Organic Salons Nuture
the Body & Soul

by Jacqueline Paquet

Penny Ordway, with her flowing cascade of blonde hair, looked like she had stepped out of a medieval fairytale. Her feather-light voice coaxed me into a state of relaxation. "We invite people to environment of healing," cooed Ordway, owner of Eviama Life Spa (262 S. 16th Street). "Our treatments support well-being and open people's eyes to the magic of the healer within them." The longer she spoke, the more serene I became, floating on a sea of tranquility. I was not reclining on a massage table, mind you, but sitting at a desk on the other side of the city, interviewing her via speaker phone. If Ordway's voice could relax me this easily, I wondered what Eviama's holistic therapies could do for my overworked body and tightly wound mind.

Living organically -- that is, using pure, "from the earth" products and services that are both kind to one's body and our ecosystem - is no longer a luxury reserved for the "uber elite." The green movement has evolved from Thoreau and the Transcendentalists of the mid-19th century, to the political activism of the 1960s and '70s, to the commoditization of eco-friendly products int he last decade. Being "green" - in the past, a designation for those on the fringe of society - is now a lifestyle flaunted by the rich and famous. Madonna swears by her Ashtanga yoga practice, while Gwyneth Paltrow waxes poetic on her "GOOP" blog about her macrobiotic diet. Young women, aspiring to "live clean" like Hollywood starlets shop for organic produce at Whole Foods and drink purified water from chemical-free stainless steel water bottles.

Since everything we consume has become available in a "greener" version, it makes sense that it was only a matter of time before beauty products and services went through this transformation. Ironically enough, Philadelphia - a city known for fattening foods and for its sluggish, overweight population - is at the forefront of the organic spa movement.

The "mother" of Philadelphia's organic spa movement is the soft-spoken, yet opinionated, Ordway. In the late '90s, long before the organic movement entered the social consciousness, Ordway discovered an unmet need for organic spas and decided that she could fill that niche. "No one knew what 'green' meant in 2000, but I had worked at other spas and realized that many products had harmful or questionable ingredients. Sixty to seventy percent of what you put on your skin enters your blood stream." Knowing how the sourcing and handling of beauty products affects their efficacy and safety, Ordway decided to open Eviama Life Spa with the mission of supporting the natural intelligence of the body.

Eviama differentiates itself from the other organic spas in the city through its expertise in spiritual healing. Ordway and her therapists have extensive training in crystal chakra harmonizing, guided meditation, lymph draining massage, and color therapy. Ordway is proud of Eviama's certification in Mayan abdominal massage. It is the only spa in the city and one of a few in the region that holds such a designation. "We can do one heck of a Brazilian wax here," says Ordway, "but we also do spiritual healing."