By Eliza Ridgeway

Bella Schneider of Los Altos owns three LaBelle Spas in the area, all aimed at teaching clients how to care for themselves.

Bella Schneider of Los Altos, founder of LaBelle Day Spas, believes, “A good understanding of how to look your best empowers people.”

With spas in Palo Alto and San Francisco, Schneider has made it her mission to educate area women on how to take care of their skin. In so doing, she trusts that her work reaches beyond the flesh.

“In my opinion, you cannot separate the two - beauty and well-being,” she said. “Confidence comes when you feel well-equipped for whatever comes in life.”

Born in Ukraine, Schneider lived in Poland, Italy and Israel before coming to the United States. She majored in economics at UC Berkeley while working in the fashion and beauty industry. When she graduated in 1976, Schneider opened the first LaBelle spa in a 650-square-foot space in San Francisco.

At that time, the most advice women generally got on skin care was a maternal admonition to buy a jar of cold cream.

“When I started this (business), there was no information available to the American woman,” she said. “That became my focus.”

Getting a business loan proved a challenge. Male bankers, unfamiliar with the field, asked her if she was opening a massage parlor. But Schneider’s early focus on businesswomen, even at her small spa, paid off - a banker client secured her a loan to open a new, 3,000-square-foot spa.

Today, each LaBelle spa, in San Francisco and at Town and Country Village and Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, has a different feel or tone, Schneider said.

Skin care, massage and a hair salon form the foundation of LaBelle spa services. Exfoliation, age-correction, addressing hyper-pigmentation and developing sun-management regimes are the bread and butter of the spa’s work. Schneider focuses on performing the most popular services exceptionally well rather than offering an array of specialty treatments.

One of her most important goals is “to teach people how to care for their skin at home,” Schneider said.

Although her spas offer a broad range of luxurious products, Schneider emphasized that for many women, “Expensive is not better. You can find the right ingredients even in drugstore products.” The key is knowing your complexion needs, and sticking to what works well.

The skin care industry has exploded in recent years, and modern product lines contain an array of active ingredients appropriate for home use. One popular exfoliation method is alpha-hydroxy and retinary acids, but Schneider said this comes as a mixed blessing. “I see people with very red skin,” she said, because they have over-exfoliated. Microdermabrasion, lasers and chemical peels can also produce highly exfoliated skin that is particularly vulnerable to sun damage.

“Americans get obsessive: too many surgeries, too many products and a lack of loyalty to something that is working,” Schneider said.

Schneider doesn’t shy away from innovation, however. Clients can find the latest in lymphatic, laser and LED technology for the skin.

Yet among all the services, Schneider said, waxing makes up as much as half of a spa’s business. Grooming and cleanliness have always been an American obsession, Schneider observed. California gym culture, where much of the body is exposed in public settings, has brought waxing - even for men - into the mainstream.

Depilation fads come and go. The Brazilian, a bikini wax that goes all the way, titillated Americans when discussed by characters in television’s “Sex and the City” some years ago. Today, the Brazilian is hardly more scandalous than a plucked brow.

“It’s sexy and sensual too, I guess,” Schneider said. “I invented all of the bikini waxing shapes you think of, years ago. But we concentrate on what’s best for a person. For a young girl it’s OK to be trendy, for an older person you need to look at what’s most flattering to her.”

The LaBelle spas pride themselves on employee training, combining American clinical expertise and European sophistication.

“Training is hard to get,” Schneider said. “You come from beauty school knowing very little. People come to LaBelle for in-house training. I invest in my employees.”

Aestheticians at LaBelle get a general education in ingredients and in client care based on a European model. Schneider said some go off and start their own facilities as skin-care entrepreneurs.

“I set trends in this business,” Schneider said. “I teach, educate, research, write and educate at shows.”

Staying on the front line of skin care means constantly searching for the next miracle ingredient. Schneider has marketed her own product line since the inception of LaBelle, and in 1992 expanded to form a wholesale business, 5 Star Formulators. Schneider develops product lines for other companies and consults on product development. Because her business is still small compared to beauty giants like Estee Lauder, she can work with a client in the laboratory to turn around a new spa product in two or three months.

At an international skin-care show in Italy, Schneider had five days to evaluate the innovative ingredients and products of 22,000 vendors. Day to day, she sends employees to department stores to track ingredient changes and how large companies bring products to the marketplace.

“I look for trends and interesting developments,” she said, “but the only important thing is ingredients. I believe in formulating the best of the best.”

Schneider expects to expand her spas and their offerings and branch into anti-aging medicine with a doctor on staff. New clinical rooms were added at the Stanford location, and she has plans to offer manicures and pedicures in the garden courtyard.

When asked about what it means to work in an industry founded on pandering to vanity, Schneider was unperturbed.

“Looking good always gets you farther,” she said. “I think everything within reason is acceptable. I think beauty within reason is phenomenal.”

For more information, visit www.labelledayspas.com or call 326-8522.