Sunshine State.(on beautician Tammy Fender)

Byline: editor: Sarah Brown

What--or who--is the secret behind Palm Beach's happiest, healthiest complexions? Sarah Brown meets Tammy Fender.

The first time I met Tammy Fender, I was in no mood for a facial. I'd been scheduled that afternoon to tape a segment for a television program, but the makeup artist clumsily glued tiny clusters of individual lashes to--or rather, into --the corners of my upper eyelids while ranting on about her ex-boyfriend and pausing every few minutes to text him angrily. The glue got in my eyes; stinging tears rolled down my cheeks in streams for the better part of an hour. Face: swollen and red; mood: very bad. The camera crew went home. I hid in my office and slogged through the day. So when I arrived that evening at a penthouse suite in the Bryant Park Hotel for an appointment with Fender--the Palm Beach facialist and miracle worker I'd heard so much about--it was, as I saw it, a courtesy. Don't touch me, I pleaded in my head as I tried to be friendly and forced my still-puffy face into a smile. I'm not putting on that white terry wraparound thing, I was thinking as I politely declined a beet-juice cocktail in a beaker-like glass.

But then, I gave in and learned what so many others--the most glamorous women in Palm Beach--know about Tammy Fender, and why they are so devoted, not only to this tiny blonde mother of two boys, but also to keeping her their secret: With her soothing voice and a serene aura that circles her like sunshine, she might actually be able to fix you. And another thing, if you can walk out of a facial not pushing your hair in your face or racing for concealer, you've really got something.

Tammy Fender was the sort of child who picked up those little books on vitamins and health at the grocery-store checkout instead of begging her parents for candy and gum. While studying psychology in college, she worked behind a cosmetics counter, where she grew interested in what was in the products she was selling. She began blending herbs and pure essential oils in her kitchen, and quickly word spread of the woman with the gentle yet remarkably effective holistic homemade creams. Soon she had a loyal following. She began doing facials at the Ritz in Manalapan, ...