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At-home spa-cation
Date: 07 july 2016

Turn off your phone, grab a fluffy robe and get ready to spa out chez vous - By Parizaad Khan Sethi

If men have man caves, what’s the female equivalent? A spa cocoon! That’s where you retreat to when a spa-cation is as distant a possibility as Christmas in July. With a few indulgent touches, your bathroom can become a sanctuary of scrubs, salts and calm, constantly delivering top-quality spa action. (And that action nearly beats any other kind of action).

1

Visuals are key—get your bathroom lights on a dimmer and turn them down. That’s when your candle collection makes an entrance—candlelight’s not just a rom-com cliché, okay. We love Kama Ayurveda’s Jasmine Candle.

2

Nature sounds are an unwritten must in the spa universe. Program something that sounds like a babbling brook running riot over a pile of rocks with a cuckoo warbling in the background, or find an overplayed composition I’ve nicknamed Dawn over the Chinese Countryside (every spa plays it, I swear).

3

Layer scents by having more than one source of fragrance. If your candle has a light, floral scent, add the spa staple—lemongrass to a diffuser (Forest Essentials Diffuser Oil Lemon Grass). Set up a handful of incense sticks with a deeper tone, like Kama Ayurveda’s Sambrani Incense Sticks. Think of it like creating a perfume: with light floral top notes, a burst of freshness in the middle, followed by lingering base notes.

4

Exfoliation is the bedrock of any spa routine, from Turkish to Korean and Balinese, so get polishing. Try dry brushing with the Basicare Wooden Body Brush to increase circulation, reduce cellulite and liven up the lymphatic system, or suds-up in the shower with L'Occitane Arlésienne Shower Cream and Kama’s Natural Vetiver & Sisal Loofah. Or grab a gritty scoop of Forest Essentials’ Body Polisher Hydrating Sea Salt Crystal Rose.

5

Run a hot bath for your feet—drop in Kama Ayurveda’s Sandalwood and Mint Bath Salts and get an arm workout by rubbing Kama’s Foot Scrub into your heels. Forest’s Cold Pressed Body Massage Oil - Madurai Jasmine & Mogra makes the ideal post-scrub nourisher.

6

Ban boring showers—channel your inner child to make bath time fun (we don’t mean rubber duckies). Get some shower jellies to put some bounce into your morning, or sprinkle bath salts in your favourite scent in the floor of your shower, so the perfume wafts up when water hits.

7

Small, thoughtful touches are what differentiate a good spa from a great one. To make every day spa day, use handmade soaps like Forest Essentials Luxury Butter Soap Saffron Infused Milk, so handwashing can also be luxurious. Have a pile of plush, fluffy towels—white is a classic spa colour while beige or ecru are equally chic. Stock a face mist like The Body Shop’s Vitamin C Energizing Face Spritz for a little pick-me-up after you get home from work, or spray the air with Kama Ayurveda Pure Lavender Water. A small ritual that makes you smile every day is better than an elaborate monthly one.

at home spa cation
Parizaad Khan Sethi

is a beauty and wellness editor based in New York. She was the former beauty editor at Vogue India and now serves as a contributing editor for the magazine. At age 5, Parizaad fell in love with an old cream blush she found in the back of her mother’s drawer, and has been in awe of the transformative power of beauty ever since. When she’s not writing about beauty, she researches advances in skincare as a hobby, and is constantly guinea-pigging herself in the name of beauty.

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