Effleurage Spa and Boutique owner, Lori Robinson, prepares to cut the ribbon during the grand opening of her business in downtown Charles Town on Oct. 10. Photo by Tabitha Johnston.

SHEPHERDSTOWN — Effleurage Spa and Boutique celebrated its grand opening with a ribbon cutting on Oct. 10.

The business, located at 303 West Washington Street in Charles Town, is the second career of owner and massage therapist Lori Castillo, who previously worked as a real estate property manager in Florida before moving to Charles Town.

According to Castillo, the spa offers a wide variety of options for customers, and is set up to meet the community’s needs to the best of its ability.

“It’s been a great opportunity to be here in downtown Charles Town. We’re excited to see what the community would like,” Castillo said. “‘Effleurage’ is a warming massage stroke, so we thought it was a very appropriate name for a spa. We do both massage and reflexology, and may be introducing more options in the future. We offer a variety of massages, including Swedish, hot stone, deep tissue, therapeutic, prenatal — all those kinds of things.”

The spa has two male massage therapists and two female massage therapists, and can schedule some massage sessions anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes. Offering customers the choice of length of session and massage therapist is one of many ways Castillo is endeavoring to make the business attractive to the community. Another way she is making it more customer-friendly, is by promising customers their full time on the massage table. In Castillo’s experience, most spas fail to give their customers their entire sessions, because they count into the session the time it takes for customers to change in and out of their clothing.

The boutique is located along the street front, and its space was vacated a couple of months ago by a former business. According to Castillo, the spa has been operating from the back of the building since 2017, and when the street front space was suddenly made available, she jumped at the chance to expand her business’ appeal to the community through the boutique.

“We’re really excited, we’ve got some great merchandise, and we’re looking forward to bringing more in to sell during the holidays,” Castillo said, mentioning she wants to make sure the boutique’s merchandise will always be appealing to customers. “Things that don’t move as quickly we’ll go ahead and phase them out.”

Castillo’s social media and boutique manager, Anna Hoopengardner, said the boutique features a selection of locally-created art — ranging from earrings to oil-on-canvas — as well as tee-shirts, home goods, “boho bandeaus” and PopSockets. The boutique, like the main spa area, will always be infused with essential oils, according to Hoopengardner.

As a long-time friend and former co-worker of Castillo’s, Hoopengardner said she was excited to start working with Castillo again and help make her dreams become a reality.

“I’ve been working here since she opened in this location in January 2017,” Hoopengardner said. “I hope the community will realize that we’re not only here to make a home for ourselves, but that they will realize we are here for them.”

Effleurage Spa and Boutique is open seven days a week. Walk-ins are accepted, although community members are encouraged to schedule their massage appointments online, at www.charlestownspa.com/, or over-the-phone at 304-240-8012.