Editor’s note: The partnership between Beloved Yoga and the Skin and Wellness Centre dissolved in January 2022.
At first blush, yoga and skin care may not seem like two sides of the same coin—one fosters internal growth while the other improves outward appearances. But for Beloved Yoga founder Maryam Ovissi, they are closely related.
In November, Ovissi and Eneida Soares, the owner of the Skin and Wellness Centre, unveiled a new wellness concept in Falls Church: Yoga by Beloved. The studio, a satellite location of Ovissi’s Reston space, occupies two large rooms in Soares’ skin care facility and offers several types of yoga, fitness and meditation classes.
“Because of this pandemic, I think we’ve learned that mental health and well-being are all connected,” Ovissi says. “In this collaboration, there’s the skin health and the well-being, but at the heart of it, it’s the mental health … the glowing in, the glowing out.”
The yoga therapist and author met Soares in August and quickly engaged in a conversation about their shared professional goals. As they discussed a collaboration, Ovissi found common ground with Soares, who takes a holistic approach to wellness.
“What was very clear is [the Skin and Wellness Centre] isn’t just like a facial spa,” Ovissi says. “[There’s] this underlying desire of service in our arts … and so the driver is the desire to share that. The larger driver is the well-being of the community.”
Soares, who is also the co-founder of skincare technology company RAJA Medical, launched the Skin and Wellness Centre in an industrial building on Broad Street in 2015. When the yoga studio below her space vacated in 2019, she expanded to the ground floor and found herself with a few large, vacant rooms. Beloved by Yoga studios now occupy two of those rooms, and the third is currently being outfitted as a skin care lounge. The lounge will feature Oxylight machines (technology that Soares helped develop) that combine modalities such as light therapy, microdermabrasion and microcurrent oxygen. During mini facial treatments ($100), clients will be invited to listen to guided meditations.
“We know that meditation has huge benefits on your skin and your overall well-being,” says Ileana Gonzalez, an ayurvedic practitioner at the Skin and Wellness Centre, who also serves as the liaison between the center and Beloved Yoga. “So this also is a way to bring both worlds together.”
The center provides skincare services, ayurvedic treatments, reiki and massage therapy in a suite of rooms down the hall from the lounge. There, you’ll also find a salt-therapy room, an otherworldly space encrusted with about 5 tons of Himalayan salt along the floor and walls. For $35, clients can sink into a chair and meditate for 50 minutes while a halogenerator grinds and emits pharmaceutical-grade salt into the air, a treatment thought to promote skin health and combat respiratory conditions.
For Soares, salt-therapy and other skin care services that her center provides aren’t just about profits. “It’s about what you offer, how people want to come to you, how much you enrich their lives,” she says.
Beloved by Yoga offers a host of yoga classes, including hatha, yin, restorative and chair yoga. Students can also register for pilates, Zumba, Bollywood and meditation classes, and may take unlimited classes their first week for $10.
Ovissi and Soares emphasize the importance of education and accessibility. The center will soon provide free, once-monthly Glow From Within workshops in hydration, diet, sleep, meditation and other topics adjacent to skin health. Yoga by Beloved offers some free yoga and meditation classes, and scholarships are available for individuals who cannot afford class.
Amid the ongoing pandemic, Ovissi says she’s gained a new appreciation for what the community needs.
“If we’re going to create something, we’re going to create something that will serve what we’ve seen needs to be—which is places of gathering that uplift, and inspire, and [allow us] to take care of each other,” she says.
Yoga by Beloved is located inside the Skin and Wellness Centre at 929 West Broad St., Suite 101, Falls Church. Check the Yoga by Beloved schedule for class times. Make a reservation for skincare and wellness services.