Options floating in my brain include being in a sunny room with French windows open to a garden full of lavender with a glass of chilled champagne sitting on a quaint wooden table while somebody rubs my scalp and and somebody else walks me through a three country honey tasting .... OR perhaps it's a darker room with dried lavender everywhere with a blueberry and lavender martini paired with toast and honey that I enjoy with a hot stone treatment ....
...so when I read a description of such a facial to be ..... "this soothing facial features a locally produced lavender milk masque mixed with local honey...."
....I think, "they are just taking some sticky stuff and putting it on my face."
No champagne. No amazing flower garden aromas. No honey tastings. Just some stuff wiped on my face. Granted, that is what you are supposed to do with facial, but maybe I'm just overly the holistic type.
Moving over to the holistic section.
When I see the title of Chocolate Treatment, my imagination puts the lavender and honey settings to shame. But let's skip their description and go straight to the reality.
"We make you smell chocolate during some wimpy massage and seal your body in some stuff, then send you home with a piece of chocolate."
The animal thing really got me though, where you are given a guided visualization to uncover your own power animal for future support.
Is this a LARP (live action role playing) for Ranger characters? No, I think they are serious.
I shouldn't be rude because I know there are cultures that do believe in power animals for inspiration, but after 10 practical interpretations of moon promising massage experiences, I nearly broke.
I yell at myself ... "MARIAN! This is about self-care! Love yourself!"
And I do love myself! I can do my own honey tasting thanks to an awesome honey store in Asheville. I'll buy a bottle of much finer champagne and drop my sugar crystallized rose petals from Paris in it. I'll go to a waterfall and read a book while eating Dahi Sev Papdi.
To be fair, what I selected WILL be awesome and I'll be so happy once I get my facial, wrap, deep tissue massage, and scalp treatment. I still feel that it is dangerous for them to promise things like "a renewed sense of serenity and calm" because they may get clients like me :)
