Editor’s Note: This story was initially published on March 9, 2009.

In a struggling economy it is hard to imagine a growing number of people spending a lot of money to pamper themselves with spa treatments. However, the spa industry is one of the fastest growing, said Sally Elbert, owner of the Ville Day Spa, located in Somerset Village.

“You can understand in a downward economy, with all the stress, why people are still going to spas,” Elbert said. “More people go to spas than movie theaters and amusement parks.”

Elbert said the treatments are not just about pampering — one of her least favorite words — but about taking care of your skin and what you have.

“We [spa owners] have a lot of educating to do,” she said. “If you think about it there are just so many benefits.”

One of the challenges has been that, because many people have never been to a spa, they have some misconceptions — such as naked masvvsages.

“At no point is anyone in here ever naked,” she said.

However, one of the benefits to being located in Ames is that, because it is a college town, more people travel and have been to spas, she said. This is also one of the reasons the Ville uses international skin care products, such as Dermalogica.

Although the Ville may not be the cheapest in town, its quality and atmosphere sets it apart, as well as the fact that most of the products used on clients are sent home with them.

For example, with the “soothe your sole, the ultimate foot experience,” the clients take home a Golden Tree foot scrubber and the nail polish they chose to use.

Each of the treatment rooms are named after a city in Italy, and decorated in rich, dark colors.

“I’d been to Italy, and I was impressed. We had a hard time leaving,” Elbert said.

The goal was to make it into an experience. Color, atmosphere and size of the spa, as well as how it’s arranged can be important to the overall success, Elbert said.

Although the popularity of the different services varies slightly depending on the time of year, she said that massages tend to be popular year-round.

One of the most popular services they offer is their couple’s massage, which takes place in a dimly lit room complete with a fireplace and chandelier.

“We’ve actually had three couples get engaged since we’ve been open,” she said.

All the services, from nail and skin care to massages, are performed by licensed technicians, Elbert said.

Every state has different licensing procedures, but each of her employees — nail technicians, massage therapists, aestheticians — are licensed. Elbert said she has also been working hard to get the spa licensed all across the country, and currently is licensed in all but six states.

Although the spa is licensed around the country, currently there are no other locations, but she has been working with a developer in Arizona with the possibility of opening a high-end spa in a suburb of Phoenix. Instead of owning each spa, Elbert said she hopes to franchise. However, she said that possibility is almost unheard of for businesses that have been open less than five years — but maybe not impossible for Elbert, who won the Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the Ames Chamber of Commerce in 2008.