Two years ago, in GO Brooklyn’s first-ever
Spa Guide, I shook up the borough by proclaiming loud and clear
that it’s OK – in fact enjoyable – for a guy to get a paraffin
treatment.
The response was overwhelming.
For weeks afterward, the mailbox here at The Brooklyn Papers
was swamped with letters, some for and some against the proposition
that a guy getting a facial and pedicure before Monday Night
Football was an acceptable thing to do.
But it didn’t end there. Suddenly, my e-mail – both at work and
at home – was filled with offers for new and exciting treatments
that offered to help me in a number of ways. Apparently, after
reading my story on the Web, many people figured I’d also be
interested in growing more hair on my head, pills and treatments
for losing weight, improving my "stamina," and increasing
my, er size.
While I chose to simply disregard those e-mails, I couldn’t help
but wonder how my column might have enlightened the masses some
two years hence.
Well, as the ad for Virginia Slims used to say: "You’ve
come a long way, baby."
Apparently, guys are now going to spas, and they’re going in
droves.
Time was when a guy was getting married, he and his groomsmen
would head off to the local barbershop for a good, old-fashioned
shave with hot shaving cream and a straight razor. But in this
new, post-Spa Guide world, I wasn’t surprised to see my younger
brother Scott getting a manicure as part of this time-honored
tradition of grooming on the day of my own wedding.
"What are you doing there, Mary?" asked my dad, doing
his best impression of Frank Barone from "Everybody Loves
Raymond."
"I’m getting a manicure," Scott answered.
"No you’re not. You’re getting your nails done," dad
countered. "Have you been reading Vinny’s articles again?"
(We got the last laugh, though, when we had dad’s uni-brow waxed
while he was getting his shave.)
But it’s not only my family and me.
In hopes of luring male clients to her new Williamsburg spa,
DownTime Spa owner Melaina Ulino hatched a plan: hold a men-only
VIP night. There, for three hours, guys got a chance to listen
to live music, have a beer, enjoy the spa’s backyard grill, play
foosball and darts, and get a course in how to hand-roll a cigar.
Treatments provided during the evening included the "Hot
Rocks Men’s Massage," the "Back to Glow Men’s Facial,"
the "Chill-out Men’s Facial" and the "Hands on
Men’s Scalp Massage."
"It was a huge hit," Ulino told me when I visited her
spa this week. "It brought us some new customers who probably
wouldn’t have come here if had we not held the event."
Since then, Ulino says, the guys have been coming back, and while
some do get work done on their hands and feet – "It’s pretty
funny," she says. "You see this big giant guy getting
a manicure and pedicure." – it’s for a bit of a different
purpose that they return.
"We get a lot of hair removal," Ulino said. "Let’s
face it, lots of guys don’t like hair on their backs. We can
take care of that."
Luckily, I’m not one of them. By the grace of God, my back is
as follicle-free as Kojak’s head. And I wasn’t about to start
showering in Rogaine just to sample this popular treatment. Instead,
I chose a couple of services geared to men who are leaning more
toward relaxation and less toward, well, pain.
The Chill-Out Facial (a.k.a. the "Thermal Ice Mask")
featured a face massage, exfoliation and extractions by Vindy
Lam, my talented "facial person." For the third time
in three years of writing for the Spa Guide, I was told that
my skin is pretty good, but I should get facials a bit more often
than I do, which, you might have guessed, is about once a year.
This was followed by the application of a mask (one of those
mud things Wilma Flintsone would put on before hitting the sack)
that went on freezing cold before heating up my face drastically.
Despite these pleasant journeys to extremes, my skin remained
intact.
When all was said and done, I ended up with my face feeling as
soft as a baby’s bottom. It also gave me a hardened mask replica
of my face that drove home the point that I should seriously
consider a nose job, too.
Next up was my "Hands On Scalp Massage," administered
to me by the able hands of the spa’s owner. The idea here is
to give your head the kind of cleaning it doesn’t normally get
– a deep-down cleaning that practically goes to your brain, thus
unclogging any hair follicles and keeping that mane in great
shape.
After getting my hair washed with "Davines Energizing Shampoo"
and head rubbed down, Melaina towel dried my noggin and applied
"Davines Energizing Serum" to it. The effects were
immediate. Within seconds, the entire room was filled with a
forest of my hair and we all needed a machete to get out.
Of course, I’m kidding. But that’s not to say the treatment wasn’t
nice. My head did feel a certain "chilled" effect that
stuck with me for about 20 minutes, and the massage was enjoyable.
All told, it was another great spa experience. But I have to
be truthful. While these treatments are "geared" toward
men, I couldn’t quite find a reason why women couldn’t enjoy
them. In fact, I couldn’t find any difference between a guy’s
facial and a girl’s facial.
I guess it’s that old Barbie-G.I. Joe theory working here: Package
something right, and anyone – male or female – will enjoy it.
For more information about DownTime
Spa, see the Spa Directory.
