12-month programs that use supplements, natural treatments, and lifestyle coaching to heal his patients.

Butterfield also offers supplements alone for patients who can’t commit to a long-term program. His office is lined with small brown bottles that are filled with liquid herbal concentrates, which are more cost effective than in pill form and allow for more flexibility. Butterfield uses the highly reputable Australian brand Medi Herb and prescribes his patients “shots” of herbal extracts that he combines

Forever Beautiful Spa, owned by Stephanie Gombrelli, offers a multitude of all-natural personal beauty treatments, including natural and injection-free alternatives to facelifts, fillers, Botox, and lasers. Those include anti-aging facials, collagen induction therapy, eyelash extensions and perming, facial waxing, reflexology massages, body scrubs, and ear coning.

But the service that truly embodies Gombrelli’s “beauty from the inside out” philosophy is her facial exercise class. “People go to the gym and work out their body,” she explained, “but very few people know how to exercise their face.” By training people in how to exercise the seven muscles in their face, she gives them the tools they need to naturally lift and tone their skin.

Altogether, Santa Barbara Wellness Professionals is a one-stop center for total body rejuvenation.