![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So after fuck-up day and some other possibly hormonally related feelings, I was feeling quite down and sorry for myself. I decided it was time to use my spa gift certificate that my covenmates had gotten me for my birthday. It was a $200 certificate to Aziz Salon. I called and arranged my appointment, cherry-picking the things I wanted and not having much idea what to expect- I'd never been to a spa before. I enjoyed it quite a lot though.
I was a little daunted by the big sign that said "Our customers appreciate the art of appearance!"- I'm not here to look good, I'm here to feel good. In fact, I dressed comfy but no one gave me any crap at all about it; everyone was quite friendly.
I showed up at noon and they offered to give me water or soda. I took a bottle of water and was taken to a little room with a fountain to chill for a couple of minutes. Then Sylvia (I think) introduced me to the massage room, which was dimly lit and had a typical massage table that was invisible under pads and blankets and, apparently, a heating pad. She invited me to 'disrobe' and left the room. Then she did the 'salt glow'. This involved squirting pleasantly-scented and heated oil on my appendages and then lightly scrubbing them with 'Dead Sea salt', which was brownish fine salt. It felt like being licked by a big cat. This was supposed to exfoliate my skin (a word which literally means strip all the leaves off, does't it?) but I went for it because of the essential oils. I love smelling good. It was mostly lavender. She then left and told me to get any bits she didn't (boobs and butt) and pointed me to the shower. Then came the massage.
This lasted for an hour. There was squishy New Age synthesizer music playing and she paid more attention to my neck and shoulders, since I'd mentioned that's where all my tension camped out. It was fabulous. I think I'm going to want to take advantage of hour-long massages more often, if I can afford it.
Next the spa facial (which always causes hub to snicker). I was taken to another dimly-lit room and a cheerful woman set me up on an upright table-chair thing again covered with padding and blankets and so on. She aimed a steam-spouting dingus at me and sat behind me. She was able to wash, rinse, strip more leaves off, rinse, and put goop on, and none of it ever ran off down my neck. That must take some practice. While the goop was sitting, she gave me a nice neck and shoulder massage. Then the goop came off, and she put on some pleasant-smelling things that I imagine were moisturizers and sun-screen. She even dried well; no slapping a dry towel down and scrubbing, but she laid cloths on my face and sort of stroked the clothes and lifted them off again. It's the little things.
After that I had a paraffin treatment for my feet. I thought about a pedicure but nail polish makes me crazy; it didn't occur to me 'til after that I could have had the pedicure and not done the polish thing. Oh, well. In any event, I soaked my feet in a tub of hot soapy water, then dipped each one in extreeeeemely hot peach-colored wax about a half-dozen times until they looked like big cartoon feet. Then they got wrapped in saran wrap and towels and sat for 15 minutes or so. Then she deftly 'skinned' each foot, grabbing the saran wrap and the wax and peeling both off with one pull. Then she gave me a little foot massage with some lotion and sent me to get my hair deep-conditioned.
The fellow that did this said he had hair just like mine. He shampooed it and then applied the magic stuff. Then he stuck me under one of those big hair-dryer things and gave me a giant fashion magazine ('W') showing heavily-made-up heroin addicts with weird hair wrapping their spindly limbs around purses that probably cost more than my first car. Even the articles made little sense to me. It reinforced my belief that people deep into the fashion world are completely disconnected from reality. Anyway, the guy came back for me and rinsed me off, then put some 'product' in my hair, including a non-crunchy mousse that made my hair stay in seperate little rings. He said "you sure you don't want me to blow-dry it and make it real big?" and laughed; little does he know. He also mentioned his former job in Beverly Hills. Ooh la la. Still, he did offer to get me a glass of wine and then sent me off, and I headed home.
I'd definitely do this again, though I'd probably pick a few other things. Hub says my feet feel drastically softer, something I hadn't noticed as much- I knew they were bad (I wear Birks a lot, it's not unexpected) but not that bad. I like the scrubbed feel of my skin from the salt glow. My face seemed sort of red and shiny, but I also could be a bit sunburned from the day before. At least I took Sheena's advice and didn't get the 'deep clean facial' which involves pore extraction, which I hear is torturous. I left in a considerably better mood- it was really nice to be able to treat myself.
I was a little daunted by the big sign that said "Our customers appreciate the art of appearance!"- I'm not here to look good, I'm here to feel good. In fact, I dressed comfy but no one gave me any crap at all about it; everyone was quite friendly.
I showed up at noon and they offered to give me water or soda. I took a bottle of water and was taken to a little room with a fountain to chill for a couple of minutes. Then Sylvia (I think) introduced me to the massage room, which was dimly lit and had a typical massage table that was invisible under pads and blankets and, apparently, a heating pad. She invited me to 'disrobe' and left the room. Then she did the 'salt glow'. This involved squirting pleasantly-scented and heated oil on my appendages and then lightly scrubbing them with 'Dead Sea salt', which was brownish fine salt. It felt like being licked by a big cat. This was supposed to exfoliate my skin (a word which literally means strip all the leaves off, does't it?) but I went for it because of the essential oils. I love smelling good. It was mostly lavender. She then left and told me to get any bits she didn't (boobs and butt) and pointed me to the shower. Then came the massage.
This lasted for an hour. There was squishy New Age synthesizer music playing and she paid more attention to my neck and shoulders, since I'd mentioned that's where all my tension camped out. It was fabulous. I think I'm going to want to take advantage of hour-long massages more often, if I can afford it.
Next the spa facial (which always causes hub to snicker). I was taken to another dimly-lit room and a cheerful woman set me up on an upright table-chair thing again covered with padding and blankets and so on. She aimed a steam-spouting dingus at me and sat behind me. She was able to wash, rinse, strip more leaves off, rinse, and put goop on, and none of it ever ran off down my neck. That must take some practice. While the goop was sitting, she gave me a nice neck and shoulder massage. Then the goop came off, and she put on some pleasant-smelling things that I imagine were moisturizers and sun-screen. She even dried well; no slapping a dry towel down and scrubbing, but she laid cloths on my face and sort of stroked the clothes and lifted them off again. It's the little things.
After that I had a paraffin treatment for my feet. I thought about a pedicure but nail polish makes me crazy; it didn't occur to me 'til after that I could have had the pedicure and not done the polish thing. Oh, well. In any event, I soaked my feet in a tub of hot soapy water, then dipped each one in extreeeeemely hot peach-colored wax about a half-dozen times until they looked like big cartoon feet. Then they got wrapped in saran wrap and towels and sat for 15 minutes or so. Then she deftly 'skinned' each foot, grabbing the saran wrap and the wax and peeling both off with one pull. Then she gave me a little foot massage with some lotion and sent me to get my hair deep-conditioned.
The fellow that did this said he had hair just like mine. He shampooed it and then applied the magic stuff. Then he stuck me under one of those big hair-dryer things and gave me a giant fashion magazine ('W') showing heavily-made-up heroin addicts with weird hair wrapping their spindly limbs around purses that probably cost more than my first car. Even the articles made little sense to me. It reinforced my belief that people deep into the fashion world are completely disconnected from reality. Anyway, the guy came back for me and rinsed me off, then put some 'product' in my hair, including a non-crunchy mousse that made my hair stay in seperate little rings. He said "you sure you don't want me to blow-dry it and make it real big?" and laughed; little does he know. He also mentioned his former job in Beverly Hills. Ooh la la. Still, he did offer to get me a glass of wine and then sent me off, and I headed home.
I'd definitely do this again, though I'd probably pick a few other things. Hub says my feet feel drastically softer, something I hadn't noticed as much- I knew they were bad (I wear Birks a lot, it's not unexpected) but not that bad. I like the scrubbed feel of my skin from the salt glow. My face seemed sort of red and shiny, but I also could be a bit sunburned from the day before. At least I took Sheena's advice and didn't get the 'deep clean facial' which involves pore extraction, which I hear is torturous. I left in a considerably better mood- it was really nice to be able to treat myself.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: Mar. 30th, 2005 11:03 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: Mar. 31st, 2005 12:11 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: Mar. 31st, 2005 04:44 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: Mar. 31st, 2005 07:43 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: Mar. 31st, 2005 01:50 am (UTC)From: