Presenting: The Ultimate Beauty Insider's Guide to Tuscany

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Writing a beauty guide to Tuscany feels a little like my rite of passage. I’m very Italian; my grandmother’s family was born here, I was literally named after the Tuscan city of Siena, and I happen to have made a career out of testing facials and developing extremely strong opinions about spas. Eventually, these two parts of my life were going to collide.

What I found in Tuscany, though, was less about beauty treatments in the traditional sense and more about how connected everything is. The ingredients that show up at dinner can reappear in the spa a few hours later. Herbs are pulled from hotel gardens for body treatments, olive oil becomes part of a massage, and centuries-old thermal waters are still very much part of the beauty culture. Even at the most luxurious properties, so much of what you’re experiencing comes directly from the land around you.

That became my unofficial rule for this guide: I wanted the beauty experiences that actually felt like they belonged in Tuscany. Ahead, there are old-school rituals, seriously impressive spas, and, obviously, some very good facials.

Best Overall Spa

Castiglion del Bosco, A Rosewood Hotel

It takes a lot for a hotel to make me forget about my phone. At Castiglion del Bosco, I barely remembered where I left it. The 5,000-acre estate in the Val d’Orcia centers around a restored little medieval village, with interiors designed by Massimo and Chiara Ferragamo’s original vision. The result is one of the most beautiful hotels I’ve ever stayed in.

That same connection to the property runs through the wellness experience. So much of what you eat, drink, and put on your body can be traced back to the land around you, from the estate’s garden and vineyards to the herbs used at the spa. I experienced the Tuscan Herbal Ritual, a 60-minute treatment that uses warm oil and heated linen pouches filled with Italian herbs harvested from the garden. The treatment was deeply relaxing, but what stayed with me more was how connected it felt to everything else I was experiencing.

The following morning, I also did a mindfulness session in the Belvedere Garden. I left Castiglion del Bosco feeling more relaxed and connected to nature than I can remember feeling anywhere else. There are spas with more technology and hotels with much larger wellness facilities, but nowhere else on this trip made beauty, food, design, and the surrounding land feel quite so inseparable.

The Tuscan Herbal Ritual: 60 minutes

Cost: ~$300

Grand Hotel Imperiale, Forte dei Marmi

Forte dei Marmi is unofficially dubbed the "Hamptons of Italy," which makes sense about five minutes after you arrive. Beauty is kind of built into the place: it’s incredibly chic, every major Italian designer seems to have a storefront in town, and getting dressed for the beach can feel almost as fashionably high-stakes as getting dressed for dinner.

That made Grand Hotel Imperiale’s new spa feel especially fitting. I visited just after the wellness area opened and right before the rest of the hotel closed for a complete renovation ahead of summer 2027. For me, the biggest draw was Valmont Beauty. I’ve loved the Swiss skincare brand for years, so that was naturally where my attention went first. The spa also has a heated pool, whirlpool, sauna, Turkish bath, and body treatments, but I’d think of it less as an all-day wellness retreat and more as a very chic place to disappear for a couple of hours between the beach and dinner. In Forte dei Marmi, that feels exactly right.

Oxygenating Facial: 60 minutes

Cost: Price upon ask

Terme di Saturnia Natural Spa & Resort

In the Maremma countryside of southern Tuscany, Terme di Saturnia is built around a natural hot spring that has been used for thousands of years. The water spends about 40 years underground before surfacing at 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit, and here it really is the main event: the resort has a natural spring plus four additional thermal pools, hydromassage areas, and a Roman bath with a sauna and Turkish bath.

The beauty treatments make use of the same source. I’d book the Gommage & Plankton, a full-body exfoliating treatment followed by a mask made with Saturnia bioplankton, which develops naturally in the thermal water and is also used throughout the resort’s own skincare line.

Gommage & Plankton: 50 minutes

Cost: $135

Best Facial

Borgo Santo Pietro

Some hotel spas bring in a luxury skincare line; Borgo Santo Pietro made its own. Seed to Skin Tuscany was born on the estate near Chiusdino, southwest of Siena, where ingredients from its organic farm are developed into formulas in an on-site laboratory. Herbs and honey grown or produced on the property make their way into the collection, along with ingredients like sheep’s milk. It’s basically a beauty editor’s dream version of farm-to-face skincare.

The Reverse Signature Facial takes that very pastoral setup in a much more results-driven direction. Over 90 minutes, the treatment combines resurfacing, myofascial and gua sha massage, two masks, and a finishing cryotherapy massage. So while the products may begin with ingredients grown a few steps away, the actual facial is anything but rustic.

Reverse Signature Facial: 90 minutes

Cost: $315

Best Massage

COMO Shambhala at COMO Castello Del Nero

At COMO Castello Del Nero, the Chianti setting actually makes its way onto the treatment table. The 12th-century castle sits between Florence and Siena, surrounded by vineyards and olive groves, and the spa uses ingredients grown on the estate in several of its body treatments.

The COMO Shambhala Signature Ritual is the one that caught my attention. It starts with a full-body sea salt exfoliation mixed with the estate’s own olive oil, followed by a massage using olive oil infused with Tuscan lavender. There’s something particularly satisfying about getting covered in olive oil in Chianti—and the nearly two-hour treatment gives you plenty of time to commit to the bit.

COMO Shambhala Signature Ritual: 110 minutes

Cost: $338

Best Wellness Experience

RAKxa Wellness Spa at Castelfalfi

You don’t actually have to stay at Castelfalfi to make a day of its spa, which is part of why I love it. Near Montaione, southwest of Florence, RAKxa is Bangkok’s RAKxa Integrative Wellness Retreat's first European outpost, bringing a different perspective to Tuscany’s spa scene. The 1,500-square-meter space has indoor and outdoor heated pools, hydrotherapy, saunas, a cold plunge, and a "vitality" pool, but the day retreat is what makes it especially useful: outside guests can book several hours of spa and gym access along with a 120-minute personalized massage. It’s basically permission to block off half a day and do absolutely nothing else but relax.

Day Retreat with 120-Minute Personalized Massage: 5 hours of spa/gym access + 120-minute treatment

Cost: $462

Best Bathing Ritual

Monteverdi Tuscany

Most spas have a treatment room—Monteverdi has an outdoor travertine tub overlooking the Val d’Orcia. The hotel sits in the tiny hilltop village of Castiglioncello del Trinoro, about 10 minutes from Sarteano in southern Tuscany, and its bathing rituals make unusually good use of the setting. The Full Monteverdi is a 130-minute head-to-toe affair: salt exfoliation scented with local Tuscan ingredients, an herbal facial and mask, a private soak infused with local plants, then massage. The definition of the good life, if you ask me.

The Full Monteverdi: 130 minutes

Cost: Price on request

Best Hydrotherapy

Fonteverde

Fonteverde sits in San Casciano dei Bagni, in the southern stretch of the Val d’Orcia, and water is really the point here. The resort’s thermal program goes far beyond a simple soak, with the Bioaquam circuit offering 22 (!!) different hydromassage stations, plus thermal pools and water-based treatments designed around the area’s naturally warm springs.

The Salus per Aquam package is an easy way to experience the best of it: you get access to the thermal circuit along with a 50-minute relaxing massage, so the treatment feels like part of the larger water experience rather than the main event. The spa has also added a beauty brand I love, Natura Bissé to its skincare lineup.

Salus per Aquam: 50-minute massage + thermal circuit access

Cost: about $220 on weekdays; about $224 on weekends and holidays

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