Photo: Karen Morales

Interior motives: LoRusso and Kanuha amidst the calming decor at Trinity Lounge

When you enter Trinity Lounge, you’re instantly transported to a new realm of calm and serenity. The owners, Jules LoRusso and Angelica Kanuha, greet you at the front desk while soft, ambient music plays in the background. The waiting area feels like a friend’s plush living room with its soft lounge chairs, throw pillows, and tranquil pastel decor.

Photo: Instagram

Bowled over: Trinity Lounge co-founders Angelica Kanuha (left) and Jules LoRusso are certified in unique Eastern medicine practices such as vibrational sound therapy

While Trinity Lounge, located between North Cambridge and Davis Square, Somerville, has only been open since June, both LoRusso and Kanuha have been practicing a wide range of wellness and aesthetics techniques—from Reiki and vibrational sound therapy to lash extensions and facials—as licensed practitioners since 2012.

After creating the Revolution Awakening podcast, which airs every Tuesday from Boston Free Radio studios, the two entrepreneurs decided to meld their interests under one zen roof: Trinity Lounge.

They’ve expanded their scopes of practice to offer services such as aromatherapy, Ayurvedic consultation, henna, and gua sha facials for a truly holistic beauty and wellness experience.

Exhale: What are your professional wellness backgrounds?

Jules LoRusso: I was working at Catherine Hinds Institute of Esthetics as a lash instructor and other spa jobs [prior] to this. I’m also a yoga instructor and created the brand Bloom by Jules to work with clients in makeup, lashes, yoga, and vibrational sound healing.

Angelica and I went to school together and got our aesthetician licenses in 2012 at Catherine Hinds, and then started a wellness podcast together and it evolved from there.

Angelica Kanuha: I’ve been doing herbal medicine and aromatherapy with my brand, Elemental Essence, which I started in 2010. I make herbal skin-care products and medicine.

Jules and I decided to bridge skin care and wellness together under one roof with Trinity Lounge. We thought taking care of your skin is one thing, but it’s also about taking care of your internal body and understanding why your skin might be reacting a certain way.

What makes Trinity Lounge different from other beauty spas?

Jules: We wanted to find a space where we could do wellness events for the community. We both want to work for ourselves, and we both love the wellness and skin-care industry. And like Angelica said, we wanted to marry the two, because you can’t look good on the outside if you don’t feel good on the inside.

Angelica: A couple months ago we did a “new moon” event with a group of 10 women. [It included] an aromatherapy workshop, followed by an hour of yoga with our own personal essential oil blends. We’re trying to do more events like this for the community.

As for our services, our CBD and gemstone facials are popular. CBD oil helps with inflammation, mild rosacea, breakouts, and it’s even anti-aging too.

With gemstone therapy, it’s another type of energy-healing service, depending on the stones we’re using, but we ask the client how their day has been going and we customize it as best we can. We do vibrational sound therapy with Himalayan singing bowls, and the sound frequencies released from them penetrate your muscles and help relax your body.

How have your individual wellness practices benefited your lives?

Angelica: I wasn’t into health and wellness until my father unfortunately got sick back in 2010 with pancreatitis, and that’s when I went into herbal medicine to find an alternative to pharmaceuticals. And that changed everything. I’ve been fast-food free for eight years, and even though I’m not vegan or vegetarian, I’m more aware of the food I eat and where it comes from.

I helped change my father’s diet and got a medical card for CBD oil (because at the time it was illegal without one) for the pain. Unfortunately, his pancreatitis turned into cancer and he passed away. But with the time we had, I think the things I suggested helped him.

Getting into aromatherapy has really transformed my emotions, too, and how I deal with things. For me, it’s immediate relief. And with Jules introducing me to yoga, that has also really helped my stress levels.

Jules: For me, my go-to things are yoga and meditation. When I’m really feeling wild or whatever I have going on internally, I dive into my spiritual practice and it helps me in my day-to-day life as well. It helps me be a patient person and not get ahead of myself or fall into a negative space. We live in a negative and instant-gratification world, and sometimes I get caught up in it. I meditate in the morning and it keeps me grounded. I also take occasional breaks from social media and try to only follow people who inspire me.

What is it like being a relatively new small-business owner in Cambridge?

Angelica: We love Cambridge because you can really be yourself here. If you dress differently, people don’t care…some areas in Boston are more conservative, which is fine, too, but you get a lot of diversity in Cambridge.

Jules: I had a client come in and say, “I love that you’re a women-run business, we want to support that.” And because more and more people are getting into the wellness space, we’re reaching more clients.

For what we’re doing, too, using CBD in our skin care and facials, and incorporating it into our yoga flows, people are open-minded about it. Even though CBD doesn’t have any psychoactive ingredients and doesn’t get you high, people are still convinced it’s all one in the same. But in this area, we can spread our creative and wellness wings.

Angelica: There are so many small businesses around here that we love, like Curio Spice, Life Alive. Since we’re unique and not a corporation, we fit in well because there’s neighborhood support.

How have you been building the business, and what are some challenges you have faced?

Jules: Being brand new and attracting clientele is the biggest challenge, especially because we’re in an industry offering a service and it can take anywhere between two to five years to build a steady clientele. But we’ve kept up with marketing to grow.

Angelica: We’re really active on social media, we bring people in through our events, we talk about Trinity on our podcast, and have been guests on other podcasts. Any way we can talk about Trinity, we do. It’s about networking, being in places, and getting to know people.

Having each other has been such a big advantage, too; to be able to have someone to bounce ideas off of.

Jules: Angelica is very driven and I’m very go with the flow, so our energies feed well off each other. We are always communicating with each other and talking about what we want to do next. For both of us, creating Trinity Lounge is exciting and the possibilities are endless.