From Head to Toe, Spa Will Cleanse Square

Wellness tutors, take note—there’s a new place to relax in the Square.

Christine Perkins, a 32-year-old with business experience in mutual funds and skin-care, Perkins will open Pyara, a spa and salon, in the Square next month.

Pyara means “lovely” in Hindi, and Perkins said the store’s specialty will be full-body treatments geared toward “wellness.”

“[We have] all these crazy treatments,” Perkins said yesterday. “We do a Caribbean therapy body treatment which is a scrub and then you’re masked in brown and red mud. You’re wrapped up like a bug and then you’re rinsed in a shower and then you’re massaged with rose oil.”

She said the 3,400-square-foot salon and spa—decorated in chocolate-brown and ice-blue hues—will open in the storefront at 104 Mt. Auburn St. vacated last month by Tweeter, an electronics store.

While the Caribbean treatment lasts two-and-a half hours and costs $165, the prices for other services—such as facials, manicures, pedicures, massages, waxings and haircuts—are more in line with Square rivals.

For example, a manicure costs $17 and a pedicure, $45.

Come Nov. 7, Pyara will try to take a cut out of the Square’s already crowded health and beauty market with its trademark blend of “ancient Ayurvedic philosophies” and “advanced flower and plant technology,” according to its menu of services.

But other Square salon and spa owners said yesterday they were not concerned about their new competitor.

Amrit Ros, a co-owner of Sasha Salon and Spa at 57 JFK St., said that although there were many spas in the Square, Sasha could hold its own.

“It’s a lot easier for us because we have an established clientele,” she said.

And the owner of Gino’s, Gino Ruotolo, said his salon, at 20 Holyoke St., would stand out because it specializes in hair.

“It’s not about competition,” he said. “After 30 years if we’re worried about competition we’re in trouble. The business is so sophisticated you have to be a specialist.”

Unconcerned, Perkins said there is enough business to go around.

“Everyone is becoming focused on personal rituals,” she said.

Perkins said that she has already hired 19 people to work at the spa and is looking for up to 10 more.

She said she carefully selected Pyara’s future home in Harvard Square after a year-long search. “I was looking for a location and nothing was speaking for me,” she said. “I really wanted a place that wasn’t Newbury Street.”

—Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu