A Christmas present for yourself

I knew a trip to the day spa was likely to be more than, shall we say, tol­er­able, how­ever I didn’t expect to leave feel­ing so edu­cated. But, as I dis­covered, the Ella Baché Skin Care Salon is no ordin­ary spa. Ella Baché, loc­ated in the James Cook Hotel, is the brand’s flag­ship salon in New Zea­l­and, and although hav­ing been in oper­a­tion only since Septem­ber, it’s already got a bright future.

A wide range of spa-like treat­ments, such as relax­ing mas­sages, wax­ing, bronz­ing and make-up applic­a­tion, is only the begin­ning of its ser­vices. Helene, the James Cook salon’s own­er, and her staff try to provide ser­vices above and bey­ond, includ­ing cus­tom­ised indul­gence pack­ages, and col­lect­ing cli­ents from the airport.

Since its early begin­nings in the 1930s, the five-star Ella Baché brand has stuck to its fun­da­ment­al prin­ciples of pro­mot­ing know­ledge and under­stand­ing of the skin, and is known in the industry as a skin-care spe­cial­ist. The salon offers a com­pli­ment­ary in-house skin dia­gnos­is, that dia­gnos­is being a cru­cial part of its philo­sophy, that “no two skins are alike”.

Jana, my ther­ap­ist at Ella Baché, stresses to me that this is one of the most import­ant things to under­stand when it comes to skin care and that it’s import­ant to learn about your skin’s unique needs. Pri­or to this vis­it, I was under the impres­sion that I was doing right by my skin by pick­ing up whatever cleanser, exfo­li­ant and mois­tur­iser was marked with “for com­bin­a­tion skin”.

Once I’m tucked up into a bed (yay!) in a treat­ment room that can only be described as per­fectly ambi­ent, Jana begins with a basic cleanse of my face, and then brings into play the mighty True View, a tool designed to read skin and help ther­ap­ists dia­gnose their cli­ents’ skin con­cerns. Then, based on how my skin appears through the True View, Jana chooses an Ella Baché product that will bene­fit and pro­tect my skin, and explains that products are mixed and matched from vari­ous ranges to suit the indi­vidu­al skin being treated.

It is at this stage that it occurs to me that the dry/oily/combination cat­egor­ies we lump ourselves into are dis­tinctly limited.

I am then treated to a relax­ing mas­sage, which suc­ceeds in mak­ing the real world fade into a dis­tant memory, fol­lowed by a second cleanse and a lux­uri­ous face mas­sage. The next step is hav­ing some magic­al patches (activ­ated with a spe­cial wand) applied to my face, topped off with a mask that con­tains a pleth­ora of glor­i­ous ingredi­ents, includ­ing hya­lur­on­ic acid — babies’ secret to soft skin. I’m left feel­ing refreshed and entirely unwound, not to men­tion much wiser about skin care.

The Ella Baché ther­ap­ists’ approach is to provide a high-qual­ity treat­ment, while at the same time edu­cat­ing their cli­ents about skin care. The down-to-earth and unin­tim­id­at­ing man­ner in which they deliv­er that ser­vice makes the salon a delight to visit.