— Issaquah · Olde Town
Aura Beauty & Head Spa, 575 E Sunset Way.
A converted house on a tree-lined block, about a third of a mile east of the shops on Front Street. Inside there is a fireplace lounge, cream paneling, two blow-dry chairs under round backlit mirrors, and the scalp camera every head spa starts with.
Quick answer
Aura Beauty & Head Spa is a head spa, facial and massage studio at 575 E Sunset Way in Issaquah, WA, open every day from 9 AM to 8 PM. The menu holds 16 treatments and 7 packages, 30 to 90 minutes, priced $50 to $168. Every head spa opens with a digital scalp analysis on a monitor, and everything from 45 minutes up finishes with a blow-dry.
- Address
- 575 E Sunset Way
- Open
- 7 days, 9 AM – 8 PM
- On the menu
- 16 treatments, 7 packages
- Off the freeway
- I-90, Exit 18
— 01
Who runs the studio?
Selina, who opened Aura and still does the treatments herself: 10 years of experience in massage, 7 in skincare and 5 in head spa work — which is exactly the three things on the menu.
In her own words
My name is Selina and I opened Aura Beauty & Head Spa.
I have 10 years of experience in massage, 7 years in skincare and 5 years working on scalps. Those three things are what this studio offers, and they are what I was doing long before it had a name.
The work I am best at is the neck and shoulders, and deep tissue. Most of what I see comes from the same few places — a long week at a desk, too much sitting, stress, not enough sleep — and an hour of the right pressure can take the edge off it. I ask how your week has gone and set the pressure from there. Firmer is not automatically better; it depends on the body on the table.
Seven years of facials taught me the same thing about skin. Deep cleansing, hydration, gua sha lifting, and the slower kind of facial where someone else looks after your face for an hour. I work to the skin in front of me instead of to a fixed routine, and I would sooner go gently and have you leave comfortable.
Five years on scalps is where the head spa came from: deep cleansing, scalp massage, meridian work down through the neck and shoulders, and care for the hair itself. A head spa cleans the scalp. What brings people back is the hour — the part where nothing is asked of you and you can stop.
I opened Aura because I wanted a room that was quiet, warm and private. Somewhere unhurried, where you are not overheard, and where whoever is treating you has the time to pay attention.
What I hope is that you leave feeling looked after, not just treated.
— 02
What does the studio look like inside?
A house, laid out like one. The front room is a lounge with a fireplace, candles on the mantel and tea on the counter under the backlit gold lotus and the Aura wordmark. Behind it the treatment rooms sit in cream paneling under low, warm light, and two blow-dry chairs face round backlit mirrors.
The lounge, and the tea
Tea and refreshments sit on the welcome counter by the door, under the backlit gold lotus and the Aura wordmark, beside a row of candles. The fireplace is a few steps further in, with a cart of rolled towels next to it. From October through April, when Issaquah collects most of its 62 inches of rain, that corner is worth arriving a few minutes early for.
The treatment rooms
Cream wall paneling, a curtain divider, and a treatment bed with a shallow basin at its head. The light is low and warm, and with the water running it throws a rippling pattern across the ceiling. You stay on your back for the whole rinse, head in the basin, warm water running through your hair.
The blow-dry chairs
Two chairs face round backlit mirrors, with product on wall shelves to either side. Every head spa from 45 minutes up finishes here, so a 7 PM booking in November, the wettest month of the year at 10 inches, does not end with wet hair on the walk back down E Sunset Way. The 30 minute TCM Head Aromatherapy at $50 is the one format that never wets the hair at all.
— 03
What can you book here?
16 treatments and 7 packages, in three categories. Head spa is the biggest part of the menu at 8 formats between 30 and 90 minutes; facials and massage run to 4 each, and the 7 packages put two services inside one 60 or 90 minute appointment.
| Category | Choices | Length | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Head Spa Scalp analysis, deep cleanse, long massage, warm-water rinse, blow-dry | 8 | 30–90 min | $50–$150 |
| Facial Gua sha lifting, deep hydrating, and a customized facial with red light | 4 | 30–60 min | $80–$138 |
| Massage Neck and shoulders, Swedish, and deep tissue by the hour | 4 | 30–90 min | $60–$135 |
| Packages Two services inside one appointment, cheaper than booking both | 7 | 60–90 min | $120–$168 |
The most booked line on the menu sits in the middle of the range: the 75 minute Aura Scalp Treatment with a mini facial, at $120. Below it, the 45 minute Classic at $78 is the shortest format that still includes the double cleanse and the blow-dry. Each category has a page of its own — head spa, facials, massage and packages — and all 23 lines, with what each one includes, are on the price list.
— 04
Where is the studio, and how do you find it?
575 E Sunset Way, in Olde Town. That is one of Issaquah's two commercial districts; the other, NW Gilman Blvd, sits across I-90. Front Street and its shops are about a third of a mile west, a 7 to 9 minute walk on the flat, and the freeway is a few minutes out at Exit 18.
A house on a block of houses
Past about the 400 block, E Sunset Way stops being retail and turns into converted Craftsman and mid-century houses on their own lots. City Hall sits in the same pattern at 130 E Sunset, and the studio is one of those houses, set back on a tree-lined block with House of Layo on the same site.
How far it is from the rest of the Eastside
Sammamish is 6.8 miles and about 16 minutes, and never touches the freeway. Bellevue is 11.8 miles, about 19; Seattle 17.6, about 26; Redmond 14.3, about 26 by way of SR-520. Those are free-flow times, so anything arriving eastbound on I-90 late in the afternoon should add 8 to 12 minutes.
Phone, hours and the map sit on the contact page, and the calendar itself runs on Square.
— 05
What happens at the start of every head spa?
A digital scalp analysis, on a monitor you can see. A handheld camera magnifies a patch of skin at the part line, and what shows there — buildup, dry flaking, oil sitting around the follicles — sets what the next 30 to 90 minutes do. Every format on the head spa list opens with it.
What comes after the camera
The session splits by format from there: a double shampoo, a long scalp and shoulder massage, the warm-water rinse at the basin, a mask, and a blow-dry on everything from 45 minutes up. The head spa page sets all 8 formats side by side, and the scalp analysis guide goes further into what the monitor shows.
What the camera does not do
The scalp camera is a beauty tool, and a head spa is a beauty service — nothing here diagnoses, treats or cures anything. Hair coming out in patches, a scalp that is sore or bleeding, or flaking that will not settle with an over-the-counter shampoo belongs with a dermatologist. See one first, then book: the two work well together.
Finding us
Look for the sign, not a shopfront
Open every day, 9 AM to 8 PM — a lunch hour, an evening after work, or a weekend morning all fit.
- Come off I-90 at Exit 18 and follow E Sunset Way east. We are about a third of a mile past Front Street, on a block of converted houses.
- Watch the curb for a dark monument sign reading House of Layo and Aura Beauty. We share the site with the salon, so that sign is the landmark.
- Come a few minutes early on a first visit — there is tea by the fireplace, and your head spa starts with a look at your scalp on the monitor.
— About the studio