EXPERT SECRETS | Tami Conway of The Dailey Method

Owner of hybrid barre-core-stretch studio The Dailey Method Chicago, Tami Conway is one seriously buff and stylish mommy. Here are her top healthy hidden gems in Chicago for food, fitness, fashion and baby. 

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SPA WATCH | Elizabeth Arden Red Door

IT HAS been a frenzied early spring of spa visits for us here... a far cry from last spring with elbows deep in a start-up, simultaneously planning a backyard wedding and, er, hunched over the laptop all the while. How we cherish the fact that spa visits are all in a day's work for a beauty writer. Facials? Massages? Pedicures? YES, please, even though the end results mights not be long term unless you keep a standing appointment with your torturer therapist.

With sandal season just a few weeks out, I have started doing some serious foot repair as well. Not six months ago I was mountain climbing in the same socks for seven days, hiking, farming and swing from tree tops by a harness. And not a professional hand has set upon my feet in the meantime.

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SPA WATCH | JOSEPH MICHAEL'S SALON & SPA

IT WAS a bleak day for me (it's winter after all...) when I realised that, perhaps, even though a beauty journalist, I personally hadn't been seeing the wood for the proverbial trees with regards to my own appearance for some years. There's nothing overtly wrong with it but I had somehow over my lifetime adapted a live and let be attitude to my appearance, never making any serious overtures with myself about taking care of (beauty) business. But the older I get, the more I want (and feel like I need) to sign up for a regular routine that includes the likes of facials. Yes, yes, most of my compatriots (adopted and real) probably see it as a luxury, but I'll tell you what -- I would rather that be the luxury I spend my money on than a purse or shoes. Those go out of fashion and get stuffed away in the wardrobe one day. Can't do that with a face!

It was with a chipper can-do attitude, then, that I greeted the offer from Spa Week Daily to trial one of the wonderful treatments on offer for $50 during Spa Week 2010. Kick start my beauty makeover with Spa Madness and let you lot know about the deep discounts to be had at spas across North America this April? Yes, please.

Without further ado...

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