The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
ROSIE GREEN SPA STRUCK
Personal access to A-list trainers, nutritionists and facialists is all part of the service at Lime Wood's Herb House spa in the New Forest
How does a spa owner make a spa stand out? Fancy creams with diamond dust? Nextlevel paper pants? A multitasking treatment that simultaneously decongests your skin, steam-cleans your nether regions and nourishes your base chakra? Well, I’m sorry, but so far so ubiquitous.
The answer, according to the hippest hotels and spas, is to recruit celebrated beauty and well-being experts for events, retreats and collaborations.
This allows guests to benefit from the insiders’ advice and attention (as well as experience a sprinkling of their stardust), all without having to schlep across/into town to their salon, studio or clinic.
Lime Wood in the New Forest is savvy to this. Tammy Kenyon, the director of its Herb House spa, recruits Matt Roberts – the book-writing, A-list-beloved personal training guru – for regular weekend boot camps.
Robin Hutson, the hotel owner, has persuaded the founders of Kamalaya (a luxury spiritual and wellness sanctuary in Koh Samui, Thailand, where celebs go to find themselves and shed 6lb) to visit for bi-annual retreats. (Their last two sold out fast – bookings open in autumn 2018 for the 2019 programme). And Amelia Freer, the celebrity nutritionist, often drops in to deliver a day’s course.
Lime Wood’s latest collaboration is with Sarah Chapman, facialist par excellence. Her London clinic has a famously long waiting list, thanks to super-high standards, visible results and A-list clients (Victoria Beckham, for sure, Meghan Markle, rumoured). Now you can access her famous facials at Lime Wood, in a beautiful rural setting, where your journey home involves lavender paths, as opposed to taking the Northern Line. I decide to revisit Lime Wood to try one of her treatments and see if the spa still qualifies as my favourite in Britain. I know, so self-sacrificing.
I decide to take my ravenous 12-year-old son with me. He informs me he is less interested in reviewing brightening, tightening facials and more interested in assessing the quality of the breakfast. (Taking his job seriously, he consumed three pains au chocolate, one Nutella pancake and one big breakfast all in one sitting, chasing it down with a bowl of Frosties).
Back to Sarah. Her products work in the Herb House setting because (a) they are lovely to use (essential oil-infused and with glorious textures) and
(b) they actually deliver (think lactic peels that smooth, and hyaluronic masks that plump). She offers three types of facial here, all of which involve skin-boosting LED light.
I opted for the Luxury Bespoke Facial (£145). You don’t get Sarah herself, but Jo, my therapist, was trained to her exacting standards.
Jo ensured my treatment really was bespoke (I opted to leave out steaming, extraction and some of a mask due to my skin’s sensitivity). The specially allocated room was incredibly light and serene, with two beds and access outside to a decked area with a bath.
The floor-to-ceiling windows, beautiful though they were, did come with a downside.
Just as I was stripping, a group of men walked down the path alongside the spa. As we engaged in full eyeball contact, I’m not sure who was more horrified, them or me.
That aside, it was a joyful experience. After just 24 hours I left with plumped-up skin, spirits revived and… er, what is that in my handbag?
On closer inspection it appears to be a muffin swiped from the breakfast bar. #apologiestothemanagement.
Stays at Lime Wood from £385 per room per night.
Sarah Chapman facials start at £125 (limewoodhotel.co.uk)
‘An incredibly serene room had access outside to a decked area with bath’