Body Wraps

Everything You Need To Know About Body Wraps

Body wraps were originally a treatment where Ace bandages or plastic wrap was tightly wrapped around the body to cause quick weight loss through vasodilation. You can still find these types of "slimming" body wraps, which result in the temporary loss of weight and inches, at some spas.

But today a body wrap in a spa is more likely to be treatment where you’re slathered with a body mask made of algae, seaweed, mud, clay, lotion or cream, then wrapped for 20 minutes to keep you warm. Later the product is rinsed off. The body wrap usually ends with an application of lotion (technically not a massage). This body wrap treatment is sometimes called a body cocoon or body mask.

Spa Review: Michael's at the Cove

Body Treatments Offered at Michael's at the Cove

Lights are Lowered During Manicures & Pedicures

A variety of body treatments and body wraps are available at Michael's:

• Cell U Lite Body Treatment Wrap--breaks down cellulite, stretch marks and body acne to firm, tone and hydrate the body. (60 minutes, 120 minutes or series of 5-60 minute treatments).
• Salt Glow Treatment--luxurious, exotic nutrient oils combined with sea salts (two kinds: one for sensitive skin and another for all other skin types) exfoliate the skin, leaving it soft and supple. Followed up with a warm soothing massage butter. (45 minutes)
• European Rose Clay Mud Treatment--Rose clay mud along with other minerals accelerate skin renewal, heals and protects, ensures renewed hydration and stimulates skin. Perfectly suited for dry, delicate, weathered or aged skin. Mud treatment begins with salt glow treatment and ends with light massage. (60 to 75 minutes)
• Black Baltic Mud Treatment--Enhances cell turnover, while deeply hydrating the skin, promotes cell oxygenation and assists in removing debris and impurities. This treatment is ideal for both dry and oily skin as it imparts freshness, firmness and uniformity to skin.
• Acti-Sea Body Mud Treatment--Submerges the body in pure marine actives to stimulate, firm and moisturize. Uses various vitamins to stimulate the thyroid, promote decongestion and waste elimination for better skin smoothness, rebalance and proper hydration. Prevents further skin damage by fighting free radicals. [/lu]

  Prices for Body Treatments range from $50 to $120.

What Is A Body Treatment?

Body treatments are essentially a facial for your whole body and leave your skin feeling velvety smooth and soft. The idea behind a body treatment is that is just as important to cleanse, exfoliate, and hydrate the skin on your body as it is the skin of your face.

The most popular body treatment is a body scrub, sometimes called a body polish, salt glow or sea-salt scrub. This is an exfoliating treatment that takes place on a massage table covered with a sheet and a large, thin piece of plastic.

As you lay on your stomach, the massage therapist rubs a mixture of sea salt, oil, and aromatics like lemon into your skin. This exfoliates the skin and leaves it feeling velvety soft.

Once your whole body is scrubbed, which takes maybe ten or fifteen minutes, you shower it all off without soap, leaving a nice coating of oil. It's an invigorating treatment, and it's a good idea to get your scrub before your massage if you're having both.

Variations can come from the essential oils or scrub materials: you might get an orange blossom/peppermint salt glow or a cucumber salt glow, or a body scrub done with coffee grounds, finely ground pecan shells or Napa Valley grape seeds. Sometimes a hydrating lotion is applied afterwards.

A body mask and body wrap often takes place after a scrub. After you rinse off the salt you return to the treatment table. If you're slathered with mud, algae, or seaweed and wrapped in a thermal blanket, it's a "detoxifying" treatment that stimulates your metabolic system, speeding its ability to carry away waste products. If the product is cream or lotion, it's a "hydrating" treatment.

A body wrap can also be a wrapping treatment used to treat cellulite. It sometimes has a diuretic effect that aids in temporary weight reduction.

More On Body Treatments

What Is A Salt Scrub?

Salt Scrubs Leave Your Skin Soft and Smooth

At a spa, the salt scrub is followed by a shower and an application of body cream, or lotion, leaving your skin feeling very soft and fragrant. Alert! Many states allow people without a massage license to give salt scrubs and other body treatments. This means you might get someone still in school, or an esthetician who is more skilled at facials. I recommend you ask if you're getting a licensed massage therapist when you book a salt scrub.

What Happens During a Salt Scrub?

A salt scrub usually takes place in a wet room, equipped with a shower. The scrub is generally a blend of sea salt, sweet almond oil and some aromatic essential oil like lemon, lavender, or mint.

As the client you are either laying on a massage table covered with a towel or sheet or a thin piece of plastic, or you are lying on a wet table that has a shower attached to it. You are offered a pair of disposable underwear, and men are usually required to wear them. You are draped with a towel, and only the part the therapist is working on is exposed.

As you lay on your stomach, the therapist rubs the salt scrub gently over your skin. The abrasiveness of the salt removes the dead skin cells. Then you turn over and the therapist exfoliates the other side. If they rub too hard, be sure to let them know.

When the therapist is finished, you may be asked to step into a shower to rinse off all the salt. Don’t use soap or shower gel because you want to keep the oil and aromatics on your skin. If the spa is doing the treatment on a special wet table, the therapist will either rinse you off with a hand-held shower, or turn on a Vichy shower, a special six-headed shower that is parallel to the table.

After you dry off, the therapist applies a lotion. Don't expect a full-massage unless it's part of a longer signature treatment, often called a "ritual" or "journey" (usually involving a scrub, wrap and massage.)

You can get a salt scrub on its own, but often it’s the first step in a body wrap , often a seaweed or mud wrap. That’s because exfoliation prepares the skin for products like seaweed or algae that detoxify the body by stimulating circulation through vasodilation of blood capillaries.

You can also combine a salt scrub with a massage. Get the salt scrub first because it is stimulating, whereas the massage calms you down.

Salt is fairly abrasive, and some therapists have a heavier hand than others. Individuals also differ in their skin sensitivity. If the salt scrub feels too harsh, speak up.

100 Percent Pure: Organic Pomegranate Body Scrub

The Bottom Line

This is a nice, natural oil-based sugar scrub that leaves your skin feeling soft and moisturized, but your tub a bit pink and slippery.

Pros

• Organic, natural ingredients
• 100% Vegetarian
• Packaged in a recycled container
• No animal testing

Cons

• Sugar gets packed in the bottom. You need to stir before every use.
• Leaves a pink tinge on white tub.

Description

• Pomegranate sugar scrub made with evaporated cane juice sugar.
• 100% Natural ingredients - You can read and understand the entire ingredient list.
• Retails for $22 (13 ounces)

Guide Review - 100 Percent Pure: Organic Pomegranate Body Scrub

100% Pure: Organic Pomegranate Body Scrub is a bi-weekly oily-based exfoliator that you use in your bath or shower. When I first looked at it, I loved its simple packaging and simple ingredient list. It is a decent size 13 ounce container which is 100% recycled plastic. The beautiful berry-colored scrub gets full attention.

If you aren't familiar with oil scrubs, most of them are sugar or salt swimming in a mixture of oils. The crystals sink to the bottom leaving a pool of oil at the top. You can use a spoon (or just your finger) to stir it around and scoop some right out. What I notice about 100% Pure Organic Pomegranate Body Scrub is that the sugar gets packed down at the bottom, making it hard to scoop it out.

The scrub itself smells super sweet, and it is from the lovely fruit filled ingredient list; there are no artificial fragrances in any of 100% Pure products. When you use the scrub on your body, you notice the pink color can stick around on the floor of your tub. And with all oil-based scrubs, you'll need to be careful not to slip after use. It's easy enough to wipe down the floor of your tub after you're finished to avoid the pink slippery situation.

You'll instantly notice how hydrated your skin is when you dry off. A plus of using an oil-based scrub, you can skip the moisturizer after you use this.

The fact that this product, along with all of 100% Pure products are, as their name suggests, 100% pure and natural, you will not find any of the controversial skin care ingredients on the label. Because of the lack of heavy-duty preservatives, the shelf life of this product is 6 months.

Fresh: Sugar Acai Body Scrub

Sugar Acai Body Scrub is a body scrub by the well-known skin care line: Fresh. It contains 6.8 fl oz of product, and at the time of this review, costs $48.

Fresh: Sugar Acai Body Scrub - Description

How to Use It:

While Fresh doesn't give specific guidelines on how often you should us Sugar Acai Body Scrub, typically we recommend exfoliating three times a week. Rub on your body in circular motions, concentrating on the dry areas of your body. Not recommended for your face.

Active Ingredients:

Fresh's Sugar Acai Body Scrub uses two processes of exfoliation: scrubby sugar to manually exfoliate plus bilberry, orange, and lemon extracts to sweep dead skin away.

It also contains Acai Oil, which is an antioxidant and other oils and butters to moisturize.

Our Description:

Fresh: Sugar Acai Body Scrub is a light brown colored, medium thick cream. Little pieces of sugar and Acai pulp are visible immediately. The scent is super fresh and light - soft, almost. Not too strong; completely enjoyable.

Fresh: Sugar Acai Body Scrub - Our Review

What we Loved:

The scent is amazing. True to Fresh's name, the scent of this product is fresh. It's fruity and sweet. Certainly no one could find anything bad to say about the scent.

We also loved that the product was in a tube. Often, body scrubs are in tubs, and no only it is a pain to get the scrub out of the tub, it's not very sanitary either.

The scrub was easy to squeeze out and snap shut.

We loved that this product spread around our skin with such ease, and left our skin with a hint of moisture after using it.

What We Didn't Love:

We were rather let down on Sugar Acai Body Scrub's ability to exfoliate. While it appears at first glance that there are loads of little scrubby particles in this scrub, once you rub it onto your skin, you realize there really isn't enough to give you a though exfoliation.

Yes, there are fruit extracts which also exfoliate, just like in Kate Somerville's ExfoliKate, (read review), these ingredients must be left on for some time to get the full benefits. (Something that Fresh doesn't specifically state.)

And, just like we stated in Kate Somerville's review, it's just too hard to keep a product on your skin in the shower for 2 minutes without it getting washed off.

We weren't alone in our thinking, either. While there weren't tons of reviews, several reviews on Sephora's site stated that there weren't enough granules to exfoliate enough. We agree.

Fresh: Sugar Acai Body Scrub - Final Thoughts

There are good things here, good ingredients, great smells, and a slightly moisturized feeling at the end, but the reality is, it's a body exfoliator. In our opinion, you could do better with your $50.

And if you're dying to try a Fresh body scrub, we'd stick with their Brown Sugar Body Scrub, which gets very high reviews.

Awaken Bath Salts & Oil by Erbaviva

Awaken Bath Salts & Oil - make up a scrub to chase away winter and welcome in Spring '04.

Spring calls for an awakening of the senses - clearing out the old and welcoming in the new. What can be better for the body at this time of renewal than a wonderful cleansing scrub made from Erbaviva's Rosemary, Peppermint and Ginger infused Awaken Salts and Oil. Mix them up in a small bowl and use all over for an invigorating passage into the new year!

Awaken Bath Salts A revitalizing combination of sea salt, epsom salt, safflower oil and vitamin E, along with our blend of organic and wild crafted essential oils of rosemary, peppermint and ginger. Add to the tub for a stimulating bath, or use in combination with our Awaken Bath Oil for a freshly made scrub.

Awaken Bath Oil A reviving and therapeutic blend of organic carrier oils along with Erbaviva's very own recipie of organic and wild crafted essential oils of rosemary, peppermint and ginger. Use as either a massage or body oil, or use in combination with our Awaken Bath Salts for a freshly made scrub.

Either product can be used separately or in combination for a freshly made scrub. A wonderful and romantic gift.

Erbaviva is a bath and body care company dedicated to the principals of organic and natural ingredients. The company is located in Topanga, CA, just north of Los Angeles. Robin Brown together with wife Anna Cirronis started the company in 1996 as a way to create safe and healthful products for their children. Since it’s inception, Erbaviva has blossomed out, adding bath and body care and room sprays to their line. The company has a very strong celebrity following including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Faith Hill, Laura Dern, Alex Kingston, Madonna, Jane Leeves, Bette Midler, Laura Dern, Sharon Stone, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Julianne Moore.

Dry Skin Tip: Stay Hydrated But Don't Go Overboard

Dry Skin Tip: Stay Hydrated But Don't Go Overboard

Many people believe if they drink more water, they'll hydrate skin. But I've read time and time again that this is a myth and you simply cannot moisturize skin from the inside out.

That said, a small study recently published by the University of Hamburg (and reported in Allure magazine), suggests people who drink relatively little water could see a significant benefit in skin hydration if they started drinking nine eight-ounce glasses of water per day. What does this mean? Probably that dehydration does affect skin, but a normally hydrated person isn't going to see major benefits by drinking even more water.

My advice: don't expect bottled water to save you from dry skin and the winter itch.