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FrontRangeLiving.com -> Escapes -> Day Spas
Making Time Slow Down
By Sally McGrath
 A
spa is no longer a luxury afforded only to the wealthy. Spas have become
increasingly popular and touted for wellness and renewal benefits as well as
beauty treatments. We’ll introduce you to two day spas with different
approaches. One concentrates on sea water, the other on heat and cold.
It’s now possible at Front Range spas to be slathered with seaweed or mud
for detoxification, massaged with heated stones, whipped with oak leaves,
covered with honey or painted with exfoliating pumpkin mousse.
Spas – at least the best ones – have carefully
orchestrated the process of making time slow down and clients feel pampered.
There are no anxiety-producing lines to wait in or decisions to make.
“We want to make a difference in people’s
lives,” says Susan Macinko, owner of Essentiels Spa in Boulder. “We
experience people’s divorces, their marriages and working with their
illnesses, including breast cancer. I value the sense of community that has
developed.”
“It’s the pampering and such decadence,” says
Lorraine Tartasky, a Boulder art gallery owner, resting in a meditation room
after receiving a facial. Tartasky gave herself a day of spa treatments three
years ago and has been returning ever since. Sometimes, her mother joins her.
“I've been to spas in New York, Miami and lots of
other large cities,” she says, “and this spa is as good as any I’ve been
to.”
Macinko, a former labor and delivery nurse in a
southern California hospital and educator in childbirth education, became
interested in spas when she visited one for a facial. “I was a client who had
a bad marriage. I wanted to do something for me, so I got a facial. I think of a
spa treatment as a gift you can give yourself. The treatments provide much
needed rejuvenation.”
SPAS DIVERSIFY AND EXPAND
The number of people visiting spas grew by 16 percent
in the year ending June 1999, according to the International Spa Association.
That means spas now average 33,000 visits per year.
To satisfy the demand, spas come in a variety of
flavors and packages.
There are day spas, where you can spend one hour to
all day, destination spas, where you can stay as long as you want and resort
spas, where you can get a facial or massage between rounds of golf or skin
diving.
Business is healthy, particularly for day spas. Five
years ago, 110 day spas were registered with the ISPA. Last year, the
association listed nearly twice that number.
Macinko and Melanie Schmidt opened their Boulder day
spa, in September 1997. Essentiels has been featured in numerous magazines, and Day
Spa magazine selected it as one of the top seven day spas in the nation. Its
staff has grown from 12 employees to more than 70, and revenue in 1999 exceeded
$2 million.
SEA WATER THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT
“I use Essentiels as the model of a spa that
integrates a whole body approach and is very accessible to consumers,” says
Schmidt, one of the pioneers of the “thalassotherapy” movements in North
America. Thalassotherapy treatments use sea water and sea products.
As soon as clients walks into the spa, they hear the
soothing sounds of an indoor waterfall. Water is the essential element in many
of the services, and the décor reflects this theme.
The interior replicates a seaside
cottage on Cape Cod, complete with Nantucket beach chairs, galvanized nautical
lamps and bleached white clapboard walls. The beach theme indicates the emphasis
on thalassotherapy, the sea water therapy that Macinko believes promotes
cellular metabolism, which regenerates and rejuvenates the skin.
Schmidt and Macinko traveled to France in search of
thalassotherapy equipment and spa services. As a result, Essentiels has a
selection of French hydrotherapy equipment and seaweed treatments that is part
of a European “cure” spa experience.
Among the seaweed-based treatments is the Thalatherm
Body Envelopment Bed. During the treatment, the client lies down on a plastic
bed and is covered from the neck down with a blend of seaweed. A dome is lowered
and during the next 30 minutes the chamber first heats up then gradually cools
down. At the end of the detoxification treatment, the Thalatherm turns into a
pulsating shower from above and below, rinsing away the seaweed and cooling the
body without the client ever having to move from the bed. The 65-minute
treatment costs $100.
Other thalassotherapy treatments include the
Thalaform hydrotherapy tub, with pinpoint air and water jets. Seaweed, sea water
or essential oils can be added to customize the treatment. The price ranges from
$35 as an add-on to other services, to $85 for a customized 65-minute treatment.
The spa also offers a “douche Vichy”, a water
massage with multiple streams of warm water, and “douche Suisse,” a Swiss
shower that consists of a series of fine, targeted jets that massage your body
from head to toe in an enclosed steam shower.
A treatment that creates an odd sensation – at
least at first – is a “smear” – where pasty seaweed is applied cold to
any body part and as it gets hotter starts to fizzle and bubble. It’s supposed
to draw out toxins and infuse marine elements, although some people are offended
by the fishy odor. Smears cost from $15 for your neck to $125 for a full-body
treatment.
AND NOW FOR GENTLE FLOGGING
After a couple hours of being kneaded, heated,
slathered in honey, and swatted with oak leaves at the Izba Spa in Denver, you
may leave wondering whether you've been pampered or just completed some type of
marathon.
Owner Leonid Vyssokov describes the process as
gymnastics for the circulatory system and his spa counts members of the Colorado
Avalanche hockey team among their clients.
Heat is a key element in the traditional Russian
massage, accompanied by gentle flogging with oak branches and honey drenching.
At the original spa at 1441 York St., treatment
begins in one of two areas large enough to hold a private hot tub, two massage
tables and a Banyu, the Russian steam room in which clients are alternately
heated then cooled with ice water.
During the two-hour basic treatment, clients first
step into the hot tub, get a very deep back massage and head to the Banyu. Then
it's back to the table to finish the full-body massage, followed by more Banyu
where water scented with aromatic oil is poured on hot rocks.
Once the client starts perspiring, the therapist
takes a branch of oak leaves, dips it in water tapping the body from head to
toe. The process stimulates blood vessels near the surface of the skin and
drives the heat into the muscles. Still in the Banyu, honey is massaged into the
sweat-cleansed skin. A bucket of cold water is poured over the skin, and
finally, a cool shower ends the process. All that costs $80, one of the best spa
bargains in the area.
Part of the popularity surrounding day spas is
catering to people who don't have the time or money to spend a week at a
destination spa. For less than what it costs for an hour with a good shrink, you
can luxuriate at a day spa with a body treatment and spend a few hours just
enjoying the spa facilities.
Many of the new day spas are appearing in hair or
tanning salons, such as The Xel-Ha Spa at YucaTanz in Louisville. Although
tanning services still generate most of the revenue, spa services are growing,
says owner Kathi VanVeen.
“The spa goes hand in hand with tanning,” she
says. “People are so stressed out they are taking time to pamper
themselves.”
Day spas are popular for another reason: they are an
excellent way for people who have never had a spa experience to try it, love it,
and then choose a destination spa vacation.
In our upcoming sequel, we’ll visit two
destination and resort spas: The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs and The Spa at
Cordillera in Edwards.
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