Laboring to Find a Good Day Spa

For non-US readers, today is just an ordinary Friday. But here the weekend has already begun—a long holiday weekend in honor of Labor Day. Many either have a short work day or none at all. (Freelancers must ride the wave of our editors’ vacay plans. We have become maddeningly accustomed to our schedules either grinding to a halt days before the holiday and stretching days beyond it, or being pushed double time for copy delivery, like, yesterday.)

Before leaving for work today my partner, who will only be working until noon, announced that he would love for both of us to a massage. Surprise. Surprise. I’m always game and I love it when he is. My job was to find a place that was a) good, b) had two openings at the same time on such short notice, and c) fit our plans, which included lunch, which further included a place that had good French fries (but that was for my partner to find) and some shopping.

I love this kind of challenge.

I called Spa Nordstrom first. Does it sound strange to say that my favorite local spa is a chain? For me, Spa Nordstrom has consistently offered the best services at a decent price. And I love the ambience: just the right balance of mind-traveling serenity with the right touch exoticism. Alas, they had no openings today. (Had they, I would have gone for the abhyanga massage. It’s an Ayurvedic treatment and thoroughly blissful.)

This, I thought, is the perfect opportunity to try out a new spa that I'd heard about. The day spa, called Silken Tent, is surprisingly located in a rather bland suburb, a negative for sure. But the offerings are expansive (ambitious?) beyond bodywork and treatments, and include yoga to wellness counseling, a cafe to retreats. I figured since they’ve only been open for a week they’ll likely be able to accommodate us. But when I checked out their menu online I gasped at the prices. The services were all a good 20% higher than the going rate of most local spas I have been to with excellent reputations. For an unknown quantity, this really bothered me. I feel the client is being asked to cover their overhead without their having proven they’re worth it.

I also felt they may be a little off the mark. Didn’t we just hear that due to an industry glut day spa revenues are going down, not up?

If we can make the times work (4:30pm), we’re going to opt for Kaya Day Spa. Kaya, which is much more centrally located and has a first-rate reputation for quality services, has better prices and, I’m thinking, their finger more firmly on the pulse of the industry. They are offering 15% off coupons for first-time clients and generous (up to 30%) coupons for many other treatments.

Have a great holiday.

A Case for Virginity

While doing research on a spa in the Philippines called Farm at San Benito, I noticed that they promote coconut oil’s health benefits—or rather Virgin Coconut Oil, because like olive oil apparently they’re not all created equal. This is scandalous by some standards. Didn’t we swear off fats, trans or otherwise, ages ago? Because some brands are recommended over others, at first I thought that, like Xango and Goji juice, it was another one of those multilevel marketing scams. I don't think it is.

Yet I still don’t know how I feel about the fact that it’s being touted to prevent heart disease, as the only fat that diabetics can safely consume, great for weight loss and loads of other miraculous-sounding claims, but apparently there are some altmed studies indicating that it’s very high in antioxidants. And if nothing else, they say it’s a good cooking oil because unlike vegetable oils, including olive, it’s resistant to oxidative rancidity. (Though I can’t help but think its powerful flavor has got to be a drawback those times you just don't fancy coconut flavor, and it wouldn’t work for non-Asian cuisines.) It’s also said to be good for the skin and hair, which sounds right.

For people like us, who truly ascribe to natural lifestyles and are considerate of what we put into our bodies, claims made for products like virgin coconut oil creates a mini crisis of belief. Just when we thought we had sufficiently beaten back the medical establishment’s fearmongering of anything not FDA and AMA approved, and after seeing—and experiencing for ourselves—how ancient cultures’ diets and natural healing traditions really do work, out comes a claim that sounds foreign to us and we’re all dubious again.

So I emailed my friend and steady source of medical advice, Dr. Stephen Devries. He’s a highly respected “integrative” cardiologist who’s breaking new ground by frequently prescribing alternative therapies, supplements and lifestyle changes instead of the usual regimen of drugs commonly prescribed but with deleterious side effects. I asked him what he thought about virgin coconut oil. He said he’s read the claims and can neither refute nor support them, which means either his Western creds are peaking though or he speaks like a true diplomat. But he didn’t blow it off either. So I’m not supporting virgin coconut oil here, necessarily. I found some websites of interest but nothing that I considered unbiased. This one, though still one-sided, lists several books and links to articles on the subject so you can make up your own mind.