PARIS — On the rue Saint Honoré, shoppers bustle from Colette to John Galliano to Roger Vivier. But when it all becomes too much, there’s a new oasis of calm on this chic street. Darphin, the French skin care and cosmetics brand, has recently opened a spa and boutique tucked in a stone courtyard off Saint Honoré, just around the corner from the Place Vendôme.

The brand had a smaller spa for many years, but this larger location — 1,700 square feet — is a flagship that offers five treatment rooms, a roomy waiting area, and shelves stocked with full product lines. There is space for makeup instruction and a small café here where clients can enjoy a nibble between long treatments. Darphin fans can spend as little as five minutes buying mascara or as much as three hours relaxing with a body scrub and a facial.

“We have a global approach to beauty,” the boutique manager, Sandra Renzi, said. “Clients can sit, relax, and take some time.”

Though New York has many top-notch day spas, the Darphin center has the advantage of a location that provides for quiet and natural light. To walk to the boutique, you first enter a classically French courtyard complete with a stone statue of a bather in a niche. To your right is a line of topiary; following it will lead you to the glass door of Darphin, where the interior is crisp and modern. Skin care and cosmetics line the shelves, and several large chairs offer a view of the open courtyard.

The treatment room in which I had a massage was spacious, lined with candles, and blissfully quiet. As for the massage, it bested any I’ve had in Europe, Israel, or America. What set it apart was that it treated the entire body with as much attention as is usually given to the back. The massage oil had an intense chamomile scent that helped ease the pain of my seven-hour trans-Atlantic flight, prior to which had been a six-hour delay.

After the massage, I was served a neat tray of cookies and a piping hot cup of tea. Darphin had a series of tisanes created for its new shop, each made to correspond to specific treatments. Those treatments include facials ($78–$92), body exfoliation ($78–$105), and a “well-being” series with emphasis on relaxation, invigoration, or detoxification, all of which can be tailored to the body or face ($130 each for 90 minutes) or both ($236 for three hours). For men, the spa offers a deep-cleaning exfoliation and an age-defying massage ($92 each for one hour) and a de-stress facial ($78 for 45 minutes). Manicures and pedicures, as well as pre-tanning exfoliation, are available ($26–$90).

After my blissful massage, Ms. Renzi gave me a lesson in the mystical arts of French skin care. Probably, I could combat my skin’s occasional appearance of redness if I just got more sleep and drank less wine. But as that’s not going to happen, I took her advice and plunged into the Intral line, which is designed to sooth irritated skin with natural ingredients like chamomile, calendula, and aloe vera extract.

All of Darphin’s eight skin care lines — such as Instant Lumiere for brightening and Fibrogene for nourishing — are formulated for more than the benefit of the skin. “Darphin is a brand of pleasure,” Ms. Renzi said. “It comes from the textures, the scents, and the experience of the products. You can take pleasure in the sensations.”

It’s a philosophy that has guided this brand since its founding in 1958 and continues to do so with modern verve. P.C.

Darphin Centre de Beauté, 350 rue Saint Honoré, Paris 75001, www.darphin.com, 01-47-03-17-70.