Massage and the recession

I was chatting to a friend today about the impacts of the recession on her massage business - and they've not been good. Some regular customers have, she says, cut their visits - from weekly to monthly, or monthly to every two months. Some have fallen away altogether, and new clients are not appearing at a fast enough rate to replace them. Customers she's spoken to about it have either been hit directly by job losses or are simply afraid to spend what money they do have. Tough times, and a pity because with the additional stress of the current economic situation it's probably the time when many of us most need a good kneading.

Real Aromatherapy Massage, Jessica, the Treatment Rooms, Brighton, November 2009

OK, so it's Brighton not Manchester. But hey, people from Manchester go on holidays don't they? And in this era of 'staycations,' Brighton has to be a potential destination?
Well if it is, the Treatment Rooms, on a picturesque little street right next to the splendidly hideous Brighton Pavilion, should definitely be on this list. This is a classy joint, full of warmly attentive staff and fabulous-smelling things in bottles, and worth adding onto any city break.
Reception is downstairs in the shop where treatments such as manicures also take place. But for massages and the like, you're ushered upstairs to a wood-and-wicker furnished waiting room with aspirational books about Zen and spa holidays strewn on the low tables. While the staff pour you a glass of water or cup of soothing herbal tea, you're shown into the (separate men's and women's) changing rooms, where there are lockers for your clothes and bags and cosy brown waffle robes and slippers (hurrah! A place with the sense not to insist on showing off how good their laundry system is by having everything white! It always terrifies me that I'm going to spill something, and makes me think they must be using a lot of environmentally-unfriendly washing powder and scalding hot water).
You are collected from the waiting room by your therapist and taken down a subtly-lit corridor to one of the candlelit treatment room. These are very nicely turned out; no stacks of towels on the massage couches but soft sheets, again in warm brown, and glittery Indian-looking throws.
I was there – courtesy of my lovely friend Zoe – for a 70 minute Real Aromatherapy body, face and scalp massage. Before I got as far as the couch I was invited to sit down and have my feet washed in scented water, while Jessica discussed whether I wanted a relaxing or an invigorating experience from my massage. Having narrowed it down to relaxing, I was then presented with a choice of three types of blended oils, ranging from the usual lavender-based relaxation preparation to an ylang and sandalwood, which I chose for the sake of interest as well as because it smelt lovely. We then had a discussion about skin types for the facial massage, and we came up with a rose and sandalwood blend for that. She also checked whether or not I wanted her to do the scalp massage without oils in case I needed to look presentable after I'd left! And she asked sensible, perceptive questions about what she should and shouldn't do to work around my hip injury.
The massage itself was a firm but gentle experience, using a lot of pressure point techniques. She started with my back and shoulders, using her strongest pressure here, and then went over my lower back, arms, hands and then legs and feet. I was invited to turn over for the gorgeous-smelling face and scalp massage, which included the intriguing technique of little pulling bunches of my hair. Odd, but effective. She then worked her way over my stomach and down to the front of my legs and finally feet again. By the end of the 70 minutes several months' worth of pain and tension from sitting writing books and articles hunched over various computers had been spirited away and I was feeling fantastic.
Continuing the top-class experience, although the Treatment Rooms isn't a spa per se, there is no pressure to rush back out into the real world. The relaxation room, on the same corridor as the treatment rooms, is a candle-and-fairylight-lit room with recliners, cushions and chairs where you can lie back for as long as you like, borrowing those aspirational books from the waiting room or bringing some trashy magazines yourself, or simply lying and enjoying the sensation of being supremely relaxed and smelling lovely.

Real Aromatherapy Body, Face & Scalp Massage, 70 minutes for £64
The Treatment Rooms, 21 New Road, Brighton BN1 1UF, www.thetreatmentrooms.co.uk, 01273 818444

For anyone planning a break in Brighton, other parts of your holiday could very well include (depending on budget):
- The White House 'boutique hotel' in Kemptown, a very charming place to stay with gorgeous rooms, fab breakfasts and a supremely helpful and friendly owner;
- Terre a Terre: one of the UK's best vegetarian restaurants, for top-notch yet healthy food and great service - with a special mention to Milo for his great etiquette at dealing with customers on crutches;
- Kemptown Bookshop: for a great range of good books and a cute little cafe that does great sandwiches (just make sure Megan the soppy dog doesn't wheedle them out of you);
- the Lion & Lobster pub in Hove – friendly staff, decent beers, good food.

Fairtrade ingredients - coming to a beauty product near you

Between various events I've been to and articles I've researched recently, I've come across an encouraging number of initiatives bringing ethical ingredients to beauty products.
One of the most exciting of these is organic certified Somali incense, being used in the gorgeous-smelling frankincense range from Neal's Yard Remedies. The frankincense is a tree resin gathered by the women from semi-nomadic pastoral tribes, whose families mainly depend on their livestock - cows, goats and camels - to make a living. Despite the long-running unrest in Somalia, wholesalers have managed to get accreditation for frankincense gathered by women from the Samburu people. More information from here and here.
The second project that caught my notice was from Tropical Wholefoods which, as its name suggests, usually sells dried fruit and nuts. But as a by-product of this, it has started sourcing from its dried apricot growers in the Gilgit area of Northern Pakistan other parts of the apricot, with Fairtrade certified crushed apricot stone hulls going to Boots for Fairtrade body scrubs, and apricot kernel oil again heading for Neals Yard's lovely products. And, of course, most of this comes from parts of the fruit that would normally go to waste.

Eco-spas and environmental massages

Inspired by Blog Action Day on climate change, I've been thinking about the environmental impacts of spas and treatments. All that heating up saunas, steam, treatment rooms and pools, the chlorine that goes into cleaning them, the various resources that get put into making the things we get wrapped in and rubbed down with.
Titanic Spa in Huddersfield (not so very far from Manchester) claims to be 'the UK's first eco-spa' and has been the subject of umpteen newspaper and online articles to that effect. There are plenty of places nowadays that claim environmental credentials, but looking at Titanic's, it does go beyond the usual Ecover surface cleaner and recycled paper. It's got a biomass CHP plant and solar photovoltaics for energy generation and a chlorine-free, salt-regulated swimming pool, and uses a cold-water laundry system for its towels, robes etc.
I'm slightly less bowled over by its statements about using product supplies with 'authentic green statements' as I've never had Decleor or Elemis down as green pioneers, but given the extent of some of their other initiatives, I'm willing to let that one slide.
A spa break at Titanic, however, is not cheap, so I was also interested to find this article suggesting ways that a home bathroom can be made into the setting for luxurious DIY spas, in an eco-fashion. It's got some good tips, ranging from sustainable flooring, which tallies with reliable sources such as Ethical Consumer's report on floor coverings, and covers other DIY issues as well as the products you might use in a home spa.
In terms of products, since I'm particularly interested in massage the main product involved is of course the oil used, so I want to finish by flagging up two ethical examples – Neals Yard, which supplies sustainably-sourced (often organic or sustainably wild-crafted) carrier and essential oils as well as ready-mixed versions, and Visionary Soap, which makes lovely ready-mixed massage oils using Fairtrade certified olive oil from Palestine (grown on often ancient trees which generate an environmentally sustainable income for farmers under military occupation by the Israeli state) and sesame oil from Nicaragua.

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

Tash, the Sensory Spa at Bannatyne's Quay Street, February 2009

This trip was the result of finding the many two-for-one and other offers for spa afternoons and experiences on lastminute.com, especially if you're able to take up offers available only during the week. Friend Jess and I went for an afternoon – being a teacher she was able to do this during half term, and being a freelance writerI can just work weekends and take time out during the week. This offer worked out at about £28 each for use of the spa and for a 45 minute treatment, with both of us going for the back, neck and shoulder massage. Bannatyne's is a nationwide chain so the offer is available pretty widely.
The Quay Street Bannatyne's – which is also a gym and fitness centre – has a pleasant enough if slightly odd spa. The many corridors can be a bit baffling, and the changing rooms are a bit big and draughty – more school gym lesson than luxurious spa. The sauna and steam room were fine and enjoyable, and situated next to a decent sized, if bizarrely shaped and slightly under-lit, swimming pool. Apparently this used to be a big, well-known pool with art deco decorations, diving boards etc, but a mezzanine has now gone in to extend the space available for the gyms etc. There could have been more loungers and chairs and you really need to take your own drinking water if you don't want to have to shell out for bottles from a machine, but for the price I wasn't complaining. The vouchers sent for the offer were ambiguous as to whether we'd be supplied with things like towels and robes and I think the Bannatyne's website implied that these would not be included. But they were, although slippers weren't.
The massage itself was, to put it bluntly, surprisingly good. After my experiences at the Radisson I'd come to expect that what I'd get somewhere like this would be an adequate but uninspiring beautician-with-a-bit-of-massage-training kind of deal. But I was lucky enough to get Tash. Now, she's not Jutika – but she might be in 5 or 10 years' time, if she stays in the profession.
From chatting to her, I got the distinct impression that she knows her stuff and has a genuine interest in massage and relaxation therapies. Her main training was, she said, in massage, and she's topped it up with skills in things like facials and manicures because it makes her more employable. The setting she's working in isn't ideal for setting off her talent – it's very much the kind of place where you walk in and are overwhelmed with a range of overpriced (if nice-smelling) potions in bottles and millions of shades of nail polish and lipstick. I'm guessing the staff are either on commission or that selling the contents of those various bottles is a major part of their role. But nevertheless, Tash gives a damn good massage – in-depth without being painful, and asking the right kind of questions about needs, pain levels and sore spots - so anyone finding themselves here should try asking for her. Having said that, Jess was pretty happy with her experience too, so maybe this place is lucky with its staff.

Contact details: Bannatyne's Health Club, Sunlight House, Quay Street, Manchester, M3 3JU , 0161 832 3227