Spa Body Treatments

Spas offer lots of different services, and a good amount of them fall under the umbrella term body treatments. What is a body treatment, you may ask? It's anything that has a goal of cleansing, exfoliating, or detoxifying the torso, arms and legs. Since there is a cleansing component to body treatments, massages don't qualify even though they do focus on the torso. It can be easier to understand what is and isn't a body treatment if you think of them as facials for the rest of your body.

New body treatments are being invented at spas all the time, so you never know what will be available within this broad category of services. In general, however, there are four kinds of body treatments that can be found at most spas: scrubs, wraps, gommage, and masks. Many times, two or more of these body treatments are combined together into one treatment. It’s also common to have a massage along with a body treatment; if you do have a massage, make sure to get it after the body treatment for the best results.

Scrubs

Sometimes called body polishes, scrubs are a subcategory of body treatments that exfoliate the skin using an abrasive natural substance. Salt glows are the most common form of scrub, but they can also be made with sugar, coffee, small seeds, crushed shells, pumice stone and other coarse substances. To make a scrub product, the spa staff will combine the abrasive with natural oils and a thickening agent. Essential oils or other botanical extracts are often added as well to provide an aroma. When the scrub is rubbed on the body, it buffs off dead skin and infuses it with moisturizing oil. After a body polish, your skin will feel soft all over and should retain the fragrance of the product.

Wraps

Wraps take a variety of forms at spas, but they all use the same basic principal: coat the body in a nourishing substance, wrap it snugly in fabric or plastic, and let it sit. Usually, wraps are meant to either detoxify or moisturize the body. Detoxifying wraps use nourishing products like algae, clay or mud to infuse the skin with vitamins and minerals. The tightly wound wrap causes the blood vessels to dilate and the body to sweat, which leads to the removal of toxins. Spa goers often feel refreshed after a detox wrap, and many lose up to six inches off their waistline because the treatment acts as a diuretic. This isn’t a weight-loss solution, however, as the lost inches build back up within a day or two.

Moisturizing wraps do much the same as detox wraps, but they focus on treating dry skin. Shea butter and other thick lotions are commonly used in these treatments, which leave the skin feeling soft, supple and much less irritable. Both forms of wrap treatments end with a shower.

Gommage

This treatment style has become a bit outdated due to the advent of chemical exfoliates, but it’s still used in some spas that don’t have wet rooms with showers. With gommage, a thin layer of a pasty substance is spread all over the body and allowed to dry. Then, the therapist peels it off, taking the dead skin along with the dried paste. No shower is involved. Gommage takes longer to perform correctly, hence its fall from popularity in recent decades.

Masks

A body mask at a spa is just like a wrap minus the wrapping part. An exfoliating or detoxifying substance like mud is painted on the body and allowed to dry. Then, it is rinsed off in a shower. Masks aren’t as popular as wraps because they don’t cause the same vasodilating effects that result from tightly wound body cocoons. It’s also easy to get cold when covered in a wet substance from head to toe. Most spas that do offer masks are in warmer climates.

Other Body Treatments

New body treatments are invented every day at spas, so be sure to ask your favorite haven if they offer any unique body services. The "bacial" is a treatment that’s growing in popularity; it’s literally a facial for your back. In it, the esthetician applies the same products as she would during a facial treatment, even looking at the back under a bright light to analyze its composition. Concentrated body treatments for just the legs, arms, or back are common too. T

The showering component

The vast majority of body treatments will begin and end with a shower. Usually, this shower is a traditional standing area with one showerhead; the customer rinses off alone while the therapist is out of the room. Sometimes, however, spas will be equipped with wet tables, and if this is the case, the therapist will rinse off customers while they’re still lying down. Either a hand shower or a Vichy shower can be used with a wet table, a Vichy shower being the more luxurious of the two because it consists of six streams of waters flowing onto the body at one time.

Nudity and body treatments

All body treatments require nudity, although your body will be draped with towels at all times and you will likely be given disposable underwear to put on. Also, body treatments are performed in private rooms, so only the therapist will see you partially nude; the therapist leaves the room when you’re changing and showering. However, these treatments probably aren’t right for you if you’re at all apprehensive about being naked at the spa. It’s much better to choose another treatment than to feel uncomfortable for the duration of a scrub or wrap.