AWAY SPA, W LONDON, UK

By Sigourney Cantelo In a white-on-white space on an upper level of the W Hotel in London’s Leicester Square lies the AWAY spa. It does feel very much ‘away’, eons in fact, from the din below of Soho and Chinatown.

While the W hotel lobby greets with dim-lighting and disco balls, inside the spa it’s all sleek modern lines, playing chill-out tunes with cushy beds. There are clever treatment packages designed with the urban nomad in mind, like

The Entrepreneur which features an express mani or pedi and blowdry at the same time or you can detox and retox with The Party Girl: a massage, facial, express mani or pedi and blowdry or tan topped off with a glass of bubbly.

We’re here today to experience something a little more low key – the Colour Therapy Massage using organic Altearah Bio Perfume

‘emotive’ cosmetics.

After being given my locker and doing a drive-by of the unisex sauna and steam room (bring your swimmers – it’s open to hotel guests and gymgoers, too), my therapist, Sabrina, ushers me into my treatment room. It’s glowing with a ring of neon light above the treatment bed – designed to chill out one’s chakras, no doubt. After a warm lemongrass towel to freshen up you choose which hue you’re drawn to out of four coloured cards inscribed with inspirational words. I choose purple for energy (long day ahead) and stretch out on the treatment bed.

The massage is slow and hypnotic, in time with the music. Sabrina checks the pressure and temperature regularly before leaving me to happily dissolve under her expert strokes. It’s over – as massages always are – too quickly, but proves to be the perfect antidote to London’s frenetic pace.

w-hotels.marriott.com