Beauty

How Delicious

A luxury treatment to end all others

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I have a confession to make. I haven’t been taking the best care of my skin for the last couple of months. I know, I know. It’s been terrible. My stress levels have been in the red zone for a while now, and I haven’t had a lot of time or energy to invest into my skincare regimen. For a while, it was ok. And then it wasn’t. Breakouts, dark circles, dry spots and fine lines all started showing up. But everything I tried at home was too little, too late. My normal regimen, with an added occasional (very occasional) exfoliation or masque, just wasn’t cutting it. I needed to kickstart myself to take better care of both my face and my mind.

That’s why I called Alayne White. Her eponymous spa just outside of Wayland Square offers big doses of great skincare treatments and relaxation. Her diagnosis for me: the Delicious treatment, a combination of a Best Facial and a Spassage, would give me three hours of both, and she promised I would leave feeling totally rejuvenated.

I walked in on a freezing night in the total dark and immediately breathed a sigh of relief. The spa was so warm and cozy. “Isn’t it great?” Jenna, spa manager and my best friend for the evening, said. “I always love coming in here.” She placed a warm buckwheat and lavender pillow on my neck, and I sat in front of the wood stove in the front room for a few minutes. Then Jenna led me to the treatment room, instructing me to disrobe and get in the heated bed. We started with the Spassage, one of the spa’s signature treatments. It’s a massage, Jenna explained, but it’s meant to be more light, luxurious relaxation than deep tissue work. With lots of warm jojoba oil, she started with my back, then moved to my arms, hands, legs and feet, incorporating warm stones collected from spa clients who bring them back from their travels. “Alayne thinks they bring a different energy to the spa,” Jenna said. I’m not a massage person normally – all that poking and prodding is the opposite of relaxing to me – but this was divine.


Then, she switched gears to the Best Facial, which, true to its name, is amazing. More of those warm buckwheat pillows went on while Jenna went through more stages of pre-cleansing, cleansing and exfoliating than my blissed-out mind can remember. I do know that there was a scalp massage, two masks (a multi-vitamin mask and an oatmeal pack to hydrate and calm the skin) and, in a really nice, unexpected touch, hair brushing. (This is what I love about this spa, their nurturing touches. When was the last time anyone brushed your hair for you outside of the salon?) After Jenna was done, I felt more relaxed than I had in months. She offered to apply makeup, and then recommended some Dermalogica products for me, like the Multivitamin Microfoliant to help fade some of my post-breakout discoloration. To keep the fresh-from-the-spa look, she suggested Glam Glow, which is a new mud mask straight out of Hollywood that all the starlets are talking about right now.

After, my skin looked better than it had since the summer, and I didn’t want to let it fade. I’m back to proper cleansing, regular exfoliation and night moisturizer. Turns out I just needed something Delicious to motivate me. 

alayne, white, spa, beauty, skin, care, delicious, treatment, providence, monthly

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