BANNISTERS DAY SPA
It’s perhaps fitting that a spa sharing cliff-top space with Rick Stein’s eponymous South Coast restaurant uses skin therapies that sound like tasty treats. We’re talking cleansers that contain blueberries and lemongrass, hydration masks with redcurrants and raspberries and moisturisers that deploy sour cherries or persimmon and cantaloupe; there’s even a treatment that involves paprika and cinnamon. Do not be alarmed: the scents are divine and the results impressive. The spa at Bannisters by the Sea – the hotel itself is a
whitewashed monument to Zen – has four treatment rooms, plus a semi-alfresco cabana for couples’ massages (this place is popular with the babymoon crowd), a hammam steam room and rain shower. You won’t find lasers, light-therapy gadgets or machines that blow steam in your face. What you will find is a team of therapists as sweet and gentle as the Éminence Organic Skin Care products they use and, depending where you lie, nature’s soundtrack of crashing waves. Is it relaxing? Let’s get real. Is it possible to be stressed in a place called Mollymook?