In which the spas stop shining
Do you know what I hate at this time of year? Endless features about spas. None is ever critical, as the stays are always, always freebies. I am here to tell you that after a lifetime of going to spas all over the world – Bliss in New York, the Aveda spa in Jamaica, Dior in Paris, some place in caves in Puglia, the spa atop Harrods – I am no healthier or happier.
Don’t confuse spas with grooming. There are basic levels of self-care that are essential: non-crusty feet, professionally cleaned teeth, a non-hairy chin. I believe tinting your roots at home is a slippery slope towards eating dinner on a padded tray decorated with kittens and balls of wool.
No, I am talking about spas in hotels, designed mainly so you can escape your monosyllabic male partner. But tell me, honestly, have you ever spotted anyone, prone, alone, in the relaxation zone? No! It’s just row upon row of empty, chilly beds alongside jugs of water with lemon slices.
The idea that you should be grateful they provide a robe and slippers, both of which mean clients shuffle around as though inmates of an asylum. Rare is the therapist (fresh out of community college) who goes the extra mile. Why disappear while my face pack sinks in – why not massage my feet? While my roots are dyed, why not give me a hand massage rather than pop outside for a fag?
I had an awful experience in the spa of a five-star hotel late last year as part of my Christmas prep*. I usually eat while on the pedicure throne, but when a waitress was summoned, she told me they don’t serve food in the spa and never have. I’m not a fantasist. I didn’t imagine the skinny fries. She said she would go and ‘ask chef’, but she never returned. What happened? Maybe they are still debating whether to carry a tray 20 feet.
Five minutes before my hair colour, I was told they couldn’t dye my hair as I needed a new patch test. Not because there had been a six-month gap since my last visit (I go at least once a month, depending on A: work and B: the possibility of sex), but because they had ‘changed our product’.
I asked to see the spa manager/guest relations officer – a man!! – and he said, despite his badge, ‘I’m no longer having this conversation with you.’ Well, you are, because that’s your job and you are in the wrong!
When I asked why they no longer served food, he said,
‘I don’t look after the restaurant.’ When I pointed out how difficult it is to even book an appointment, as no one answers the phone, he said, ‘I’ve never tried to ring the hotel.’ Isn’t that the first thing you’d do – play client?
And when you do get through, you end up playing phone tennis: they ask when you would like to see the hairdresser, and you say, ‘Friday at 2pm, please’ and they say, ‘She doesn’t work Fridays’, so you say, ‘Thursday?’ and they say, ‘No, how about Tuesday at 3pm?’ And the death question: ‘Who normally does your colour?’ I don’t know. I don’t even know the names of my nephews and nieces!
The same hotel emailed me later to say I am no longer allowed to bring a dog with me into the spa. ‘But I always used to bring Gracie. I only brought Mini this time as she has just had a serious operation and can’t be left.’
‘We made an exception as you’re a VIP. That decision has now been overturned.’
I’ve been barred from the hotel spa nearest to where I live as I was forced to complain about the therapist, barely out of nappies, who tinted my lashes without using a barrier and who burned my bits with very hot wax and said she wasn’t ‘trained to wax nostrils’. I’m not asking her to crew Apollo 13.
The manager emailed me:
‘She found you very intimidating,’ he said, suggesting I might want to patronise elsewhere. *Superfluous, given I didn’t have sex. I think any activity would have killed him.
The manager told me, ‘I’m no longer having this conversation with you’