BEVERLY, Mass. -- From vibrating tuning fork facial treatments to a dance based on the "Chinese five elements," Sally Amore believes she knows the key to beauty and health. Amore owns Amore Holistic Esthetics and Movement in Beverly Farms, Mass. She has been a licensed aesthetician since 1983 who experienced somewhat of a midcareer rebirth. "For many years, I worked as a traditional aesthetician with a very Western head-set," said Amore, 52. "I was very much into (chemical) peels." In the late 1990s, she had a change of heart. "I had the opportunity to work with old people in their 70s and 80s with really thin skin, and you really couldn't work on it," she said. "I decided at that point I didn't really agree with peeling skin to maintain youth. I did an about-face." She helps women "embrace the maturing process and feel beautiful from within," she said on a recent afternoon in her West Street office -- a warm room anchored by a massage table, accented with the smells and sounds of natural oils and soothing music. Amore opened her Beverly business 2 1/2 years ago. She also teaches dance and movement classes. The Salem News caught up with Amore, who lives in Beverly, Mass., and learned about her work.
How can tuning forks restore your skin? It's all energetics. It's lying down receiving the sound vibration, which balances and tones your skin. It lifts, tones and balances the muscles. It creates elastin. Why this treatment? For myself, I can't do injections (like Botox). My body's ultra-sensitive. As a maturing woman, we're always seeking alternatives and always looking for noninvasive ways to maintain beauty. How long does it take? The tuning forks take about 1 1/2 hours. You're conscious of what's going on but in a state of deep relaxation. Have you personally tried it? Yes, after my most recent treatment I looked in the mirror and thought, "Oh my god, I haven't looked this good since I was in my 30s." Why holistic beauty treatments and dance? It's a wonderful alternative to chemicals, and the other thing is that you look very natural. ... I'm 52 and I feel better than I did in my 20s by far. Was it hard to make the switch to holistic? I took a huge risk. I was living in Virginia Beach at the time, and I thought, "Who's going to come to me?" But I really believed in organic and natural, so I opened a business in 1999. How was it? I found more and more women were turning to natural modalities for maintaining youth.
Why such an interest in maintaining youth?
No, no. It's not maintaining youth. It's looking the best you can at every age you're at.
Why?
American women have been very, very inundated by youth culture; it's crazy. As a woman, it's not easy to cross that threshold. ... It's about embracing your maturity in a natural way.
How do you do that?
That, I strongly believe, has to do with maintaining good health and your passions. That keeps your flame going, and that is your youthful experience.
What are the Chinese five elements?
The elements are wood, fire, earth, metal and water. Fire is opening your heart -- joyful and expansive. Earth is tribal. Metal contracts. And water is very free-flowing.
How do you dance them?
The premise is to dance and release pent-up energy and emotion and transform it. When a woman leaves my dance class, she literally looks illuminated.
Is it hard?
I think if you can walk, you can dance. You detach from your critical mind, drop into your body and respond to the music.
Are people ever dismissive of your holistic practices?
Some people say it's earthy-crunchy, or out there. It's not for everybody. I feel it's for people who are open to it. Everybody finds their own avenue.
