Eastern beauty secrets beckon the blokes

BY CAMERON WILLIAMSON

Five minutes' brisk walk from the throb of Lambton Quay, I'm lying half-naked on a bench-height double king bed in a dim-lit room. Aromas of lemongrass and sandalwood, muted panflutes and chanting monks soothe my deadline- damaged nerves. Before I drag myself out of here in a couple of hours, I'll be stretched, twisted and bent in ways I'd never imagined, anointed with oils, minerals and vegetables, buffed and clipped and polished. And I'll feel younger and fresher for it, apparently.

Smart women have known about the pleasure and efficacy of facials and manicures for years, but it seems blokes are catching on, too. About three in 10 customers at East Day Spa on Thorndon Quay are men, though a special "menu" of treatments for them is dragging them in in increasing numbers.

You know something fragrant is going to happen when you step into the frangipani-scented elevator. When the doors open into the second-floor foyer, I'm offered a purring "Namaste".

The gentle greeting beloved of the spiritually aware sets you up for what's coming: a guided tour of serenity on a cloud of sensual pleasure.

Sarong-wrapped masseuses and beauticians drift through billowing gauze curtains and candlelit corridors, calmly shuttling unguents and hot towels to rooms called Nirvana and Gaia. Who knew there could be such tranquility in a multi-storeyed downtown office block?

Hostess Barbara Wilson is a Canadian Kiwi who runs the Wellington end of the East Day Spa. There's another in the Sky City Grand in Auckland, a luxury residential spa in Bali and, since last month, a day spa in Melbourne.

Barbara shows me to a low divan in a dun-coloured parlour under the gaze of a reclining Buddha, and gives me a mango tea while I fill out the requisite forms.

I'm introduced to Komang, the Balinese mother of three with an English vocabulary limited to "relah" and "turnover". She's tiny and smiling now, but pretty soon I discover her strength and anatomical knowledge can reduce a grown man to tears.

The spa combines Eastern holistic healing traditions and Western beauty therapies in a comprehensive menu of treatments. They range from 15-minute foot massages, scalp massages or French polishes for $10 to $30 all the way to five-hour full body experiences combining massage, facial, hand and foot treatments at close to $500.

Popular among singles (women more than men) is the Sapna (75 minutes $155) treatment that includes a foot wash, a traditional Indian neck, shoulder and back Kady Vasty massage, and a facial "taster" of East's Elemis beauty products.

Valentine's Day recently brought in couples to share a Prana staying-in- touch massage, facial and foot treatment ($475 the pair), and a regular coterie of clients book in for body wraps and spray tans, threading (an Indian hair removal technique), and waxing.

Bikini wax ($25), Brazilian ($85) and Hollywood ($95) are all on the menu.

Back in Nirvana, I'm deep-breathing to relax when Komang begins separating my calf and thigh muscles from their bones with the point of her elbow. Then she rotates each ball joint through its entire range of movement, stands on one thigh and hauls my ankle towards the roof.

It's all I can do to stop slapping the mat three times in surrender, but she can see it coming and orders me to "relah" as she turns her attention to the other leg.

The contortions she manipulates me into would make an Olympic wrestler proud, and it sort of hurts. But there's something transcendent about finding myself spreadeagled in a horizontal starjump, hovering towards the ceiling, my only point of contact with Komang her knees in the small of my back.

My body reassembled, I'm namaste'd into another haven for a facial with Maria. At my age, I know things are beginning to sag, but she's starting from the bottom, gently washing my feet with tweedy hemp towels.

She checks out my crow's feet and wrinkled forehead and reckons she can take 10 years off me in 10 minutes.

Cleansing and rinsing my face and neck, she applies a papaya paste that tingles and tightens - like builders' bog but better smelling - filling the crevasses and (hopefully!) giving me that constantly surprised look so many television presenters seem to affect.

More layers of silky fruit-based Elemis pastes are gently applied, left to do their work then removed with cloths of varying textures. After half an hour of buffing and polishing, she leaves me to rest and take the first look at my new face in the mirror.

Admittedly, the lights are dim, but apart from a gleaming forehead, my ageing dial looks depressingly familiar.

"Hand detail" with Annie from Penang, Malaysia, is next. And Annie knows a "stressed executive" when she sees one - a nail bitten on deadline the day before is a dead giveaway.

She says Singaporean and Malaysian men are fussy about their grooming and thinks that New Zealand men will eventually follow.

East is the brainchild of Ina Bajaj, an African-born Indian Wellingtonian who ran The Curry Club restaurant with her brother Sanjiv for 10 years.

When she launched the Thorndon Quay pleasuredome in 2002, most of her male clients were from the embassies, she says, but after men discovered couples massage with their partners, more have been booking a regular massage.

"Wellington's slightly more conservative than Auckland," she says, where men make up about 40 per cent of East's clientele.

"But Wellington men are catching on, too."

PAMPER POWER:
Research on the New Zealand spa scene by Travel and Tourism News found spa numbers have grown by 88 per cent over the past five years.
Of the 141 spas operating in New Zealand, 77 per cent were day spas and 23 per cent were destination spas located alongside accommodation.
The spa industry employed 911 people during 2007, a growth rate of 37 per cent since 2002.
Spas collectively generated revenue of NZ$65 million in 2007, an increase of 72 per cent in the five years previous.

- © Fairfax NZ News