When Jill Morris first started her career in esthetics, she didn’t set out to run her own business. Through happenstance and a passion for quality products, she carved a path for herself as the owner of Total Skin and Body Spa, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.
Established in downtown Milton in 1985, today the spa is a favourite of many locals for its convenient one-stop approach, offering a wide variety of services, from skincare to hairstyling and massage.
Jill began her journey in esthetics working at a spa in Mississauga. While she didn’t envision a future in entrepreneurship at first, offering the best service meant using the best products – something she would have greater control over as a proprietor.
As it happened, Jill already had roots in the Milton community as a member of the theatre troupe. While exploring options to open her own esthetics business, including a potential new location in Carriage Square, she discovered an opportunity to take over Total Skin and Body Spa, then located on Martin Street, becoming its third and longest-standing owner. The move allowed her the freedom to offer services her way.
Jill continued serving her Mississauga clientele while meeting many new faces from Milton. Just as running the business was a new experience for her, she also introduced many of her clients to new treatments for the first time – many of them were considered luxury treatments.
When it comes to quality, Jill didn’t just talk the talk. She made sure she believed in the products she was using, and continued building her knowledge of esthetics techniques, often travelling to Europe to learn firsthand. She visited Germany to enhance her foot care services, learning how to go beyond nail paint and improve her pedicures with callus and corn removal. All of her spa pedicures also include a hot paraffin wax treatment, which helps provide relief from rheumatism and arthritis.
Along with her studies in Germany, Jill visited Italy to study aromatherapy, which plays an important role in many of her body care treatments, bringing back oils to add to her treatments and even creating her own for long-lasting results.
For skincare, Jill went straight to the source – the factory in Italy that made her preferred product line, where she connected with chemists, dermatologists and pharmaceutical experts.
“I learned then that picking the right products was to pick the right chemist, because a product line that I really fell in love with had sort of started to fail me, and then I realized that [its] chemist had moved over to another company. So I followed the line there.”
While she grew her offerings, Jill also had business growth on the horizon. After 11 years on Martin Street, she joined the ranks of Milton’s owner-occupied downtown businesses, moving Total Skin and Body Spa to its current space, a heritage building on Main Street.
Over the years, she’s expanded, creating a dedicated, quiet floor for body treatments, adding an aromatherapy steam room and showers, and separating out the various treatment areas.
Those enhancements continue to be a big draw today, though it’s Jill’s dedication to cultivating a meticulous, holistic wellness experience with every service that sets her apart. Jill’s belief in the healing benefits of aromatherapy means that it’s included as standard with all of her massages. Her total body treatments, available in 10 varieties, all include access to the aromatherapy steam room, a body scrub, a 60-minute massage and a body wrap.
Her renowned pedicure service is especially beloved by the community for the unmatched level of pampering it provides, even winning her platinum in the foot care clinic category of the 2025 CommunityVotes awards. In fact, it’s so thorough that many elderly and diabetic customers are referred to Jill and frequently go to her for lymph drainage which can help reduce swelling and improve circulation, among other benefits.
“It’s not just a regular pedicure; if I need to get that fluid out of the feet I will really work on that,” explains Jill. “We also include a paraffin wax with every pedicure. After we’ve massaged, that brings all the toxins and the lymph out of the foot area and the lower leg,he heat stimulates the blood which carries the oxygen. It’s very moisturizing and everybody benefits from uh paraffin, so I include it in every single pedicure we do, and a sea salt scrub as well to exfoliate the dead skin.”
Reflecting on her forty years in business, Jill feels the privilege of being there for her clients, some of whom have been regular customers visiting every week since she started.
“We’re one of the last businesses that has the luxury of being hands-on,” exclaims Jill. “We spend their most important days with them. We’re the last people that they come to for their wedding day. Even funerals, they come in and have their hair done. We spend all those days [together], and our work hangs in every picture on their walls.”
One of the most memorable parts of participating in these milestones is bearing witness to friendships that develop between customers, and then seeing new generations of customers.
“With 40 years in business, I’m now [seeing] two, three generations of families through the shop,” shares Jill. “So, their kids grow up, and they have their graduation ceremony in your spa, and they have their prom ceremony in your spa, and then their wedding, and then they tell you when they’re pregnant, and then their kids start.”
As a downtown Milton business owner herself, Jill’s commitment to the community extends to supporting other local businesses. She also participates in a local jazz/swing band, cheekily named That Band, that frequently performs at community events.
“I’m in a band that [does] a regular concert series on Monday nights at Victoria Park, and we’re all volunteer musicians. We’ve been friends forever,” shares Jill. “But even there, I try to promote people – like pick up a takeout meal at one of the restaurants, or a drink. Every little bit helps because everybody in town right now really, really needs the support.”
You can find Total Skin and Body Spa on Facebook and Instagram. To explore its full range of services or book an appointment, visit totalskinandbodyspa.com.
