Fiona's Story
From hospital wards to highland botanicals
Fiona Mackay spent twelve years as a nurse in Edinburgh's hospitals before quietly realising that the kind of care she most wanted to give — slow, attentive, deeply restorative — wasn't possible inside a healthcare system stretched thin.
She retrained in holistic therapy, spent two years studying Scottish botanical medicine, and in 2017 opened the doors of Cairn & Co. in a Georgian townhouse on Heriot Row. It was, and remains, a deliberate alternative to the city's busier hotel spas.
Almost a decade on, Fiona still treats clients several days a week. She believes the only way to lead a spa well is to keep your hands in the work.
