Best Lip Service
You can quit wasting your time searching for a lip color because the new West Village spot gives guests the chance to create custom lipsticks and glosses. It’s perfect for a party or Saturday afternoon, so get your lip gloss popping and make Lil Mama proud.
Best Yoga Studio
Whether you have mastered the handstand or you’re barely able to touch your toes, Dallas Yoga Center has a class to meet you where you are on the mat. You won’t find trendy gimmicks here, either. The studio prides itself on an authentic practice with a focus on physical and mental wellness.
Best Pilates Studio
Instructor Kristin Moses is proof that Pilates holds the secret to eternal health and beauty. At Session, she and the Allegro 2 Reformer will help stretch and tone you from head to toe. Plus, the music is good. The themed hip-hop and boy-band days are best.
Best Waxing
It’s hard to find estheticians with both a friendly demeanor and a ruthlessness when it comes to hair removal. Maybe that’s why Waxing the City has invented its own term for the techs there: cerologists, after the Latin word for wax. Regardless, we appreciate the silky-smooth results.
Best Stationer
When having custom stationery made, whether notecards or wedding invitations, it helps if your stationer is also an expert in etiquette. Bell’Invito’s Heather Wiese Alexander is. Choose from boxed notecards and assorted paper goods or go the custom route. Alexander’s etiquette text line is available either way.
Best Bread Delivery
When you unwrap home baker Stephanie Leichtle-Chalklen’s naturally leavened sourdough, tied with string and accented with a sprig of rosemary, admire the beauty of her scoring (floral designs made with razor cuts) and flavors like cherry rooibos with cacao nibs. The best part: she dropped off this warm loaf just for you.
Best Med Spa
Dallasites have long entrusted their faces to family-owned Enlighten Med Spa. This year, the spa added an Enlighten Living lifestyle boutique to its Preston Hollow location, along with a collection of shops and services (including a hair salon and event space), so clients can make a day out of a routine Botox appointment.
Best HIIT
Your breath leaves you in the warmup. Before you know it, you’ll be doing something involving resistance bands, jumps, burpees, crunches—whatever the instructor decides to focus on. Then comes the strength series with dumbbells. But don’t worry. Your breath will catch up with you during the 10 minutes of yoga.
Best Blowout
Getting a blowout should be a treat. BAM Beauty Bar in West Village understands that, offering visitors free Champagne, Balmain hair products, Dyson’s innovative hair dryers, and a towering flower installation (handcrafted by a local artist) to complement their post-blowout Instagrams.
Best Girls’ Day Out
Instead of the same old Saturday brunch, grab the gals for a do-it-yourself activity at The Candle Bar. The store teams you up with an instructor to help you out, and you can choose from vessels in every shape and size and more than 40 scents. It’s BYO libations, so you can sip while you pour.
Best Pet Boarder
There are many adorable things about Barking Hound Village, like the beautifully designed canine accommodations (some are even outfitted with TVs tuned to Animal Planet) and the bone-shaped pools. But the sweetest of all may be its Facebook page, updated with the faces of its four-legged visitors throughout the workday.
Best Vet
Dr. Rowan gave us another two years with our cat. She diagnosed her kidney disease and helped us manage it—until it was no longer manageable. When the end came, she and her team visited our home. Rutherford’s staff is empathetic, and they will do what’s best for your pet.
Best Barber Shop
Are Juke Higgins, Roberto Montalvo, and Ryan Standifer the city’s best barbers? Yes, but it’s more than that. You can get a good cut all over town. Here, you get that as well as a classic barber shop setup with wide-ranging conversation and a lot of good-natured shit-talking, with Higgins as the ringleader. It’s why Sovereign has essentially become the official barber shop of the men of
D Magazine.
Best Day Spa
The Fort Worth day spa, which sources hyperclean, plant-based, organic products, will restore you through one of its many treatments, be it massage, facial, or—dare we suggest—hydrating body cocoon.
Best Eyebrows
From a relaxing room within The Joule’s sleek, subterranean spa, Rula Sharkawi works her magic, bringing even the most overtweezed brows back from the brink. Though she’d never push, her Rula Cosmetics line is also available at the spa to help you maintain your perfect arches at home.
Best Mani/Pedi
This adorable nail salon in Uptown affords the luxuries of a day spa with all-organic products. The scrub is made in-house at The Nail Bar, and the lotions and polishes are also free of harmful toxins. Bonus: the massage is one of the best we’ve had.
Best Gym
With the rise of personal training apps, you don’t need a fancy gym—just a place that’s comfortable and has the right equipment. In other words: hello, YMCA. But the newish Lakewood outpost is too crowded, and at the Highland Park location many parents let their kids run wild. The downtown Y, though, checks every box and has a ridiculously friendly staff. Also: the best lunchtime pickup games.
Best Scooter Service
Bike- and scooter-share is a revolving door in Dallas, but Lime has been here from the beginning. The company’s scooters feel nice and sturdy, they’re accessible, and they don’t operate on a system that requires you keep money in an account, like a certain, ahem, flighty service that shall remain nameless. twitter.com/limebike.
Best Place to Donate
With so many worthy causes, it can be difficult to decide where to give your gently used goods. Consider Dwell With Dignity, which uses donations to create welcoming, nurturing homes for families transitioning out of homelessness and poverty. A list of items the organization accepts can be found at dwellwithdignity.org.
Best Birthday Cake
Heather Harbord is the sugar artist behind Crumb & Kettle’s custom cakes, each of which is baked from scratch using organic ingredients and frosted with European-style buttercream that’s not too sweet. If you waited until the last minute, you can quick-order one of her signature cakes with just seven days’ lead time.
Best Caterer
Justo Blanco believes that meals are meant for sharing and that good hospitality should be carefully executed. That’s why he started Familia Events & Catering after 16 years in the food and beverage industry and 12 in corporate and social events. Chef Blanco brings a knowledge of worldwide cuisine (literally) to the table.
Best Shoe Repair
Next time one of those Jimmy Choos starts to give, no need to rush out to replace that pair. Head to Kosta Dino’s and that broken shoe will come back good as new. It’s quick, reliable, and easy on the wallet.
Best Tailor
You might go to Martha’s, located in a quaint brick home on West Lovers Lane, for the effusive Yelp reviews, but you’ll stay for Eta Gurban, whom the original Martha entrusted with the business in 2005. She offers each client warm conversation and magic in the form of well-tailored pants.
Best Sunless Tanning
The Austin transplant is blessedly tanning bed free, focusing simply on doling out a flawless, customizable airbrush tan using an all-natural formula that has no harmful parabens. The airy space in The Shops of Highland Park matches that elevated ethos.
Best Affordable Facial
This L.A. transplant is the answer to our skin care prayers: a clean, comfortable space to get a facial that starts at $65, takes less than an hour, and yields obvious results. It’s a no-frills joint, but it offers full spa services, such as microdermabrasion and LED light therapy for much less than you’d pay at a luxury operation. Go on your lunch break and bask in your afternoon glow.
Best Place for a Staycation
Wake up with a cold brew at Otto’s, relax at the spa, then pop into City Hall Bistro for lunch. Treat yourself to a custom hat from Commerce Goods + Supply, don your fanciest duds for dinner at The French Room, and unwind by the rooftop pool amid twinkling city lights. Look at that! You just had a vacation.
Best Cali Fitness Import
Los Angeles-based Rise Nation is very Hollywood. Its founder trains actresses like Jennifer Aniston, and it’s beloved by LeBron James. But Dallas has embraced the weird but effective workout (think SoulCycle on VersaClimbers) as its own, with more local studios being planned.
Best Salon
With 17-year vet Beau Bollinger at the helm, this Knox-Henderson salon is a place where hairdressers are artists. Each member of the small collective works to ensure that his or her clients’ looks reflect who they really are. And Hairstory products are free of damaging detergents.
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