Lavender and cherry enzymes help spread skin and spa care to the working class

By Shari Gab

She sits demurely and reaches for an unmarked, silver tin from her satchel. A lavender and bergamot balm, made from her home, smears her small lips. As she puckers them forward, she muses light-heartedly, “Come on, this is the beauty industry - I don’t play that game.”

She means the age game. But, 32-year-old skin care specialist Caroline Stork must be doing something right because she’s frequently carded—“more often than not,” she grins. Stork is one of the many entrepreneurs to take up lot in the 18th and Treat Street studios that blossomed in the Mission area last August.

Previously, Stork could be found in the Marina’s long-lived Spa Radiance, where she also functioned as a successful esthetician. Peeling, pampering and preventative measures all take shape in the hands of Stork. A brain chock full of chemistry, she graduated from the University of Michigan before coming out West. “If skin care was an exact science, a monkey could do my job. But, it’s experience, touch and trial and error that make for a good esthetician,” explains Stork.

Facials aren’t an everyday experience for Mission residents and Stork is rare in her efforts. San Francisco’s Marina district has the highest per capita spa locations outside of Orange County. She moved out of that comfort zone because she feels that much about what she does is preventative and healing medicine. With that mindset, skincare should not be reserved only for upper class. She explains that doing skin care and spa treatments for the working class was something that she had been sitting on for a while and that that motivation, along with the opportunity to be her own boss, is what inspired her move.

Stork says she believes that holistic health is a facet of well being that everyone should have access to. She says she feels more rewarded being able to provide, what is otherwise considered a luxury, for a clientele outside an elite class. Stork believes in giving back to the community that has supported her. “San Francisco is so cool like that,” she says.

She hints around at the “dangling-feet feeling” that she gets with the uncertainty of the economy. She says it was a large step to move away from the security of working in the Marina. Stork frosts whatever anxieties she has and one can tell that she is determined to remain an optimist.

So now, Stork stands on her own two size-six feet with her own business, Golden Skin & Body Wellness. “This is what San Francisco is about,” she says. “It’s young, creative people breaking ground.” Stork touts that she doesn’t know anyone who goes to Starbucks or the Red Door Spa and Salon alike.

Her room stands at the fourth floor of the ActivSpace. ActivSpace is like a lively, professional dorm or a functional filing cabinet that can house anything and everything from dog clothing designers to painters, from mystic visionaries to massage therapy. Their mission says, “Whether you’re an artist, hobbyist, or operate a business, you need space that will fuel your entrepreneurial spirit. Our mission is to provide a safe, functional, private space where your creativity can flow.” Started in Washington and built by ActivSpace, LLC, the company now has locations in Seattle, Portland, Berkeley and San Francisco

Stork’s studio is a warm, inviting room with a big, feather treatment bed crying to hold you and metallic, gold accents. A big, window gives a view of a foggy, cold city, but the enveloping smells of—is that clove and vanilla?— make the room psychosomatically cozy. She sits easily on the bed, dangling her feet and tells the difference between mushroom enzymes (good for hyper-pigmentation) and cherry enzymes (good for anti-aging). She taps each side of her face lightly with the palm of her hand, giving a little slap, slap as she explains how oxygen treatments awaken the skin.

Marissa Ryan, who also thrives on the fourth floor, says, “This space is amazing and the people are inspiring.” The hypothetical house warming of the Treat Street studios was an open house with live music and drinks. “Everyone opened their door and you could kind of peek around. It was cool to see all the different things that people were doing.”

Closing up with her card key and saying “Hey” to a few faces in the hall, Caroline Stork, also a Mission resident, begins her walk home to 24th and Capp Street. She likes her “little neighborhood” and the idea of living and working in the Mission.

With growing concern about gentrification in the Mission District, Ryan and Stork feel that the ActivSpace is a positive addition to and reflection of the community they support.

“If you could have been here for the opening,” Ryan says, “you would have seen how diverse the crowd was. There’s a total variety of people.”

Some residents seem to feel the same. Carlos Vox says that the 18th and Treat Street studios do not really meet with any adversity. “I don’t know. Maybe the crack heads, who can’t park their vans across the street anymore, might be pissed. Actually, just personally, I think those were brothels on wheels.”

Sarah Colleen Millar, another Mission resident and friend to Stork, agrees that the studios fit in. Millar says she does not think that the building changed the neighborhood negatively or adds to the gentrification of San Francisco. “It definitely cleaned up the area though. But, like in a good way,” says Millar.

Caroline Stork sees herself staying in San Francisco. She says it feels good to be a businesswoman and that the Treat Street studios offer so much in the way of networking and support. “It was time,” says Stork of her venture, “and everything aligned perfectly to make it happen.”