The card is printed with beautiful, curly letters. It reads, “Please feel free to wear your bathrobe to the spa.” Standing in my hotel room and holding the card in my hand, I am faced with a dilemma.
I’ve booked in to have a massage and facial at one of the most sought-after spa treatment facilities in New South Wales. I’m at Lillianfels Hotel and Resort, in the heart of the Blue Mountains and only a stone’s throw away from the iconic Three Sisters. The spa at Lillianfels is one of the resort’s most enticing attractions, along with award winning restaurant Darleys.
A gold standard in beauty treatments, it’s a luxury that few would want to miss. And lucky for me, it’s my first ever spa treatment.
The problem though, is on the card. I understand that I should wear the complimentary hotel bathrobe to the spa, but what do I wear underneath? Should I play it safe and go fully clothed, with the bathrobe like a coat over the top? Should I opt for the casual poolside look, and wear swimmers under the robe? Or just my bra and knickers? Is the card suggesting that I wear nothing at all?
Struggling into the vastly oversized one-size-fits-all bathrobe, I quickly dismiss the starkers option. I’m having trouble keeping the robe tied around my waist, let alone worrying about it constantly slipping off my shoulders.
I step into my smalls and wrap the giant robe around me like a beach towel, and I’m off to the hotel spa.
I’m shown into a comfy oriental style sitting room, with a bowl of real fruit on the table and little Chinese cups of herbal tea. A birdsong CD is playing quietly from somewhere indistinguishable.
My smiling masseur and beautician, Jade, greets me warmly. She tells me to hang up my bathrobe and lie down on the cushioned bench. For a panicked moment I don’t know what to do with my hands.
“I’m just going to fold your knickers under, so they don’t get in the way,” Jade says pleasantly, and, “Now I’m going to unhook your bra so I can get to your back.”
It’s far less uncomfortable than I thought it would be, as Jade neatly tucks my undies into itself.
Today I’m getting a hot rock treatment, where heated smooth stones are used to massage my back and neck. The warmth from the stones is delectable, like first stepping into a hot shower or swallowing a steaming hot chocolate.
When I’m ready for my facial, Jade holds up a big towel as a screen and asks me to flip over. She wraps a warm, damp towel around my head and leaves a tiny hole for me to breathe. Next, her practiced fingers smooth a pot of ointment over my cheeks.
“That feels like it’s burning,” I mumble.
“It’s supposed to tingle,” Jade replies.
I get the customary cucumber slices placed over my eyelids, and for a while I’m left to marinate. The cucumber does feel cool and refreshing on my skin, and once I get used to the “tingling” the lotion feels quite nice too.
Jade removes it all by wrapping my head with warm towels a few more times, and then lets me get dressed again in privacy.
I’m too relaxed to even remember what I was worried about before. My back and shoulders feel warm and tender and my face feels like silk.
I stroll out of the spa with an enormous robe slipping off my shoulder, perfectly content.
www.lilianfels.com.au
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