Tash, Hot Stone massage, Sensory at Bannatyne's, central Manchester, April and May 2009

I've always fancied trying a hot stone massage, but they often seem to be prohibitively expensive and until recently, were largely to be found on the treatment menus of pricey spa resorts.
So, having already encountered the delightful Tash at the Sensory, I was interested to note that hot stone massages there came in at less than forty quid, which is easily what you'll pay for the standard version in the city centre, so despite it sounding a little like something they'd do to witches in Medieval times, I booked.
I'm definitely now a convert, not so much for a soothing and relaxing experience, but for the kind of times when your back feels like a big tangle of knotted rope and no amateurish efforts from friends or lovers are going to relieve the pain. As far as I'm concerned, hot stone massages are the efficient, fast way to sort out scrunched-up back muscles.
I'm not sure what I was expecting from the stones themselves – probably something quite large being heated up using, say, hot water or... something. Who knows. What was actually entailed was something more akin to one of those bread making machines that were fashionable a few years ago – a sort of table-top electrical device which could have been made by Tefal or Swan or some other distinctly unenchanting white goods brand. The stones were a lot smaller than I imagined, too, small enough for Tash to hold in her hand and basically use to deliver a massage, as if they were her hands and fists.
So the difference is not so much in the techniques of massage used, but simply in the heat – which was a bit of a shock and slightly too much for me to start with, but which can be controlled to an extent by putting the stones in cool water (I think; I was face-down at this point). Applying the hot stones in this way basically does what a nice, relaxing, warming massage does in terms of heating your muscles and causing them to relax – but it does so a damn sight quicker and more thoroughly, so if you're dealing with, for instance, a tree-root back like mine it can release hideous amounts of pain and tension in a fairly short period of time.
As I've kind of said, this isn't the most relaxing or pleasurable experience to be had on a massage table, but it is bloody effective and, certainly in this case, not much more expensive than a normal back and shoulder massage.
The one downside to the second of my two visits for hot stone massages here was the jobsworths who run Sunlight House – a rather impressive 1930s building on Quay Street. Apparently chaining bikes to their faux-heritage lamp-posts on the stone flagged area near the entrance is Forbidden, leaving little option but the use the less convenient – both for cyclist and pedestrian – signpost on the main street itself. Take note, Bannatyne's, your landlords are busy pissing off the customers.

Contacts: Bannatyne's Health Club, Sunlight House, Quay Street, Manchester, M3 3JU. Tel: 0161 8323227. Hot stone massage £38

Foot massage, Ana, E-Rejuvenation Centre, Spitalfields, London 24th June 2009

Ok, so I know this is supposed to be about Manchester massages. But this one was fun, so I'm going to include it anyway.
Firstly it was fun because it was a freebie, and I'm on a low enough income to very much appreciate nice things I don't have to pay for. But the lovely folks at the Fairtrade Foundation were doling out free half-hour massages as part of the launch event for the new labelling scheme for Fairtrade beauty products. For a long time, individual Fairtrade ingredients could be labelled, but the actual product wasn't, unlike for instance food products where a bar or cake, say, containing over 20% Fairtrade ingredients could carry the well-known label. But now they have come up with rules for a scheme, and today was the day the press got let loose on it.
So, having done the meet & greet and tried to ask vaguely intelligent questions to some of the Fairtrade beauty product producers there (including some favourites of mine – Visionary Soap Company, Lush and Neal's Yard Remedies), I got spirited off down a long corridor to a very pleasant treatment room with ochre walls, harp music and some lovely scented candles.
A very smiley and terrifyingly young-looking girl called Ana (I'm guessing Scandinavian) was doing my foot massage, which was more of a foot and lower leg massage, using the gorgeous-scented jasmine body cream which was one of the newly branded Fairtrade products. It's from Neal's Yard so it's bloody expensive, but it smells absolutely amazing.
In terms of the massage, it was very able, and interesting in so far as I'd never quite grasped how having one part of you massaged can be quite so relaxing all over. Unlike the deep tissue massage I prefer on my knotted up back and shoulders, I've never been very good with my calves and feet and Ana had to resist the temptation to use her thumbs too much on me, but once we got the pressure sorted out having my calves, ankles, soles and toes firmly massaged was very therapeutic. The massage itself was followed up by effleurage up to thigh level. One of the skills that Ana had down very well was the practice of never letting a part of the client's body out of her reach – ie there was always a warm hand on my foot or ankle, which is a strangely comforting experience, something that Jutika taught at the classes I went to years ago but which not all therapists observe.
The full treatment lasted a half hour, which is a pretty fair amount of time to spend on one part of the body like this, and probably one of the reasons it was so relaxing.
The E-Rejuvenation Centre itself is a bit odd, seemingly combining ideas about total relaxation with some weird stuff like seminars on Sun Tzu's Art of War, perhaps to keep the city boys from just over the way on Bishopsgate interested. But I can't fault the quality of their massage therapy.

Contacts: E Rejuvenation Centre, 132 Commercial Street, London E1 6NG, T. 020 7650 0718