Homer spa and salon focuses on wellness

HOMER — For Heather Malchak, opening Kallos Body Bar allowed her to combine her experience and knowledge as both a cosmetologist and a nurse together in one place that provides aesthetics (both cosmetic and medical), wellness and full-service hair salon services to Homer and surrounding communities. Active as a cosmetologist since 1999, Malchak says she learned first-hand after becoming a single mother how important self-care is for overall wellness. The more she learned about wellness, the more interested she became. Recently, Malchak graduated from the College of Nursing at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, with her master’s degree as a nurse practitioner. Kallos Body Bar is Malchak’s first venture running her own business. The spa and salon opened March 18 and recently celebrated its grand opening and ribbon cutting on June 11. “We focus really on wellness for the mind and body,” she says. Even the name reflects that. Kallos is an ancient Greek word that means beauty but is associated with a combination of physical appearance and overall wellness. Kallos offers an array of treatments from massages, facials, Botox, fillers, haircuts, and color, but it’s more than just that, Malchak says. Medical aesthetic services include lymphedema drainage, post-surgical lymphatic massage, and treatment options for chronic migraines, hyperhidrosis, neurological spasticity, and other muscle-related medical conditions. “I do the medical aspect of it,” she says. “I have the advanced training.” Clients typically had to travel for these types of services to Syracuse, Ithaca, or Binghamton, she notes, so having them available close to home has been well received. On the salon side, Kallos has four hair stylists, including Malchak. “We’re all small-town girls,” she says, who have built good relationships with their clients over the years. Located at 70 N. West St., the stylists are located on the second floor, where Malchak also hopes to add mental-health services through her daughter Jordan Young, a psychiatric nurse practitioner. “I already have a waiting list for Jordan,” she says, indicating how in-demand mental-health services are in the community. Malchak is in the process of remodeling the first floor of her building with hopes of adding other wellness practitioners. Her hope is to add between four and five offices on the first floor and is already in talks with potential tenants for those spaces. The goal is to add more services like pelvic-floor therapy, chiropractic, and even an additional mental-health practitioner, she says.