Sydney spas

Pamper yourself happy with Time Out’s guide to the best

Venustus Beauty Lab

Venustus, which means ‘to love and care for’, is not a beauty salon in the common sense. It’s more like therapy for the body and soul. Before our massage, owner Jeannie Bourke is burning white sage and wafting the smoke around the room. We’re seated, shoes off, with our feet placed on a large white crystal, and Bourke is asking gentle but probing questions about how we’re feeling about life at the moment. Bourke has built her spa as a sanctuary that draws on healing and calming practices from all over the world. There’s influences from Hawaii, India and Japan, but our modernday shamanic healer also calls on images of the waves rolling in from the ocean as you stand with your feet in the sand. The $245 body massage is one of the most popular treatments with Venustus clients. Eyes closed, we hear the transcendent sounds of singing bowls moving around us. Our feet are massaged with oils before being wrapped in a heated, weighted slipper. Hot rocks are carefully placed on our lower back, and later on our chest. We’re feeling comforted, warm. We’re also given an intuitive personalised facial. Hot towels are wrapped around our jawline, before cooling jade rollers are used to massage in a house-made serum, ‘Om’, which is organic, plant based and created without animal testing. Bourke’s team draws

on remedial, shiatsu, reflexology, reiki and trigger-point massage, among other rituals and health

practices. EJ à Venustus, 381 Oxford St, Paddington 2021. 02 9361 4014. venustus. com.au. Daily 9am-6.30pm. From $245.

Gillian Adams Salon and Spa

This spa is everything you’d expect from a pamper palace that’s been around for 25 years. Every word is spoken gently and with expert knowledge, there are floral fragrances floating through the air, opulent furnishings throughout the vast relaxation areas and dimly lit treatment rooms, plus a surprisingly expansive garden. Start your luxe relaxation journey with a dip in the aquamedic pool. This steamy, marble-clad room gets curtained off so you can float past intense water massage jets in privacy. The huge domed ceiling and butt busts give it a very GrecoRoman feeling, and the apparent benefits of the oxygenated water (doesn’t all water have oxygen?), like improvements in circulation, flexibility and muscle tone, will leave you feeling higher than Aphrodite. A splash on its own costs $80 for one hour, with access to the steam room. The final step in your ascent to ultimate relaxation is a ‘mood lifting’ treatment ($185). This starts with a foot soak and scrub – your job is to inhale frankincense like the royal baby you are – followed by an aromatherapy massage. This is the almost-doze-off kind of rub down,

rather than a deep-tissue muscular

alteration. OGà 1356 Pacific Highway, Turramurra 2074. 02 9488 9944. gillianadams.com. Tue, Wed 9am-5.30pm; Thu 9am-9pm; Fri 9am-5.30pm; Sat 8.30am-5pm. From $80.

Nature’s Energy Balmain Bath House

Balmain Bath House has to be the best bang for buck when it comes to sweating it out and scrubbing up. Hidden behind the Nature’s Energy store on Darling Street, the Bath House is larger than you would expect and the facilities – though more basic than some of the five-star hotel spas – are clean, in good working order and wonderfully fragrant. The staff are welcoming, knowledgeable and kind, and there are all the perks of a pricier spa: fluffy robes, secure lockers, hair dryers, slippers and herbal tea on tap. Plus, they offer the specialised soaking-focused experience. Using the bathing facilities alone costs $31 per person for 30 minutes, but with access to a hot spa, cold pool, (intense) steam room, sauna and showers, it’s well worth a simmer. It’s one of three Nature’s Energy centres in Sydney, and the Balmain locale also offers the same specialised massages (gemstone healing, reiki and acupuncture), spa facials, waxing and spray tanning as the other venues. EJ à 312 Darling St, Balmain 2041. 02 9555 5533. naturesenergy.com. au. Mon-Fri 10am-7pm; Sat 9am-7pm; Sun 10am-7pm. From $31.

Sol Spa

You’ve got some hardcore relaxation ahead of you at Sol Spa, so throw on a fluffy robe and hydrate with pear water or herbal tea in the very plush waiting room, then get to chilling. Before you sink into the heated massage table, you’ll need to strip down bravely to the disposable G-string (woohoo!) and get started with a dry body brush. Think of brushing a super-elegant horse, but you’re the horse. It does the job of removing dead skin cells and stimulating your lymphatic system before the coconut body scrub comes in for the exfoliation and hydration hard yards. There’s an essence of ouch in this intense scrub, but it leaves you with that good tingly feeling. A full body massage is the next highly anticipated adventure. It’s quite literally head to toe, with brief hand, foot and scalp massages. They go easy on the pressure so don’t be afraid to ask the therapist to ramp it up a few notches. This treatment combo leaves you as relaxed and rejuvenated as a lazy summer holiday without the sunburn. OGà 2 Laguna St, Vaucluse 2030. 02 8999 6518. thebotanicavaucluse. com.au/sol-spa. Tue-Sat 10am-6pm. From $80.

The Darling Spa

There is no bustle, and certainly no hustle at the Darling Spa. This is a plush, hushed environment designed to get you feeling relaxed before you’ve even checked in at reception. There are nice touches for people who struggle to communicate their wants in person: a check-in form asks for your massage pressure preferences and degree of small talk you’d like. They also offer treatments like facials, scrubs, manicures, mud wraps, exfoliation and baths that use native Australian ingredients. You’ll be guided through the low-lit, mazelike halls scented with lemongrass to a change room to slip into slides, disposable underwear (you don’t want massage oil on your own) and a plush robe. They keep the temperatures in the treatment rooms warm but not so high that you immediately fall asleep, and they check in regularly to make adjustments if needed – client communication is clearly a watchword here. You could get a sports-level massage if you wanted, but this is less a place for working out tired muscles and more somewhere to tune out from the world at large. Don’t rush your visit. After your treatment there is a tea room where you can rehydrate, have a piece of fruit and come slowly back to earth before you have to leave the sanctum and return to Pyrmont’s workaday pulse. ELT ■ à Lvl 2, The Darling, 80 Pyrmont St, Pyrmont 2009. 02 9657 8088. www.star.com.au/sydney/hotels-and-spa/ the-darling/spa. Daily 9am-8pm. From $110.