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Me and my wine
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SHONALI MUTHALALY gets soaked in a heady grape solution at a Vino Therapy session at Anushka Spa and Salon and finds it cleanses her skin as much as it lifts her spirits
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INDULGE IN: Vino Therapy featuring green tea, seaweed and wine.
THE TECHNICALITIES: Here’s a treatment Marie Antoinette would have approved of. Unapologetically lavish, it begins with an anti-aging massage oil mixed with green tea exfoliator, used for the entire body (after all, a wrinkle on your left knee cap can totally ruin your social life, right?). Then, a flurry of wine based products to firm, tone and moisturise your skin.
THE PROCESS: Honestly, I’d rather just drink the wine. On a beach of course. With some grilled fish, scented candles and Antonio Banderas, preferably.
Instead I find myself slathered in a rich, heady grape solution, feeling progressively light-headed as I tunelessly hum the title track from ‘Take The Lead.’
The Anushka Salon and Spa, run by charming Shibani Vasundaran, is a cheerful, bright, airy space exuding positive energy. Just the place for a wine based treatment. Though Shibani confesses it’s a lot more picturesque in Spain, where you get to visit vineyards and then soak in luxury, while barrels of wine are lifted and poured over you. (Besides, there’s always the possibility that Bendares will suddenly decide a make a quick trip home for some Rioja and churros.)
Wine treatments, getting increasingly popular across the world, come in many guises. You can cleanse your face in Merlot, and exfoliate with grape seeds. You can soak in a skin-softening old oak barrel brimming with spring water and wine.
Anushka’s award winning treatment combines a carefully chosen set of products and technique to create a potent treatment for the skin. Shibani tries overcoming my scepticism by bringing up the vineyard workers – those legendary party people who crushed grapes by dancing around in a tub, to make wine. “They had fabulous, smooth feet,” she says. Talk about job benefits! (Though I’m not doing to badly either, coming to think of it.)
The treatment begins with a massage using Olio Di Vinaccioli D’uva, an oil that apparently has anti-aging properties, as well as a lymphatic draining and slimming effect. Mixed with a green tea exfoliator, it’s the poster boy for multi-taskers. A veritable batman of beauty treatments!
Then comes a languorous twenty minute soak in a picturesque tub scattered with petals. The grape sea weed bath salt used helps remove dead skin. Next comes a body massage done with a cocktail of grape and something that goes by the mysterious name of ‘Laminaria Glycolic Extract.’ (Which turns out to be made of ‘marine active ingredients.’ The things people put on their faces in this quest for eternal youth!)
LANGUOR AND LUXURY A Vino Therapy session at Anushka Spa and Salon
Finally, the masseur brings out a bowl of bright Vigna Del Mar (made of grape and seaweed gel) and a brush and proceeds to slather me with it. Especially designed for slimming and anti ageing, it’s supposed to get immediately absorbed during the treatment. I’m still covered in the purple goo half an hour later, though, and need to shower to avoid looking like a character from Sesame Street.
(The Vinotherapy package costs Rs. 2,800, exclusive of taxes and takes a little more than two hours.)
Explore some of the city’s most decadent treatments with the Metro Plus team as we scour the city’s spas and beauty parlours hunting down unusual, quirky, luxurious body bliss.
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