Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennalee Dahlen.
Hi Jennalee , please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My story really began long before Yōso had a name.
I was a competitive swimmer for 18 years, which meant years of sun exposure and, eventually, significant sun damage to my skin. Later, I found myself in a high-stress corporate career as a buyer. Somewhere in the midst of that season, I began getting regular facials, initially because I wanted to change my skin. What I didn’t expect was how much they would change the way I felt.
My skin began to transform, but I also noticed something happening internally. For that 90 minutes, I could slow down. My stress would soften. I would leave feeling different than when I walked in. It was one of my first experiences of understanding that caring for our skin can reach far beyond our skin.
When I had my first daughter, I knew I was ready for a career pivot and decided to go to esthetics school. I can still remember giving my very first facial. I looked at my instructor afterward and told her, “Giving a facial is far better than getting one.” She looked at me and said she thought I had found my calling.
She was right.
There are moments in life when something simply clicks into place, and that was one of mine. I had found not only my passion, but what has truly felt like my soulmate in a career.
Eventually, that calling became Yōso Wellness Spa.
I founded Yōso in Santa Cruz with the belief that a spa could be about so much more than beauty or an occasional escape. I wanted to create a place where results-driven skincare could exist alongside holistic healing; where science and nature could meet; and where caring for your skin and body could become a meaningful ritual rather than another thing on your to-do list.
Through every evolution, our philosophy has remained rooted in choosing Nature Over Noise.
To me, that means quieting the endless trends, quick fixes and outside messages telling us what we need to change about ourselves, and instead coming back to what supports the body, the skin and the person as a whole. It’s about working with the body’s innate intelligence rather than constantly working against it.
And ultimately, that creates something we talk about often at Yōso: returning home to yourself.
Over the years, Yōso has evolved from primarily skincare into a multidisciplinary wellness space offering advanced esthetics, massage, acupuncture, lymphatic therapies, infrared sauna, LED light therapy and other modalities centered around whole-body health, longevity and regeneration.
But Yōso isn’t Yōso because of a list of services or technologies. Yōso is its people.
I am incredibly proud of the team we have built. I think of us as a curated family, people brought together not simply because they are talented practitioners, but because we share aligned values around how people deserve to be cared for. Each person brings their own expertise, intuition and heart to what we do, and Yōso has become what it is because of all of us.
My own work as an esthetician has continued to evolve as well. I’ve become fascinated by the relationship between the skin, nervous system, lymphatic system, inflammation, aging, emotional well-being and the stories our faces carry. I’ve continued my education in oncology esthetics, manual lymphatic drainage, gua sha, facial reflexology and other holistic and corrective modalities.
One of the beliefs at the heart of my work is that I am not here to erase someone’s age or make them look like someone else. I want my clients to see the beauty of the life they’ve lived reflected in their face. I want them to feel healthy, vibrant and cared for while still recognizing themselves, to see their face not as something that needs to be fixed, but as something worthy of being understood and nurtured.
That philosophy has taken me places I never imagined when I gave that first facial in esthetics school.
Over the years, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to receive recognition both within our local community and throughout the esthetics industry. I was named Entrepreneur of the Year at the NEXTies in 2018, and Yōso and members of our team have received numerous local honors, including recognition for our spa and estheticians.
Most recently, I was deeply honored to be named International Esthetician of the Year at The Skin Games. The competition represented more than 400 hours of work, over 190 pages of case-study documentation and roughly 150 videos submitted throughout the process, and I ultimately received 15 awards for my case-study work.
I’m proud of those numbers, but what they represent means much more to me.
Behind every page, photograph and video was a person who trusted me with their skin and their story. The work required me to study, question, document, adapt and become a better practitioner. The recognition was incredible, but the transformation, in my clients and in me as an esthetician, was the real reward.
And some of the work I’m proudest of has happened outside the treatment room.
Santa Cruz is deeply woven into who I am and into Yōso. Over the years, I’ve served in leadership roles with local organizations and initiatives focused on strengthening our downtown, supporting small businesses, caring for our environment, creating community and helping Santa Cruz remain a place where locally owned businesses and the people behind them can thrive.
That comes back to something I’ve believed in for a very long time: the Positive Ripple Effect.
When someone walks through our doors, my hope isn’t simply that their skin looks better or their body feels better. I hope they leave feeling a little lighter, more grounded, more confident, more connected to themselves, maybe even a little happier than when they arrived.
Because that doesn’t end when they walk out our door.
They bring that version of themselves home to their children or their partner. They carry it into a conversation with a coworker, the person making their coffee, someone they pass on the street. Care has a way of traveling. Joy travels. Kindness travels. When we help one person feel better in themselves, we may never know how many other people are touched by the ripple that follows.
For me, that has always been bigger than skincare.
There have also been plenty of chapters along the way that weren’t polished or easy. I’ve built a business while raising three daughters, navigated the realities of being a single mother and entrepreneur, weathered unexpected personal and professional challenges, reinvented parts of the business and learned more than once that growth rarely happens in a straight line.
But perhaps that is part of the beauty of it.
I think that’s ultimately how I got to where I am today: continuing to evolve without losing sight of why I started.
Today, I see Yōso as much more than a spa. It is a community of practitioners and clients, a place where ritual meets regeneration, and a space built around the belief that wellness doesn’t need to be louder or more complicated.
Sometimes what we need most is to quiet the noise, return to what is natural and true for us, and create enough space to come home to ourselves.
And from there, the ripple begins.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Not even close, and I think I’ve finally learned that a smooth road was never really the point.
Entrepreneurship has been one of the greatest teachers of my life. There have been seasons of incredible growth and recognition, and there have been seasons when simply keeping the doors open felt like an accomplishment.
I’ve built Yōso while raising three daughters and navigating the realities of motherhood alongside entrepreneurship. I’ve experienced divorce and the financial and emotional restructuring that comes with rebuilding a life and business afterward. I’ve had to make incredibly difficult decisions, say goodbye to versions of the business I once thought would be part of our future, navigate staffing and financial challenges, and continually learn how to lead through uncertainty, not only for myself, but for a team of people who are trusting me with their livelihoods.
Like so many small businesses, the pandemic changed us profoundly. The wellness industry is built around human connection and touch, and suddenly the very thing at the heart of what we did wasn’t possible. We had to adapt, pivot and find ways to keep moving forward when there wasn’t a roadmap for what came next.
There have been other unexpected chapters too, physical setbacks to our space, financial pressures, personal hardships, health challenges, and moments when life and business seemed to demand everything at once.
I don’t think resilience means those things don’t knock you down. I’ve had moments where I’ve questioned myself, cried behind closed doors, felt completely overwhelmed, and wondered how I was going to figure out the next step.
But somehow, I always find the next step.
One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that the pivot isn’t a failure of the original plan. Sometimes the pivot is the path.
I’ve had to become comfortable letting go of what something was supposed to look like so I could see what it was trying to become. Some of the most meaningful evolutions of Yōso have come directly from seasons I never would have chosen.
Those experiences have also changed the way I lead. Earlier in my career, I think I felt like being a strong leader meant having the answers and carrying everything myself. Today, I believe leadership is much more about creating trust, listening, surrounding yourself with people whose strengths are different from your own, and being willing to say, “I don’t know yet, but we’ll figure it out together.”
My daughters have been an enormous part of that journey as well. They’ve grown up alongside Yōso, and building this business while raising them has forced me to continually ask myself what success actually means. I want them to see a mother who works hard and dreams big, but I also want them to see someone who knows that success isn’t measured solely by how much you accomplish. It’s measured by the life you build, the people you love, the impact you have, and whether you remain connected to yourself along the way.
I think that’s why the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi resonates so deeply with me, the idea that there is beauty in imperfection, impermanence and becoming.
Yōso isn’t beautiful to me because everything went according to plan.
It’s beautiful because it didn’t.
Every challenge has left something behind: more wisdom, more compassion, more humility, more courage, and usually a clearer understanding of what truly matters.
So no, it hasn’t been a smooth road. But looking back, I wouldn’t trade the winding road for a perfectly straight one. It has shaped the business, the leader, the mother and the woman I am today, and I know I’m still becoming.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Yoso Wellness Spa?
Yōso Wellness Spa is a holistic, results-driven wellness spa in the heart of Downtown Santa Cruz, but more than anything, I think of Yōso as a place where people can come back into relationship with themselves.
Our philosophy is rooted in Nature Over Noise.
We live in a world that is constantly telling us to do more, buy more, fix more, optimize more and become something different. The wellness and beauty industries can sometimes add to that noise. At Yōso, we want to be the opposite of that.
We believe in slowing down enough to listen to the body, working with its natural intelligence, and thoughtfully bringing together nature, science, technology and human touch. The goal is not perfection. It is helping people feel healthy, vibrant, connected and at home in themselves.
Our work began in skin health, and advanced holistic esthetics is still very much at the heart of Yōso. We are known for highly individualized facial treatments that look beyond the surface of the skin. We consider inflammation, lymphatic flow, the nervous system, lifestyle, barrier health, cellular function and the many internal and external factors that influence how someone’s skin is presenting.
We don’t believe every person with the same skin concern should receive the same facial.
Instead, we meet the person and their skin where they are that day.
Over the years, that same philosophy has expanded throughout Yōso. Today, our offerings include advanced facial rituals, massage and bodywork, acupuncture, manual lymphatic drainage and compression therapy, full-spectrum infrared sauna, LED light therapy and other restorative and longevity-focused modalities. Rather than chasing every new wellness trend, we intentionally curate what enters our space and ask whether it genuinely aligns with our values and can meaningfully support the people we serve.
That curation is a big part of what Nature Over Noise means to us.
I also believe one of the greatest things that sets Yōso apart is our team.
We are a curated family of practitioners with different areas of expertise but deeply aligned values. I never wanted to build a business where someone simply clocks in, performs a service and clocks out. I wanted to create a culture where practitioners care deeply about their craft, continue learning, collaborate with one another and understand the privilege of being trusted with another person’s body, skin and well-being.
There is an art to what happens in a treatment room that can’t be reduced to a protocol.
It is expertise and intuition. It is knowing when to do more and when someone’s body is asking for less. It is creating an environment where someone feels safe enough to exhale. It is remembering that there is a whole human being attached to the skin or body we are treating.
That human connection is something I never want Yōso to lose, no matter how much we grow.
Brand-wise, I am probably most proud that Yōso has continued to evolve while becoming more and more itself.
Our guiding idea today is Where Ritual Meets Regeneration. We believe wellness can be both restorative and results-driven. A facial can support cellular health while also calming the nervous system. Massage can address physical tension while giving someone permission to finally soften. Acupuncture, lymphatic work, infrared therapy or LED can have physiological benefits while also becoming part of a larger ritual of caring for yourself.
We don’t see those things as separate.
And while we care deeply about results, we are intentionally pro-aging. We are not interested in convincing someone that aging is a problem that needs to be solved. Faces hold stories. They show laughter, grief, motherhood, sunshine, stress, adventure and years of being alive. Our role is to support the health and vitality of the skin while honoring the person who has lived in it.
One of my personal purposes as an esthetician is to help people see the beauty of their life lived through their face.
I think that sentiment captures so much of what Yōso represents.
Ultimately, we want people to experience Yōso as a place to return home to themselves. Maybe they come in because their skin is struggling. Maybe their body hurts. Maybe they’re exhausted, stressed, celebrating something, navigating a difficult season, or simply wanting to care for themselves proactively. Whatever brings them through our doors, we want them to leave feeling better than when they arrived.
And then comes what we call the Positive Ripple Effect.
When someone leaves feeling more grounded, confident, cared for or connected to themselves, they carry that into the rest of their life. They bring it home to their family, into their workplace and out into their community.
That’s the part of wellness I find most beautiful.
We may never know how far that ripple travels.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I have a complicated relationship with the word “luck.”
I absolutely believe I’ve been incredibly fortunate. There have been people who have walked into my life at exactly the right moment, clients who took a chance on me early in my career and are still with me today, team members who brought gifts to Yōso I never could have brought on my own, mentors who saw something in me, and opportunities I couldn’t have planned for.
There is a certain serendipity to life that I think we have to remain open enough to notice.
At the same time, I’ve learned that sometimes good luck doesn’t look like good luck when it first arrives.
Some of the hardest things that have happened in my life and business have forced me to change direction, let go, rebuild or become more resourceful than I knew I could be. There have been doors I desperately wanted to stay open that closed anyway. At the time, some of those moments felt devastating. Looking backward, I can see that a few of those closed doors redirected me toward something that ultimately fit me better.
I think that’s why I try not to label experiences too quickly anymore as “good” or “bad.” Sometimes we simply don’t have enough distance yet to understand what role something is going to play in our story.
There’s a Japanese concept I love called ichigo ichie, which is essentially an invitation to treasure the unrepeatable nature of an encounter or moment. It reminds me that there are people, conversations and seemingly small moments that can alter the direction of our lives if we’re present enough to recognize them.
That feels very true to my journey.
Even the beginning of my career feels that way. I could say I was lucky to discover esthetics, but I also had to be willing to leave a career I knew, become a student again as a new mother, and follow this feeling that there was something else I was supposed to be doing. When I gave that first facial and realized I had found something I loved, luck may have opened the door, but I still had to walk through it.
The same is true of Yōso.
Some opportunities have come unexpectedly, but the ability to say yes to them was built through years of showing up, learning, building relationships, making mistakes, doing the work and continuing when things were difficult.
And then there is what I consider perhaps the greatest good fortune of all: the people.
I don’t believe Yōso would be what it is today without the people who have become part of its story. Our team, our clients, our Downtown Santa Cruz community, fellow small-business owners, friends and family have all contributed pieces to what Yōso has become. I may have founded the business, but I certainly didn’t build it alone.
So yes, luck has played a role.
But I’ve come to think of luck less as something that happens to us and more as the unexpected intersection of opportunity, relationships, timing and our willingness to meet the moment when it arrives.
Maybe that’s also why the idea of the Positive Ripple Effect means so much to me. We never fully know what one interaction will set in motion. A person we encourage today may become the person who opens a door for someone else years from now. A kindness may travel somewhere we’ll never see. A disappointment may redirect us toward something we couldn’t yet imagine.
Some people might call that luck.
I think there’s something beautiful about not needing to know exactly what to call it, and simply remaining open to where it might lead.
Pricing:
- The Return Ritual 75 min Facial – $195
- The Skin Recovery Journey 105 min Facial – $280
- The Foundation Acupuncture + Consult – $145
- The Reset 60 min Massage – $125
- The Flow Ritual – 60 min Whole Body Lymphatic Machine – $180
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.yosowellness.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yosowellness
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennalee-dahlen-7b823ab9/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/yoso-wellness-spa-santa-cruz
