Owner & Director

Judi Sneddon

Originally from South Africa, Judi arrived in Queenstown to live in 1989 after travelling the world for a number of years and fell in love with this beautiful town on her travels. She qualified as a massage therapist whilst living in Australia and the rest is history! In 1999, at the age of 35 and as a single Mum, she took a risky move to bring Queenstown its first exclusive Day Spa and has grown the business into an award-winning spa over the 20 years in operation. In 2010 she opened up a secondary location in Frankton (the Beauty Lounge) to provide advanced skincare and beauty treatments to local clientele. Her passion for massage and spa treatments has driven the business to achieve huge successes with the overwhelming support of her team and clients.

Favourite Treatment to receive: Massage
Favourite Product: 818 One Truth Serum, O Cosmedics Potent Retinol (Face), Coconut Lime Blossom Body Lotion by Pure Fiji (Body).
Fun Fact: Judi was the first female river surfing guide in the world, the first female Snowboarder in New Zealand and opened the first Day Spa in Queenstown!
Body Sanctum team member since: July 1999

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Sales & Marketing

Lexi Boddy

Lexi made the leap over the pond back in December 2016 after a 6 year career in events, sales and marketing in London. Having studied Interior Architecture at university in Cardiff, Wales, her design background and creative edge lead her into brand marketing early on in her previous role and she moved into the role of Marketing Manager. Before joining the team at Body Sanctum, Lexi was keen to find the ‘perfect-fit’ company for the long-term to settle down in Queenstown and put her stamp on the brand, Body Sanctum was that company 🙂

Favourite Treatment to receive: Lexi loves the O Cosmedics treatment facial as the products are so effective for her hormonal skin flare ups! She’s also a regular for shellac manicures and a guinea pig for testing out all of the amazing new CND colours.

Favourite Product: O Cosmedics 3-in-1 Fruit Peel Mask, this is her go-to weekly peel to totally clear up any emerging break outs! This plus the Pure FIji lip balm are her two desert island items.

Fun Fact: Lexi grew up in Hong Kong as an expat to a 2nd gen expat family. While she holds a British passport, she finds it hard to pin-point one location in the world as ‘home’. Having been born in Germany to a military father, then relocating to Hong Kong at the age of 1, studying abroad at a boarding school, taking a year out to study Chinese in Beijing, then working in London and moving to NZ, we can see why that might be tricky!

Body Sanctum team member since: March 2017

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Remedial Massage Therapist

Rahel Häner

Remedial therapist Rahel (Rachel) is originally from the Swiss-German speaking part of Switzerland.

She graduated as a physiotherapist in 2012 and has treated a wide spectrum of clients, including adolescents, adults, geriatric and both ambitious and hobby athletes. Having a background as a physiotherapist gives her the knowledge to target the muscles differently and more precisely as she works through the muscles chains to complete her massage. She also loves analysing the human body and its function that is why she has completed the Analytical Biomechanics and Treatment Concept according to Raymond Sohier which allows her to apply this therapy for rheumatic, traumatic and orthopaedic pathologies of the spine and the joints.

She has earned diplomas in Dry needling, SART sports coaching, Myofascial Kinesiology Taping. Loving any kind of sport she’s the one you have to see after an injury, preparing for a marathon or for regeneration and you will have the pleasure of experiencing her passion for deep tissue, trigger point and sports massage.

Favourite Treatment to give: Deep tissue massage combined with Trigger Point Therapy and the add-on Dry Needling.

Favourite Treatment to receive: A head massage as well as a Mani/Pedi.

Favourite Product: Skin Deep Manuka Honey because it’s a New Zealand local product and the honey is just delicious!

Fun Fact: I’m the biggest cheese eater you’ve ever met. Another passion of mine is making my own bread.

Body Sanctum team member since: October 2020

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Remedial Massage Therapist

Dany Ponce Buxton

Dany is an extensively trained remedial massage therapist with a background spanning a variety of modalities to treat muscles and injury. She specialises in remedial massage, trigger point therapy, sports massage, deep tissue massage, manual therapy, Orthopaedic cupping and dry needling.

A fully qualified Physiotherapist with a master degree in Orthopaedic Manual Therapy, Dani has also completed advanced training in Kinetic control, Shiley Sahrmann: movement impairment syndromes, dry needling and pain management. 

Originally from Chile, where she worked as a physio, Dani left her home country to travel throughout Australia and South East Asia before settling in New Zealand and has since worked as a Remedial Massage therapist in Queenstown.

What drew her to this career was her love for sports and how the body moves. She found that a lot of our aches and pains come from tight or overstretched muscles, and in her experience, massage is the best tool to deal with that! 

Favourite Treatment to Give: Remedial massag

Favourite Treatment to Receive: Pure Fiji island facial & ritual

Favourite Product: All of the pure Fiji products because she feels like she is on holiday every time she uses them!

Fun Fact: Her top 3 things she loves are snowboarding, puppies and food! She also used to compete at a national level in the long jump for her Country.

Body Sanctum Team Member Since: October 2020

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Beauty Therapist

Una Vusoya

Una has always enjoyed looking after people to make them feel good and help them out with their beauty needs. She takes pride in her environment and loves meeting new people, which lead her to complete her training back in Fiji in the year 2000 with diplomas in both Beauty Therapy and Consultation, Tourism and Hospitality. She has studied Lomi Lomi, Fijian Bobo massage, and Fijian hot stone (did you know this was originally for warriors and pregnant women to help them relax their muscles?). She has worked in both Fiji and New Zealand in 11 different resorts and cruise ships. Una loves having the ability to share her gift with each and every one of her clients, which is why her speciality really lies in body treatments. With body treatments, she can really connect with her clients and make them feel, not just look, amazing!

Favourite Treatment to give: The Prince or Princess Package – A 3.5 hour long deluxe set of treatments. You couldn’t get much more pampering than this one!

Favourite Treatment to receive: Our signature massage, for all of it’s glorious relaxation benefits! Massage therapists need massages too 🙂

Favourite Product: Pure Fiji White Gingerlily Body Oil, because it’s more for relaxation, it’s fantastic for stress relief as it’s not too strong, and it is nice and soft for aging skin due to the dilo oil in it.

Fun Fact: Una loves cooking and adventures (as long as it doesn’t involve heights!), meeting and helping people.

Body Sanctum team member since: March 2018

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Receptionist

Abbie Jones

Abbie has always wanted a career that involves helping people. She received her first certificate in sports massage in college back in England and has A*’s in sports, which includes coaching, mental health, etc. That, combined with her 4 years of property manager experience, has lead to her transition into reception here at our Day Spa. Although she has worked in both England and Australia, with her grandad living here in New Zealand, she always had a desire to come and live in Queenstown.

Favourite Treatment: O Cosmedics facial because it has been amazing for her acne prone skin.

Favourite Product: Pure Fiji Coconut Lime Blossom Sugar Rub because it smells incredible and leaves your skin feeling smooth.

Fun Fact: Abbie has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania!

Body Sanctum team member since: November 2018

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Spa Manager / Therapist

Stacey Jessen

Stacey is Itec qualified, which is an international anatomy, physiology, and massage therapy program in the UK. She has also taken a Reflexology course at Itec, manual lymphatic drainage course in the UK, and Reiki, Indian Head and Infant massage courses in New Zealand. But her specialty really is Holistic massage, because this is where she feels she can really make a difference to someone’s overall wellbeing. What helped her come to this realization? Stacey came from an admin background where she worked at an investment bank in London and was stuck behind a computer desk every day. So in 2002, she decided to study massage therapy and do it on the side. Eventually, she felt so rewarded when she could make a difference in someone’s life, that she quit her admin job and pursued massage therapy full-time.

Did you know?

Favourite Treatment to give: Stacey’s favourite Body Sanctum treatment to give is the Luxury Escape Package because she loves giving someone a pampering from head to toe.

Favourite Treatment to receive: Stacey’s favourite Body Sanctum treatment to receive is a deep tissue massage.

Favourite Product: Stacey’s favourite product at Body Sanctum is the Pure Fiji Coconut Lime Blossom Sugar Scrub because the smell is divine and she loves how her skin feels afterwards. And it lasts forever!

Fun Fact: Everytime someone says something, Stacey can think of a song that has those words in a verse or lyric. Maybe that’s why she is teaching herself guitar!

Body Sanctum team member since: October 2015

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Beauty Therapist

Lorène Doira

Back in France in 2009, Lorène took a business management course and studied at a beauty school for 5 years. Additionally, she has taken special facial courses such as Japanese facial massage techniques, Aruveydic massage, and specialty nail courses. Why so much training? Because looking after her clients is her passion, and it’s obvious by the quality of her technique and treatments! This has allowed her to work in France, Australia and New Zealand and although she loves everything about beauty, her speciality is facials because it’s a great way to combine relaxation and results.

Did you know?

Favourite Treatment to give: Lorène’s favourite Body Sanctum treatment to give is the O Cosmedics Facial, because it is such a relaxing treatment and you can see the results right away. She thinks it’s incredible how much your skin glows and looks and feels afterwards. Favourite Treatment to receive: That’s probably why Lorène’s favourite Body Sanctum treatment to receive is the O Cosmedics Facial!

Favourite Product: Lorène’s favourite product at the spa is the Pure Age Defiance Serum from O Cosmedics because it plumps and firms your skin. It’s great for hydration and aging. Especially for this cold and dry weather we have in Queenstown.

Fun Fact: Lorène first became interested in beauty therapy because she liked plucking out the hairs from her dad’s nose…it was their Sunday afternoon ritual!

Body Sanctum team member since: June 2017

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