Body treatments are essentially a facial for your whole body. It 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 sugar scrub 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. 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.

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.

Originally a body wrap was a treatment where Ace bandages or plastic wrap was tightly wrapped around the body to cause quick weight loss through vasodilation. Now a body wrap is more likely to be treatment where you’re slathered with a body mask made of algae, seaweed, mud, clay, lotion or cream, depending on the treatment, then wrapped for 20 minutes to keep you warm. Later the product is rinsed off. The body wrap usually ends with application of lotion. This treatment is sometimes called a body cocoon or body mask.

Body wraps that use algae, seaweed, mud or clay are detox treatments that help rid the body of toxins through metabolic stimulation. Body wraps using rich lotions are hydrating treatments geared towards softening the skin.

What Happens During A Body Wrap?

Often a body wrap begins with exfoliation through dry brushing or a salt scrub. You down on whatever you will eventually be wrapped in – often plastic or mylar, but sometimes towels or sheets. I think it’s best when a massage therapist does the body wrap, because they naturally incorporate massage techniques as they apply the product.  Once the product is on, you’re wrapped to stay warm, usually for 20 minutes. Oftentimes the therapist leaves the room, but sometimes they stay and give you a scalp massage. When the time is up, you’re unwrapped and the body mask has to come off. Using hot steam towels feels absolutely fabulous. Then you dry off, and there’s usually an application of lotion to moisturize your skin.

Things To Watch Out For With a Body Wrap

1. ✴Don’t expect a body wrap to be a massage. You can get both treatments – body wrap and massage -- or look for
   signature treatments that include scrub, body wrap and massage.
   

2. ✴If you have claustrophobia, this may not be the right treatment for you.
   

3. ✴You might be left alone during the treatment. If that bothers you, ask before you book the service.
   

Exfoliation is the removal of the oldest dead skin cells that cling to the skin's outermost surface. Exfoliation is an important part of both facials and body treatments. When done correctly, exfoliation leaves the skin feeling smoother and fresher looking. Exfoliation also makes penetration easier for expensive facial products like serums.

There are two forms of exfoliation:

1) Mechanical Exfoliation. The dead skin cells are physically rubbed off with an abrasive. Examples of mechanical exfoliation include a salt glow, a body scrub that might use sugar or coffee grounds, or skin brushing. On the face, mechancial exfoliation ranges from scrubs should use small, round, gentle abrasives like jojoba beads to more aggressive procedures like

2) Chemical Exfoliation. Enzymes, alphahydroxy acids (AHAs) or betahydroxy acids (BHAS) loosen the glue-like substance that holds the cells together, allowing them to slough away. Facial peels are a form of chemical exfoliation. They can either be very gentle or very aggressive, depending on how the strong the product is. Body treatments might use mild chemical exfolations like pineapple enzymes.

Why Is Exfoliation Important?

The skin is constantly generating new skin cells at the lower layer (the dermis) and sending them to the surface (the epidermis). As the cells rise to the surface they gradually die and become filled with keratin. These keratinized skin cells are essential because they give our skin its protective quality. But they are constantly sloughing off to make way for younger cells.

As we age the process of cell turnover slows down. Cells start to pile up unevenly on the skin's surface, giving it a dry, rough, dull appearance. Exfoliation is beneficial because it removes those cells that are clinging on, revealing the fresher, younger skin cells below. It is possible, however, to over exfoliate, especially on the delicate skin of the face. Over exfoliating will dry and irritate the skin.

What You Should Know About Facial Exfoliation:

Be extra careful with the delicate skin of your face.

Be careful not to overdo microdermabrasion. It can make thin, aging skin even thinner if you get too many treatments too quickly.

Never use body scrubs on the face. They're too rough.

Be very careful with peels. Don't get one peel and then go somewhere else to ask for another. You can remove too much of your protective layer and end up exposing the living dermis.

Never wax if you've had a peel recently. It might also expose raw, living skin, which will have to scab over to heal.

What You Should Know About Body Exfoliation:

You can use a body scrub once or twice a week with no problem.

Body brushing every morning is a gentle way to exfoliate -- and wake up.

Chocolate Wraps

Most of us, at some time or another, have craved chocolate. It's a treat, and a treat that's brought out to celebrate all kinds of special occasions - including Christmas, Easter and Birthdays. It says "Thank you!" and "I love you!", and "I deserve it!"
Eating chocolate is a luxurious, indulgent pleasure. However much chocolate comforts us and pleases us, we know we should eat it in moderation. But, nowadays, we're not restricted to simply eating chocolate. We can smooth, slather and slap it all over our bodies, too!

Isn't chocolate bad for you?

No. Chocolate is a great source of energy and vitamins. As a food, the purer the chocolate product, the better it is for you. Go for chocolate that has a high percentage of cocoa solids - 70 per cent plus - and you'll be ingesting a powerful anti-oxidant.

What's an anti-oxidant?

Yes, we wondered about that, too. An anti-oxidant is something that "mops up harmful free radicals". We were none the wiser. Should we worry about that?Maybe. The reason free radicals are so heinous is that if you don't have enough anti-oxidants, these free radicals can damage your blood vessels and your heart, and are even associated with cancer. What's more, harmful free radicals can end up breaking down the elastin fibres in your skin. And what does that mean? Wrinkles, bags and sags.
Quick! Bring me some anti-oxidants! Bring me chocolate!

What's so good about chocolate?

Chocolate has many benefits. For instance, did you know...?
Chocolate has twice as many anti-oxidants as green tea! In fact, dark chocolate has more "flavonoids" than any other anti-oxidant rich food, including red wine and blue berries!
Chocolate contains essential nutrients including iron, calcium, potassium and magnesium.

Chocolate contains Vitamins A, B1, C, D & E.

Dark chocolate is effective in the treatment of mild hypertension.

Chocolate is a fast-acting energy-providing food that helps your body to release serotonin and endorphins - your "feel happy" chemicals!

What will chocolate do for my skin?

Eating chocolate is one way of benefiting from its many virtues. But there are other ways to make the most of it. Chocolate has many
properties that make it very good for your skin. Such as...?
Cocoa butter is rich in fatty acids. This means that any cocoa-butter facial or body treatment can have great softening effects on your skin.
It's been a feature ingredient in body lotion for years.
Cocoa contains glycerides which deliver moisturising lipids and fats which plump and firm your skin.

Smell is apparently our most powerful evocative sense, stimulating memory and emotions. The good news is that just the smell of
chocolate stimulates your body's "feel happy" chemicals. It's also thought to increase your sense of well-being, as we tend to
associate chocolate with indulgence and pleasure. We're used to thinking of chocolate as a treat you have a little of, so
imagine the luxury and sense of indulgence and pleasure when you got to a spa and get smothered in it from head to foot.

Chocolate treatments are fun! And that's always a good thing.

Do they use real chocolate in a chocolate treatment?

Yes! It might not be the highest grade chocolate - although we're confident you can pay for that somewhere in the world.
But most treatments use edible ingredients.

But how will I stand the temptation?!

You don't have to resist. Many chocolate treatments feature a few chocolates or hot chocolate for you to
consume as you like during or after your treatment, so you don't have to suffer anything at all!