Is it just me? Or are spas simply hideous? asks MARION McGILVARY

Is it just me? Or are spas simply hideous? asks MARION McGILVARY

  • Marion McGilvary would rather have a bath at home than visit a spa
  • Says only place she would want to be seen in a swimsuit is on a deserted beach 
  • UK-based writer can’t see joy of facilities resembling a high-end lunatic asylum

Yes, I know we’re ‘supposed’ to adore them — we burnt-out women who need some rest and relaxation — but I really can’t see the joy in being herded like cats into a facility resembling a high-end lunatic asylum and being stripped of your clothes with only a bath robe to protect your dignity. And not even one that fits.

A woman like me, with the proportions of a three-seater sofa, always ends up with the gap of shame revealing several cushions of flesh, which is the opposite of calming.

That’s the sort of thing I’d pay money not to endure. The only place I want to be seen in a swimsuit is on a deserted beach in a far-flung place, not flip-flopping through verucca central to lie by a pool with 26 other women, all judging me. I left that behind with school swimming lessons.

UK-based writer Marion McGilvary admits that she would rather have a bath at home than visit a spa (file image)

I mean what’s so great about a whirlpool tub that it’s deemed a treat? Would you willingly jump into any other bath with a bunch of strangers and simmer in the hot soup of their germs?

That’s before we even get to the treatments — a menu of spurious wraps offering to slather you with mud and swathe you in seaweed like a nori roll, or put scalding stones on your back and call it a massage.

I admit I hate most massages. It’s one thing to have the knots of tension kneaded out of your back and neck by someone who really knows what they are doing, but being rubbed ineffectually by Traci who’s done the six-week course certified by whichever cosmetic brand of snake oil the spa is peddling, while listening to tinkly music, is a hard pass from me.

I’d rather have a bath at home. The towels go round me twice and my body is a temple worshipped only by me.

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