Spa Sweets

The Dieting Commandments clearly state: Thou shalt watch thy sugar intake, not slather everything in whipped cream, have the strawberries but skip the chocolate, and sip champagne only at your peril.

And when we’re on vacation, we say: BRING ON the whipped cream, the strawberries, the chocolate and coconut too! At midnight, it’s vodka and caviar. Fresh fruit is fine, but we’d like a glass—no make that a bottle—of champagne to wash it down!

Then we get back home, step on the scale, and cry.

Happily, luxury spas worldwide are coming up with food-based treatments that let you indulge without actually ingesting calories. Below, a guide to the most mouthwatering—and yes, it’ll make you hungry.

Strawberries & Champagne Facial
“Wrap yourself in a cloud,” encourages Babor, the German skincare line that creates the facial masque used in the Strawberries & Champagne facial at the Arizona Biltmore Spa. The masque’s active ingredient is yeast from high-end pinot noir champagne grapes. An excellent antioxidant for the skin, it regenerates cells and boosts natural defenses against the sun and air. The other ingredients make the masque rich and fluffy

Biltmore Spa staff swear that getting the “champagne facial” feels like having a big mound of whipped cream dumped on your face. Happily, though, you come out looking detoxed and beautified, not buttered up.

“We thought, why not pair it with strawberries?” says manager Wendy Brown, who came up with the Strawberries & Champagne Facial as a “Sweetheart Special” to run through February.

The strawberries in this special are actually meant to be eaten, but another Biltmore treatment, the Strawberry Chocolate Delight body treatment, features an actual strawberry preserve scrub.

Chocolatl
It seems like these days, people are almost more hyped about putting chocolate products on their bodies than about eating them. This has a lot to do with cocoa’s oft-hyped anti-aging properties, as well as its mythical aphrodesiac qualities and the simple fact that it smells good.

Tamarindo, a Mexico Boutique Hotels luxury property located on the Pacific Coast, says the Chocolatl facial and body treatments at their spa are far and away the most popular specialties on the menu. The staff are quick to recommend these treatments, claiming they’re as restorative to your emotional well-being as they are to your skin. The Chocolatl product itself is made on-site by Florentino, the Tamarindo’s resident temezcalero and shaman.

“People are amazed by it,” reports Luz, the facial specialist at Tamarindo. “Every time I start performing a Chocolatl treatment on a guest, they start laughing. I guess the experience is just out of the ordinary. People’s skin becomes completely black during the process, and few can resist the temptation to taste it.”

In fact, she says one guest came into the spa while his wife was getting a treatment, picked her up off the exfoliation table and carried her away, saying he wanted to eat her alive.

Power Breakfast Expresso Facial
Sometimes you want to jump-start the day without slamming a venti macchiato—particularly when you’re taking a spa retreat on a desert island. Knowing this, Liv Waron of the Palms in Turks andCaicos devised the Power Breakfast Expresso Facial, a quick but effective early-bird treatment.

The treatment is intended to heal skin from within and without, and the process is simple. First, you sit by the pool and have a breakfast of oats, honey and natural yogurt. Next, you go inside the spa and have a facial which uses pretty much the same ingredients. The whole thing takes 45 minutes—maybe an hour if you’re really lollygagging. Then you’re free to get on with your day. Appointments for this treatment are typically accepted between 8:30 and 11AM, though earlier bookings may be accommodated on a case-by-case basis.

One last note: It’s express, not espresso. You want a wakeup cup of the evil elixir, you’ve got to get it yourself.

Carrot and Sesame Body Buff
The W Hotel, hipster hotel brand extraordinaire, is partnered up with equally chic Bliss Spas in six major cities. Bliss has a few signature services—its body butter, its brownie bar, its oxygen-enhanced facials—but this one from Bliss London strikes us as the healthiest one yet.

Chock-full of vitamins and guaranteed to re-hydrate your system, the signature Carrot and Sesame Body Buff is the topical equivalent of a health shake. It starts off with a carrot mulch and hot oil rub. The carrot is another natural anti-oxidant, thanks to its high levels of Beta Carotene, which converts to vitamin A. The next step is a moisturizing milk and honey drizzle (a luxury spa staple since Biblical times). Then comes a hot wrap. Next is a sesame seed and Dead Sea salt scrub—a great exfoliant, balanced out by the moisturizing, Vitamin E-rich sesame seeds. The treatment ends with a Vichy shower.

Mango Sugar Warming Polish
Originally this treatment—the signature at the Emerald Mist Spa in St. Kitts Marriott -- was a mango sugar scrub. And it was delicious then. The staff improved upon it, adding the ginger component for its warming properties. The sugar exfoliates and softens the skin. The mango rehydrates. This is a Vichy treatment, which means it's done in a wet room and followed by a shower. By the time you’re done, you may feel as though you’ve actually turned into a giant tropical fruit: sweet-smelling, smooth-skinned, ready to fall off the vine …

The inspiration for this is easy enough to spot: the property is literally surrounded by mango trees. Mangos are known for their rehydrating properties. They’re the perfect antidote to the island sun, which is known to dry out the skin, particularly for visitors who aren’t used to it. The mango product used in this treatment is soap-free and vegan-based, derived from fruits and very eco-friendly.

Champagne and Caviar Massage
And finally, keep your eye out for this oh-so-decadent offering, created specially for soon-to-open Curtain Bluff in Antigua. It starts off with an essential oil rubdown. Then the therapist drenches your body in champagne, for no other reason than that it’ll make you feel like a rock star. A quick shower so you’re not sticky, and then a hand and foot massage with Youth Renew Caviar Hand and Foot Cream by Pevonia. (Don’t worry; it’s very high-quality, and you’ll come away smelling like lemongrass, not fish eggs.)

This treatment is only available once the Curtain Bluff spa opens on March 15, 2007. In the meantime, here’s to all your champagne wishes and caviar-foot-massage dreams.