Heavenly hammam

I can't pretend to be an expert on beauty treatments. Whenever I've been lucky enough to have been treated to a massage or facial I've always loved it (waxes are to be tolerated as a necessary evil, I suppose), but they're just not one of those things I feel I can justify splurging on. The results are ephemeral, that blissful feeling of being preened and pampered over within the hour. Nonetheless, when I escaped from the practically baltic streets of SW6 last week into the steamy, scented halls of Moroccan Beauty (with a Groupon voucher, no less!) I felt I'd struck onto a winner.

Based around the concept of the Moroccan hammam, this ladies only spa makes for a delightfully different spin on beauty. Whilst they offer the usual waxing, facials, massages, the atmosphere is different from the usual bundles of mini luxury: it felt exotic, yet unpretentious, super friendly and welcoming. My voucher entitled me to the hammam ritual, a full body mask and an express facial - 2 hours worth of warm, pampered sanctuary from the freezing cold. As part of the hammam ritual I was shown into a traditional Moroccan steam room, amazingly humid (I was pouring with sweat within minutes) but I was kept comfortable with frequent cups of water and the showers at one end. After my first rinse, a thick eucalyptus soapy wax was applied to my whole body, and the steam came back on to allow it to absorb right into my skin leaving me slick and incredibly smooth. After rinsing again, I was thoroughly ex-foliated (as it turns out, winter skin is INCREDIBLY dry - I felt like a snake shedding what seemed like an entire layer) and a full body mask applied.

You can spend as much time in the steam room as you like, so after another blissfully sweaty 15 minutes, and yet another hot shower, I donned my fluffy slippers and padded my way into the treatment room for my facial. After a quick skin analysis (still dry, a compound of winter weather and perhaps a little sweaty hammam over-enthusiasm) I settled into an amazingly relaxing facial. With two applications of organic cleansers (all their products are 100% natural), toner, an amazing mini facial massage, finishing off with an intense moisturising mask, this facial may have been 'express' but it felt incredibly thorough, whilst being gentle enough to send me almost to sleep.

After a cup of traditional Moroccan mint tea, it was time to drag myself back into the cold again. My little sojourn at Moroccan Beauty truly felt like a mini-holiday - and definitely a different and welcome addition to the Fulham beauty scene. With these arctic conditions set to stick around for the next few weeks at least, it might be worth booking yourself a micro-break sometime soon.

Moroccan Beauty
780 Fulham Road
London SW6 5SL
www.moroccanbeauty.co.uk

All photos taken from the Moroccan Beauty website

Holistic Happiness: a different take on massage therapy

Most of us dread a visit to the dentist. In fact, some of the last words that come to mind are words like “happiness” and “holistic well-being”. Yet, there’s a dental practice on the Wandsworth Bridge Road which offers exactly that. Karma Dental has been around for the past 20 years, but more recently has branched out to offer holistic well-being treatments too. And we reckon they’re on to a winner.

Ellie Blair is a massage therapist who places the emphasis on therapy. She is a passionate advocate of holistic medicine who firmly believes all her treatments should benefit mind and spirit as well as your body. Having studied various alternative therapies for the past 20 years, progressing from Reiki through to massage therapy and specialised Ayurvedic treatments more recently, Ellie has a keen sense of spirituality that manifest itself in a warm enthusiasm for her work and her patients. Not being a particularly ‘spiritual’ person myself (those that know me would say that’s probably an understatement), I didn’t find Ellie at all “hippy” and all you need to derive maximum benefit is to keep an open mind as the massages do vary slightly from the traditional model. For example, the full body treatment is less focussed on removing knots and more on deriving a holistic balance so the pressure may not be what you are used to. All treatments are started with a 10-15 minute consultation so that Ellie can tailor the procedure to you and make sure she can best meet your expectations.

In a sweet little treatment room on the top floor of Karma’s Wandsworth Bridge Road practice, Sarah and I sampled a full body massage as well as an Ayurvedic leg and foot massage known as Kansa Vatki. Both were incredibly relaxing and for those of you who take an interest, Ellie has both a fascinating story and a vast amount of knowledge about the different treatment philosophies she practices. During my Ayurvedic treatment, she explained why she performs much of the procedure with a small metal dome moulded from copper, zinc and lead. Copper is known for its joint healing properties, and is often used to treat arthritis, where as zinc is beneficial for circulation and tin aids digestion. She also showed me how the nerve endings in your feet essentially provide a map for the rest of your body, and that by stimulating different parts of my soles she was able to treat different areas of my body. After my treatment I certainly felt that my whole body had been affected, and that 5 minutes of head massage at the end definitely ensures full head-to-tea benefits. Ellie says her childhood friends always used to comment on what warm hands she had - they were obviously made that way for a purpose!

Ellie is currently planning her memoirs, so I won’t spoil too much of her life story, suffice to say her outlook to life is pretty inspirational. She believes in constant and positive change and growth, and in her 40s took the incredibly brave step of packing up her flat in London and moving alone to the mountains of New Mexico to work with some of the tribal leaders , and she stayed for 12 years. She still trains to broaden her repertoire of alternative therapies (next up is an Indian abdominal massage treatment) and recently has started writing for UK-wide magazine Kindred Spirit. As she grows older she still believes the best of life remains in store for her, which is an attitude I find very impressive especially when I think of how many friends I have in their twenties who already think it’s too late for a career change/new boyfriend/to move abroad.

If you’d like to sample some of Ellie’s holistic magic for yourself, we’ve teamed up with Karma Wellbeing to offer SouthWestSix readers 50% off a Swedish Massage treatment (usually £50) at their Wandsworth Bridge Road treatment rooms. All you need to do is contact them at wellbeing@karmadentalcare.co.uk and quote ‘SouthWestSix’ when you make your booking. The offer is valid until March 20^th 2012 and cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer.

We’d love it if you’d let us know how you found it by leaving a message in the Comments box!

Karma Dental Care

144 Wandsworth Bridge Road

London SW6 4UH

http://www.karmadentalcare.co.uk/

www.karmawell-being.co.uk

Fitness, but with a little added luxury

It's usually January when we begin to feel a bit fed up: a bit overweight, a bit run down and a little bit poor. So last weekend, Sarah and I tackled all three at once and spent the morning at Cupcake Mum, Parsons Green, checking out their spa, personal training services and hearing all about their new fitness programme for young professionals - Club C studios.

We kicked off with a fairly brutal 8am session with Gen, of The Body Professionals, who take care of personal training services at Cupcake. After assessing our posture, alignment and general levels of fitness, Gen set out to make us love the bits of the gym we'd always hated (the rowing machine and circuits respectively) by injecting some variety and mixing up the intensity, teaching us new twists on exercises we already knew and really working on our technique and posture to make sure everything we did was truly effective. That, mixed with an upbeat soundtrack, endless positivity and a mischievous sense of humour meant an 8am ass-kicking in the gym was almost fun! 

Nonetheless, thighs and stomachs aching after various rounds of "Swiss Ball James Bonds" and "Sumo Squats", a 'head in the clouds massage' in the beautifully appointed Cupcake Mum spa was more than welcome. The treatment rooms are softly lit, gorgeously scented and beyond comfortable (one of the beds has a heated water mattress - you'll never want to get up) and all our tensions, knots and worries were gently teased away. The spa is open to non-members, so you don't need to be a Mummy to benefit, and for sheer boutique luxury, it really rivals many of the other spas in the area, so is well worth checking out.

Next up was a meeting with John of Club C studios. A long-time personal trainer and fitness entrepreneur (John and his business partner Neal set up successful kids' sports company Young Stars), Club C is a new venture to take the brilliant facilities and fitness services of Cupcake Mum, and make them available to the discerning young professionals of SW6. For a monthly sum of £37.50 you'll get unlimited access to their range of over 30 fitness classes per week, making use of the boutique studios at Cupcake and local parks and greens. They offer everything from early morning bootcamp to pilates and yoga, and spent months recruiting the most experienced and engaging local instructors. I've done classes with a few of their staff before at other venues, and always found them extremely positive and engaging. Best of all, the class sizes are small, topping out at around 12, and there's no fixed term contract.

If you want to check it out for yourself, Club C are doing FREE taster sessions all this week. Simply consult the timetable below, and give John a call on 0203 326 4986 to book your place.We guarantee you'll feel a little less run down, podgy and depressed when you do.

Cupcake Mum & Club C Studios

11 Heathmans Road

London

SW6 4TJ

A Slice of Cupcake

For those of you who have already heard of Cupcake Mums, this feature may initially strike you as odd. I must start by clearly stating (especially for your benefit Mum and Dad - I know you read this...) that neither Sarah nor I are pregnant. Neither do we have small children. Nor do we intend on having small children any time soon. But all of sudden, our new favourite beauty hangout is, to the uninitiated, essentially a Mum's club.

But this is where I beg to differ. Yes, Cupcake Mums is a lovely members clubs for Mums, Dads and their little angels (or terrors as the case may be). It's one of a chain of 3 premises, the first was set up in Putney over 3 years ago, and they offer (surprisingly) tranquil and beautifully decorated surroundings including a cafe, crèche, licensed bar (for the parents of the little terrors perhaps...), dance studio, mini-gym, classes for the kiddies, classes for the kiddies AND their parents, parenting seminars, personal training, spa treatments and the whole nine yards. The downstairs of the club is light and airy, decorated in a mix of whites and hues of dark pink and purple, and manages the balance between chic and child-friendly very admirably. Meanwhile, The Treatment Rooms and 'Mummy Boudoir' upstairs follows the same colour scheme but feels luxurious and even a bit sultry. Essentially they provide almost everything (we would imagine!) a parent could want.... But why should the Mummies have all the fun?

The Cupcake spa at Parsons Green is award-winning, and crucially, also open to non-members. In fact, it goes out of its way to be accommodating to non-members (and non-parents!). It's open until 9pm some week nights (post-work, pre-date wax, check!), it's open on weekends (post-night out massage, check!) and if you really do struggle with children, there's also a separate entrance (I-cant-take-screaming-babies-on-this-hangover facial.... check!). They also offer the Galvanic Facial... which apparently is the reason Kate Moss and Simon Cowell are still looking so fresh despite their years of excess. If it can keep Kate peachy with all that she gets up to, I'm sure it can completely transform your average stressed up twenty-something! Or sleep-deprived mother for that matter...

Of course, there is also plenty for the Mummies... Their Cupcake in the Oven pregnancy massage is very popular (after the anti-aging facial - parenting is tough it seems!), and the showers in the treatment rooms are extra large to accommodate all those bumps! Of course, pregnant or not....we all like a roomy shower so we can claim that little bonus for Mums and non-Mums alike. And for non-member Mummies, spa visitors can also drop their kids off at the crèche while they pamper themselves. And the Dads don't miss out either. The Spa stocks Gentleman's Tonic products and apparently your average Sunday afternoon sees quite a few extra Y chromosomes in that part of the building!

So after a quick tour, and a quick coo over the "Wiggle and Dance" class taking place in the studio, Sarah and I took our decidedly not-pregnant selves up to the spa for some treatments: a massage for her and a facial for me. The spa has about four treatment rooms, and mixes those ubiquitous hues of dark pink and purple with dimmed lights and sophisticated mahogany panelling making for a very boutique and luxurious feel: a real mini-haven!

Up first, Sarah's massage. I'll let her describe it in her own words: she certainly raved about it enough afterwards...

With the St Swithin’s showers lashing at the window I couldn’t think of a better place to be than the cosy, warm and utterly relaxing treatment room at the Cupcake Spa. I instantly began to unwind as I squished myself on to the heated waterbed, a strange sensation at first but wonderfully comfortable once the water moulds around you and begins to heat your tummy. I explained to Sandra (our charming therapist) that due to being chained to my desk all day and walking to work with a heavy handbag my shoulders were starting to resemble knotted rocks ingrained with stress and anxiety. I did not need to say another word, like a mind reader Sandra began to ease every ounce of tension out of my back and shoulders with the perfect combination of repeated pressure and fluid movements. There is nothing worse than lying down on the treatment bed geared up for a massage and having strokey strokey  for an hour which inevitably makes you fall asleep and wake up 60 minutes later £60 poorer, groggy and still knotted. This was far from the case at Cupcake, Sandra gauged my needs instinctively and took real care and consideration into the treatment leaving me in a comatose state of profound relaxation. 

As for myself, I plumped for the express facial, which was really amazing. Usually with the half hour treatments I can't relax as I worry the bliss will be over before it's begun, but the combination of Sandra's mini-facial massage and that glorious heated water bed had me feeling totally tranquil right away. With a little bit of facial massage, a little bit of steaming, pore extraction, face-mask and moisturisation, my skin felt absolutely fantastic afterwards and when I met some friends for lunch afterwards they all commented on how much my skin was glowing. 

I couldn't recommend the spa at Cupcake higher. It really is a little haven, and is so close to Parsons Green so really very convenient. The spa feels luxurious, and if you're a Mummy (or Daddy!) the rest of the club is really delightful too. Karen, who runs it, says their ethos is to be a home away from home - but that little bit more blissful. She's really keen to ensure that they endorse no particular philosophy on parenting and she tolerates absolutely no judgemental comments on other members' parenting choices. So whether your an earth mother or have already pre-booked the C-Section, you'll find your haven there. When I'm pregnant... you'll have to drag me away! Until then, I'll be more than happy to be a frequent visitor to the spa.

Cupcake

11 Heathmans Road
London SW6 4TJ
020 3326 4986