Spa Guide 2012
Country & Town House | 24 Aug 2012
If you’re looking to lose weight, get fit, reboot or just get away from it all, let our spa guide lead you to a life of wellbeing and serenity.
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“Caroline Phillips is a tenacious and skilful writer with a flair for high quality interviewing and a knack for making things work.”
If you’re looking to lose weight, get fit, reboot or just get away from it all, let our spa guide lead you to a life of wellbeing and serenity.
Everyone leaves there having made at least one change in their lives. That’s what I’m told about Kamalaya health spa in Koh Samui, Thailand. Guests rid themselves of multiple pounds (in weight and currency), have a turn of direction in their heart-attack-headed lives, and rejuvenate bodies more burnt out than a forest fire.
If I said ‘menopause retreat’ to you, what would you imagine? Something involving California, teepees and chanting, probably. But no, I am at Grayshott Spa in Surrey, convening for a five-day break. Although this solid country mansion has something of the air of a sanatorium about it, it is surrounded by 47 acres of lovely green stuff, mature trees and bunnies. Alfred Lord Tennyson shacked up here (and that was before they had an open-air pool).
I’m at a reunion dinner for some of my erstwhile classmates: ten of us – including a psychotherapist, a doctor and a lawyer – now 50 years old, successful and glamorous. Conversation falls to the topic of food and bodies. Then something startling is revealed. Seven of us admit to having suffered from eating disorders at school – bulimia, compulsive overeating or anorexia.
The couple were cuddled up on a sofa, talking about their good fortune. “We lead such a charmed life,” James Collins told his wife, Sharmila Nikapota. The Cambridge-educated professionals enjoyed the theatre, dining out, romantic holidays. They had a lovely home and planned a family. “The world was our oyster,” Sharmila, now 43, says. James is a commercial barrister, recently made a QC. Sharmila used to be a vet. On July 15, 2002, their perfect world was shattered. Their first child, Sohana, was born with the genetic skin condition recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB).
A former Barclays Bank branch has been reborn as the Chuan Spa in the grand 19th-century Langham Hotel, London. Now that the money men have gone, the spa has settled prettily in a brilliant spot on Portland Place – directly opposite Broadcasting House, the iconic home of the BBC, and just a few Louboutin-shod steps from Bond Street and even more exclusive Mount Street.
Bulimia nervosa, the compulsive eating syndrome, is on the increase. As the ideal body gets thinner, the media pressure to slim becomes greater. Conventional and feminist methods have not solved the problem, but now Paulette Maisner offers a more commonsense approach which appears to be working. Caroline Phillips meets her to discuss the treatment.
The battle has begun. I have hit 50. Soon I will have not so much a “muffin top” – that unsightly circle of fat around the middle – as a “paddling pool top”. Normally losing weight is easy. It is keeping it off that’s tricky. But what to do with this middle-age spread appearing around my girth?
Caroline Phillips tries a radical detox treatment in India, while, overleaf, we suggest the 20 best spas to beat the new year blues.
View transcriptIt used to be a man’s world. But since the credit crunch men have increasingly been turning to everything from make-up and cosmetic surgery to hormone replacement therapy. Now chaps are having to play a woman’s game. Men in high-powered jobs are expected to be eternally youthful, to display endless stamina and vigour. And, on top of this, increasingly, they’re judged on their looks.
If it’s a complete mind and body overhaul you’re after, C&TH discovers the holy trinity of detox spas, plus 12 of the best pampering hideaways in the city, the countryside and overseas
Two of the sector’s main growth areas are teenage spas and home spas. Putting the two together is a winning combination. Our daughter requested a pampering party for her 12th birthday, so we contacted Return to Glory, 180-strong company of freelance therapists who provide anything from beauty treatments to personal fitness in homes, offices and hotels.
Facialogy? What’s that? It’s a combo of a blissful Vaishaly Signature Facial with a relaxing, health-promoting reflexology.
I am lying on a wooden massage bed as two women rub my naked body with hot pouches of cooked rice, milk and medicinal herbs.…
Mornings were worst. I would wake with lead in my veins, a jackboot pressing on my chest and my body rigid, as if set in…