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Creature comfort
Local spas pamper the body to soothe the soul
BY TAMARA WIEDER

It was a difficult and undesirable job, but someone had to take it on.

After all, you can’t very well put together a supplement devoted to health and well-being and not cover the mecca of stress-relief: the spa.

And so, wearily, I accepted my mission: to visit as many of said spas as humanly — or at least epidermally — possible, take in their ambiance, sample their services, and emerge renewed, refreshed, and ready to write about the experience.

I confess: it wasn’t easy. Squeezing in a facial here, a massage there, a pre-breakfast body wrap, or a post-work pedicure required serious planning — all that pampering is quite time-consuming. But I’m a trooper. In the name of work, I soldiered on, enduring (okay, delighting in) a host of treatments at Beaucage Salon, Bella Santé, Giacomo & Rondi Salon, Giuliano Day Spa, and Le Pli Day Spa.

Of course, there just wasn’t time to try everything these businesses have to offer — not that I wouldn’t have tried to fit it all in (for you, dear reader, only for you) if deadlines had permitted. So I chose a sampling of treatments from each spa, in order to get the flavor of a place and its ambiance. And though most people love a good massage or a cleansing facial, not all spa services are for everyone. When contemplating a visit to a spa, bear in mind factors — high blood pressure, pregnancy, even simple ticklishness — that might affect your ability to enjoy or even undergo particular treatments.

And don’t expect to waltz into your favorite spa without an appointment and assume you’ll be able to get your tootsies rubbed or your fingernails polished: though you might think that the events of September 11 and the ensuing economic recession would’ve put a damper on the spa business, most local spas say they’re as busy as ever. So plan — and call — ahead.

The quick and easy

Salt glow ($90) at Beaucage Salon, 71 Newbury Street, Boston, (617) 437-7171

My trip to Beaucage is a busy woman’s dream. Arriving after work, I’m whisked into a dimly lit room and soon lying under a warm blanket listening to quiet New Age music, inhaling the scents of aromatic oils as candles throw flickering shadows across the walls. My aesthetician, Kerrie, preps me on the basics of what I’ll be experiencing: a salt glow is essentially an exfoliating treatment during which sea salts are rubbed vigorously over the entire body (minus the face), increasing circulation and sloughing off dead layers of skin, leaving what’s underneath soft and refreshed.

And refreshing it is. My salt glow is less of a gentle, soothing body treatment and more like skin stimulation. But it isn’t painful; in fact, there’s something utterly satisfying about its intensity. Once the salt has been rinsed off my body, replaced by a variety of sweet-smelling creams and oils, my skin feels silky-smooth, tingly, and alive. And clocking in at an efficient one hour, the salt glow leaves me feeling awake and ready to continue my evening.

The beat-the-winter-blues

Green-tea-and-spirulina-algae facial ($95) and body bronzing ($75) at Bella Santé, 38 Newbury Street, Boston, (617) 424-9930

Bella Santé is a kind of urban oasis: quiet, soothing, and tastefully luxurious, from the tea service and comfortable couches in the waiting area to the large multilevel locker room (featuring a steam room) stocked with hair- and skin-care products. But it’s the treatments that really make my morning here blissful. According to the folks at Bella Santé, the green-tea-and-spirulina-algae facial is good for skin in need of detoxification, whether due to illness, recent air travel, smoking, or other stressors. The green tea acts as an antioxidant, while the algae detoxifies and "re-mineralizes."

My aesthetician, Kimberlie, spends nearly an hour on my face, treating my skin to a parade of aromatic products: cleansing milk, vitalizing mask, enzyme peel, rose face dew, green-tea ampoule, balance mask with algae powder, and finishing cream. After the facial, Kimberlie exfoliates my entire body, then heads to the locker room to start a hot shower running for me. After rinsing off, I return to my treatment room, where Kimberlie massages a self-tanner into my skin, promising that the results of only one treatment’s worth of the product won’t be drastic — just enough to give my skin a healthy glow. She’s right; by evening, I can see a slight darkening in the color of my skin, but not enough that anyone’s going to suspect I’ve been hanging out at the local tanning parlor.

The traditional

Manicure ($18), pedicure ($40), facial ($70), and massage ($80) at Giacomo & Rondi Salon, 539 Comm Ave, Boston, (617) 437-1313

More of a salon than a spa, Giacomo & Rondi nonetheless offers a variety of skin and body treatments in addition to its traditional hair services. A one-hour massage with Randy works wonders on the knots in my shoulders and back, despite the fact that the candle-lit treatment room, located just off the typically noisy hair salon, isn’t sufficiently soundproof.

Feeling relaxed and sleepy from the massage, I turn over my hands to Regina, who spends the next 45 minutes pampering my cuticles, skin, and nails, resulting in 10 perfectly manicured fingers. After the requisite time under the hand dryer, I’m whisked into another candle-lit room for my facial. Aesthetician Chrissie’s one-hour treatment includes initial cleansing, steaming, deep-pore cleansing, mask, and foot and hand massage. By the time I’m sent out into the salon for my pedicure, my jellied limbs can barely hold me up. Thankfully, I can sink into a chair and let Amy work her magic on my calloused winter feet; the lengthy pedicure lasts well beyond Giacomo & Rondi’s advertised closing time, but despite the late hour, Amy doesn’t rush.

The non-traditional

Rasul Signature Room ($110) and Soft Pack Treatment ($100) at Giuliano Day Spa, 338 Newbury Street, Boston, (617) 262-2220

It’s easy to see why Giuliano is listed as one of the top-30 spas in America by Salon Today magazine, among other marks of recognition. Its upstairs salon offers hair and makeup services, while the spa downstairs offers massage treatments; relaxation therapies; body therapies and body wraps; facial treatments; hand and foot treatments; nutrition, weight-loss, and fitness services; hair removal; medical aesthetics; bridal packages; and services for pregnant women — all in a comfortable and beautifully designed space.

My aesthetician, Lorrie, shows me to the Rasul Signature Room, a colorfully tiled steam room featuring a domed ceiling lit with little stars. Two wide, heated seats — the Rasul Signature Room can be enjoyed alone or with a partner — are placed at opposite corners of the room. Lorrie gives me a variety of small vials of mud and instructs me on how and where to apply them. Then she leaves me to enjoy a kind of do-it-yourself treatment. I slather on the five kinds of mud — for face, legs, back, arms, chest, and stomach — and take a seat in a mud-covered chair. As soothing music plays, a warm, aromatic steam starts to fill the room. The Rasul Signature Room is meant to be reminiscent of the "ancient ritualistic bathing treatments of royalty." And royal it is; after 20 minutes, the lights come on and, per Lorrie’s instructions, I apply a gritty, sand-like mixture over the mud. Finally, a gentle shower turns on automatically over my chair, and everything is rinsed away.

Refreshed from the Rasul, I’m led to a treatment room for my Soft Pack, a body wrap wherein one floats weightless in a literal cushion of water. I lie on a low bed as Lorrie wraps me in sheets infused with lavender oil, then lowers the bed into the inflated-plastic-covered Soft Pack. The effect is of lying in a cushion suspended in water: I don’t get wet, but I feel as though I’m floating. If it weren’t for the intense heat inside the wrap, I’d be happy to spend hours mummified like this. But by the time Lorrie returns to remove the sheets, the temperature has left me completely relaxed and ready to return to real life.

The hot and healing

Power Peel ($150) and hot-stone massage ($165) at Le Pli Day Spa, 5 Bennett Street, Cambridge, (617) 547-4081

There’s a dearth of spas in Cambridge, but Le Pli offers enough services and treatments — from hair and makeup to skin and body — to keep Cantabrigians and visitors coifed and pampered. When I arrive for my afternoon at Le Pli, I meet Lynn, who briefs me on the basics of the Power Peel (typically known as microdermabrasion). A form of skin "resurfacing," the Power Peel uses a laser-like wand to exfoliate the skin, removing the outermost layer of dry, dead cells. Lynn assures me the procedure won’t be painful, and she’s right: the treatment feels a bit like being licked by a rough-tongued cat — not exactly a scream-inducing sensation. Following the Power Peel, my face feels smooth and soft — and I’m ready for my massage.

The hot-stone massage is an ancient healing art that uses heated basalt stones in combination with massage techniques. It feels quite similar to a regular massage, except when my massage therapist, Heather, runs the stones along various points of my body. The heat is incredibly intense, but because the stones only come into contact with my body for seconds at a time, it’s not painful. In fact, the heat is known to help loosen knots by penetrating into deeper muscle tissue, and is often used to treat chronic stiffness.

Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com

Issue Date: January 24 - 31, 2002
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