Lifestyle
8 self-care experiences under $100 for your stressed-out L.A. friends
Sometimes the best gift is not another item to keep track of but an experience where you can lose yourself entirely and find serenity, healing or replenishment.
Fortunately, L.A. is filled with unexpected places that provide an escape from the supersonic speed of our daily lives, and many of them offer gift cards. From a secret tea house in the Arts District to a festive sound bath in the Santa Monica Mountains, we’ve scoured the city for some of the best pockets of unexpected calm. Think your pals and loved ones will be into hiking with pygmy goats? Meditating with bees? Ready to try an ice bath? We’ve got you covered with self-care experiences for under $100.
If you make a purchase using some of our links, the L.A. Times may be compensated.
Escape to a dreamy oasis and drink tea
For anyone who’s obsessed with drinking herbal tea or hanging out in a TikTok-approved oasis for hours, Tea at Shiloh is the perfect gift. The tea house, which stays open until 11 some nights, hosts an array of connection-driven gatherings, including jazz evenings, breathwork sessions, flamenco performances and workshops. Tea at Shiloh also offers daylight hours — imagine a quiet co-working space — on select days. Reservations are required to experience this tranquil space, so treat your loved one to a gift card. A reservation for one is $44 and $88 for two. Or if they don’t live locally, consider purchasing them Tea at Shiloh’s limited-edition herbal book, “Roots, Leaves, Flowers.” — Kailyn Brown
$44 at Tea at Shiloh
(Zay Monae / For The Times)
Experience the healing powers of plants at Meet Me in the Dirt
When you don’t have the funds or time to get a massage at your favorite spa or stay at a luxurious hotel, you can find respite at a surprising place: the South Bay Galleria. Inside a 2,400-square-foot space at the mall is Meet Me in the Dirt, a whimsical plant shop that hosts events meant to generate the positive effects that being exposed to greenery and playing in soil can have on your mental health. We suggest gifting the soil meditation experience, which costs $75 and is hosted by shop owner Barbara Lawson, who is also a certified grief counselor. Or if your giftee might prefer alone time, book them space to in one of the five Zen-inspired rooms, which have names that represent what people may need in their life at that time (e.g., valued and loved). Room rentals are available for people ages 21 and up and cost $50 to $85 per hour. — K.B.
$75 at Meet Me in the Dirt
De-stress in an ice bath or sweat it out in a sauna at Remedy Place
Although many social clubs require you to be a member or a member‘s guest to experience their amenities, Remedy Place doesn’t have such restrictions. Created by Jonathan Leary, this Sunset Strip spot claims to be the world’s first social wellness club. Visitors can participate in everything from ice bath classes to infrared sauna sessions at a la carte rates. It’s the perfect way to try a service such as cryotherapy ($50) or lymphatic compression ($100 for 30 minutes) without having to commit to a pricey membership. We recommend buying a gift certificate; you can either pick the dollar amount or book a specific service for your gift recipient. Once they’ve completed their service, they can take a steamy shower, then hang out in Remedy Place’s gorgeous lobby, where there’s an alcohol-free bar that sells tonics, herbal energy drinks and more. — K.B.
Prices vary at Remedy Place
Channel the inner child on a goat excursion
Who needs a therapist when there are goats? Michelle Tritten of Hello Critter hosts rejuvenating goat events around the Los Angeles area. That includes goat yoga as well as goat hikes, goat walks and goat sound bath meditations. Her Nigerian dwarf goats are playful, loving creatures — part dog, as they’re smart, friendly and loyal; part cat, given their independent quirky personalities; and part horse, with an appetite for outdoor adventures. Treat your most harried friends or family members to a goat yoga class, held at cultural institutions around the L.A. area such as Pasadena’s Gamble House and the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. Or splurge on an all-day excursion — Tritten leads private groups on goat hikes to a remote waterfall. Why goats? Because their “playful antics and gentle manner,” Tritten says, “open hearts, widen smiles and deepen stretches throughout each [yoga] practice.” — Deborah Vankin
Gift cards start at $50 at Hello Critter
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
Totally unwind at a head spa
A Chinese scalp treatment at the San Gabriel head spa Cai Xiang Ge might be the most relaxing spa service in L.A. Some on social media even claim it will “change your life.” The 60-minute service includes a detailed scalp analysis — shedding light not just on the health of your noggin but also your overall health, according to practitioners — followed by a slow, indulgent head and neck massage and repeated hair washings. All the while you’re wearing a heated eye mask and your feet are soaking in a warm bath infused with Chinese herbs. Dermatologists say that scalp treatments promote circulation and detoxify, as well as calm and hydrate skin, all of which can help prevent dandruff, itchiness, dryness and inflammation. But the real benefit is the deep relaxation and sense of being cared for that comes from someone expertly massaging your head in warm water for an hour. With gifts, it may be the thought that counts; but with a head-massage, it’s the experience that matters. The service ends in the salon, with an “anti-hair loss” treatment and blow-dry as you sip tea and eat sweets. Pure heaven. — Deborah Vankin
$95 for 60 minutes at Cai Xiang Ge
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Seek guidance from the stars with a down-to-earth astrologer
Warm and infinitely relatable, Richard Contreras offers down-to-earth (and affordable) astrology and tarot readings that might change your giftee’s life or at least help them gain some much-needed perspective — assuming they’re open to that kind of thing. The messages Contreras divines may not always be reassuring — “I’m not going to lie. It’s going to be a bumpy road ahead,” he told me in a recent reading — but he also reminded me that challenge is necessary for growth. Contreras, who used to have a storefront in Pasadena, mostly sees clients on Zoom these days. He’s also efficient: I met with him for less than an hour, and the reading continues to reverberate weeks later. — Deborah Netburn
$60 for 30 minutes, $90 for 45 minutes. Contact him through Instagram: instagram.com/ozomapilli.
Meditate in an apiary at Teas With Bees
Spiritual beekeeper Marvin Jordana’s latest offering is Teas With Bees, a two-hour experience that invites participants to find calm in the presence of hundreds of thousands of bees. (Yes, it’s possible.) You’ll begin with a handcrafted herbal tea and a brief discussion about the divine energy of the hive. After a meditation, you’ll move slowly and mindfully into the apiary (Jordana provides bee suits and veils), where you’re invited to feed bees honey, observe a hive with a magnifying glass or simply zone out to the buzzing vibrations around you. “Ask yourself, ‘Can I slow down?’ And then ask yourself, ‘Can I slow down even more?’” Jordana said before leading my group out to meet the bees. “It’s a safety thing, and also a meditative thing.”
— D.N.
$44 at Teas With Bees
Bliss out with a magical sound bath in Malibu
Ana Netanel’s Shakti Sound Bath might be the most magical in all of L.A. It takes place most Sundays (weather permitting) on a grassy clearing high in the Santa Monica Mountains beneath a massive sculpture of a seated figure with a heart cut out of its torso. Led by Netanel and the members of her High Vibe Tribe, it’s a 90-minute alfresco experience that includes harp, flute, gongs, chimes, rain sticks, crystal bowls and other relaxing sound makers. I think of it as somewhere between a new age revival and a concert — joyful, rejuvenating, relaxing and festive all at once. It doesn’t matter if your loved ones are new to sound baths or if they attend them all the time — they will be dazzled. — D.N.
$45; $111 for VIP tickets at Shakti Sound Bath
Prices and availability of experiences in the Gift Guide and on latimes.com are subject to change.
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You want to see some real fashion ingenuity? Watch the N.F.L. draft.
I’m not saying it’s all good, but where else are you going to see someone in a double-breasted suit made by a company better known for making yoga pants? Or an Abercrombie & Fitch suit jacket so short that it exposes the belt loops on the pants beneath?
On the whole, the style on display at the N.F.L. draft last night was very overeager senior formal: a lot of suits in colors beyond basic blue. The quarterback Ty Simpson wore a custom suit by the athleisure label Alo, which, I have to say, looked better than I would have envisioned had you said the words “Alo Yoga suit” to me.
I thought it might have been from Suitsupply, but the conspicuous “Alo” pin on his right lapel put that idea to rest. Simpson, smartly, unfastened that beacon before appearing onstage as the 13th pick to the Los Angeles Rams. He had, perhaps, satisfied his contractual obligations by that point.
Earlier in the evening, as the wide receiver Carnell Tate threw up his arms in exaltation after being picked fourth by the Tennessee Titans, his cropped Abercrombie & Fitch jacket revealed a swatch of rib cage. He looked like a mâitre d’ who had just hit the Mega Millions.
During the N.B.A.’s extended fashion awakening, its draft has become a sandbox for luxury brands to cozy up to would-be endorsers. The Frenchman Victor Wembanyama broke a kind of cashmere ceiling when he wore Louis Vuitton to go first overall in the 2023 N.B.A. draft.
The N.F.L. draft has none of that. The brands you see are often not brands at all, but custom tailors that reach the league’s neophytes through a whisper network among players. The draft is also a platform to raise the curtain on longer-term brand deals that better suit these rookies. We may, for instance, never see Simpson in a suit again. Nearly every photo from his time at Alabama shows him in a T-shirt or hoodie. It makes sense for him to sign with Alo.
Football is the most mainstream of American cultural entities. And it’s one that still hasn’t, in spite of the league’s best efforts, taken off overseas. Few players, save some quarterbacks and a tight end who happens to be engaged to a pop star, feel bigger than the game itself. If you’re a new-to-the-league linebacker, you’ll most likely never harness the star power to grab the attention of Armani, but you might have just the right pull for Abercrombie.
The N.F.L. draft is therefore one of the few red carpets where the brands worn by the athletes may also be worn by those watching at home. How many people watching the Oscars will ever own clothes from Louis Vuitton or Chanel? People may comment online about Lady Gaga wearing Matières Fécales to the Grammys, but how many of those fans and viewers could afford to buy clothes from it?
The Japanese designers changing fashion
Yesterday, I published a deep dive into how a newish crop of Japanese designers are soaking up all the attention in men’s fashion right now. This was a piece I was writing in my head long before I sat down and finally started typing. I remember sitting at a fashion show in Paris over a year ago — I believe it was Dior — and being asked by my seatmate if I’d made it over to a showroom in the Marais to check out A.Presse. That Tokyo-based brand is now part of a vanguard of Japanese labels that, on many days, seems to be all anyone in fashion wants to talk about. I spent months talking with designers, store owners and big-time shoppers to make sense of why these brands have kicked up so much buzz and, more than that, what makes their clothes so great. You can read the story here.
Other things worth knowing about:
Thirty years ago, comedian and actor Tig Notaro didn’t have a clear direction in life, so she followed some childhood friends who wanted to get into entertainment to Los Angeles. Secretly wanting to do stand-up, Notaro decided to try her luck at various outlets in town, which became the start of her successful career.
“I stayed on my friends’ couch near the Hollywood Improv on Melrose, and a couple months later, got my own studio apartment in the Miracle Mile area,” Notaro says. “I love all the options for everything in L.A. — the entertainment, the restaurants. I like to stay active. So many people love the hiking options in Los Angeles, and I’m one of them.”
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
Notaro appears in Season 3 of Apple TV’s “The Morning Show” and is a series regular on Paramount+’s “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,” as she was on “Star Trek: Discovery.” She’s also a touring stand-up comic and hosts “Handsome,” a comedy podcast, with Fortune Feimster and Mae Martin. The trio will be taping a live show May 4 at the Wiltern with the cast of Netflix’s “The Hunting Wives.” The live shows include interviews, but also “incorporate some ridiculous things,” she says. For example, upon hearing that some of the hosts always wanted to learn to tap dance, Notaro “hired a tap instructor to come to our live show in Austin and teach us how to tap dance in front of the audience.”
Notaro lives near Hollywood with her wife, actor Stephanie Allynne, their 9-year-old fraternal twin boys, Max and Finn, and three cats, Fluff, Linus and Skip. When she’s not touring, her ideal Sundays include sampling vegan restaurants, wandering through bookstores or museums, and doing something physically active with the family.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
6 a.m.: Up with the kids
Because we have active children, we still wake up at 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, but there’s not as much of a rush to get going. Stephanie and I will often have coffee and chat in the living room together. I love that part of the day. Stephanie may cook breakfast, but Max and Finn are pretty self-sufficient and can make certain little meals for themselves. Max is really starting to take an interest in cooking, so he’d make breakfast for himself. Our family is vegan, but he eats eggs, so he makes himself an egg sandwich with avocado a lot of times.
9 a.m.: Daily morning walk
After breakfast, we usually have a morning walk around our neighborhood. That’s a daily thing I like to do, regardless of what’s going on. Now that I’m not touring as much, tennis is back on the schedule. So I’d go to Plummer Park in West Hollywood and play for a while, then join the family for lunch.
11:30 a.m.: Hike with a side of chickpea sandwich
I love Trails, a cafe in Griffith Park, where you can eat outdoors. It serves simple food, and has good vegan options. I usually get their chickpea salad sandwich. The food there is great. Afterward, we’d visit Griffith Observatory, where there’s lots to see. There are lots of great trails in the park, so we’d go for an hour hike before leaving.
3 p.m.: Browse the shelves for rock biographies
Bookstores are fun, so we’d head downtown for the Last Bookstore, which is in a historic building with lots of vintage books. I really love all things plant-based, and I’m a very big music fanatic. So I love to look for vegan books, nutrition books, rock biographies and autobiographies. It’s just fun to browse around the stacks.
If we didn’t go to the bookstore, we’d probably go to LACMA. Our sons are huge fans of art and want to go for each new exhibit. They love Hockney, Basquiat and Picasso, to name a few.
4 p.m.: Cuddle with cuties at a cat cafe
We’d then make a quick stop at [Crumbs & Whiskers], a kitten and cat cafe on Melrose for coffee, snacks and to pet the cats. It’s best to make reservations in advance. There’s cats all around the place that need to be adopted. You can visit and pet them, or find a new roommate. I’d love to take some home, but we already have three.
5:30 p.m. Italian or sushi, but make it vegan
We’re an early dinner family. One restaurant we like is Pura Vita in West Hollywood. It’s the greatest vegan Italian food, and for non-vegans, nobody ever knows the difference. It’s the first 100% plant-based Italian restaurant in the United States. They make an incredible kale salad and I love the San Gennaro pizza. It’s got cashew mozzarella, tomato sauce, Italian sausage crumble and more.
Then there’s Planta in Marina del Rey. It’s right on the harbor and you can sit outside and look at the boats coming in and out. They have sushi, salads and other plant-based entrees. They’ve got a really great spicy tuna roll that’s made out of watermelon. They are magicians.
Or there’s Crossroads Kitchen in West Hollywood. They play the best classic rock, and the atmosphere is upscale, fine dining. The appetizers that we always get are called Moroccan Cigars, which are vegan meat substitutes fried in a rolled batter. I really like the grilled lion’s mane steak, their mushroom steak with truffle potatoes, or the scallopini Milanese, that has a chicken or tofu option. I get the chicken with arugula on top. I always love to have a decaf espresso with dessert, which is either a brownie sundae or banana pudding.
7:30 p.m.: Comfort watch or word games
After dinner, the kids often like to watch an episode of “Friends,” a show that all ages enjoy, sports or “The Simpsons.” Or we’d play a game where each of us will add a word to a sentence and create a weird or funny long sentence until one of our sons says period. Then they’ll try and remember the whole sentence and repeat it back.
9:30 p.m.: Bubble bath then bed
The boys usually go to bed at 8:30 p.m. and bedtime for us is 9:30 p.m. Stephanie and I would read or chat. I like to take a bubble bath, if people must know. The best Sundays for me mean finding a good balance of relaxing and being active. I feel very lucky that my family and I can do those things together.
When Marian Sherry Lurio and Jonathan Buffington Nguyen met at a mutual friend’s wedding at Higgins Lake, Mich., in July 2022, both felt an immediate chemistry. As the evening progressed, they sat on the shore of the lake in Adirondack chairs under the stars, where they had their first kiss before joining others for a midnight plunge.
The two learned that the following weekend Ms. Lurio planned to attend a wedding in Philadelphia, where Mr. Nguyen lives, and before they had even exchanged numbers, they already had a first date on the books.
“I have a vivid memory of after we first met,” Mr. Nguyen said, “just feeling like I really better not screw this up.”
Before long, they were commuting between Philadelphia and New York City, where Ms. Lurio lives, spending weekends and the odd remote work days in one another’s apartments in Philadelphia and Manhattan. Within the first six months of dating, Mr. Nguyen joined Ms. Lurio’s family for Thanksgiving in Villanova, Pa., and, the following month, she met his family in Beavercreek, Ohio, at a surprise birthday party for Mr. Nguyen’s mother.
Ms. Lurio, 32, who grew up in Merion Station outside Philadelphia, works in investor relations administration at Flexpoint Ford, a private equity firm. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in history and psychology.
Mr. Nguyen, also 32, was born in Knoxville, Tenn., and raised in Beavercreek, Ohio, from the age of 7. He graduated from Haverford College with a bachelor’s degree in political science and is now a director at Doyle Real Estate Advisors in Philadelphia.
Their long-distance relationship continued for the next few years. There were dates in Manhattan, vacations and beach trips to the Jersey Shore. They attended sporting events and discovered their shared appreciation of the 2003 film, “Love Actually.”
One evening, Mr. Nguyen recalled looking around Ms. Lurio’s small New York studio — strewed with clothes and the takeout meal they had ordered — and feeling “so comfortable and safe.” “I knew that this was something different than just sort of a fling,” he said.
It was an open question when they would move in together. In 2024, Ms. Lurio began the process of moving into Mr. Nguyen’s home in Philadelphia — even bringing her cat, Scott — but her plans changed midway when an opportunity arose to expand her role with her current employer.
Mr. Nguyen was on board with her decision. “It almost feels like stolen valor to call it ‘long distance,’ because it’s so easy from Philadelphia to New York,” Mr. Nguyen said. “The joke is, it’s easier to get to Philly from New York than to get to some parts of Brooklyn from Manhattan, right?”
In January 2025, Mr. Nguyen visited Ms. Lurio in New York with more up his sleeve than spending the weekend. Together they had discussed marriage and bespoke rings, but when Mr. Nguyen left Ms. Lurio and an unfinished cheese plate at the bar of the Chelsea Hotel that Friday evening, she had no idea what was coming next.
“I remember texting Jonathan,” Ms. Lurio said, bewildered: “‘You didn’t go toward the bathroom!’” When a Lobby Bar server came and asked her to come outside, Ms. Lurio still didn’t realize what was happening until she was standing in the hallway, where Mr. Nguyen stood recreating a key moment from the film “Love Actually,” in which one character silently professes his love for another in writing by flashing a series of cue cards. There, in the storied Chelsea Hotel hallway still festooned with Christmas decorations, Mr. Nguyen shared his last card that said, “Will you marry me?”
They wed on April 11 in front of 200 guests at the Pump House, a covered space on the banks of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River. Mr. Nguyen’s sister, the Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen, who is ordained through the Unitarian Universalist Association, officiated.
Although formal attire was suggested, Ms. Lurio said that the ceremony was “pretty casual.” She and Jonathan got ready together, and their families served as their wedding parties.
“I said I wanted a five-minute wedding,” Ms. Lurio recalled, though the ceremony ended up lasting a little longer than that. During the ceremony, Ms. Nguyen read a homily and jokingly added that guests should not ask the bride and groom about their living arrangements, which will remain separate for the foreseeable future.
While watching Ms. Lurio walk down the aisle, flanked by her parents, Mr. Nguyen said he remembered feeling at once grounded in the moment and also a sense of dazed joy: “Like, is this real? I felt very lucky in that moment — and also just excited for the party to start!”
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