27 is stunning, it enters through Spa Physiog






It's been a while since I have written. December was a busy month. The holidays, new car, new job, two trips to D.C., and one trip to the beach. By the end of the month I was haggard. I needed a facial and I was dangerously low on funds. I was one of the only people in my building on the official work days of Thursday December 27 and Friday December 28. I was so exhausted I was beginning to feel completely insane. I knew my funds were limited but I also knew that a call to my dear sweet earth angel, Teri Exum at Spa Physiog, would remedy every frazzled nerve and help me welcome 27 with beauty strength and confidence. I left her a message Thursday night and she agreed to see me Friday immediately after work. Dear woman. We covered the usual ground: the holidays, family, a mutual friend's wedding. Teri is excellent at the unofficial part of her job (and perhaps the unofficial job of every service provider in the beauty industry): emotional care taker. Teri understood immediately what I needed. My 27th birthday was coming up. I had just finished interacting with the monstrosity I loosely refer to as family and I was going to yet another friend's wedding. She could also tell because in the last year I had only scheduled working appointments, meaning that there was some painful but essential function to be performed such as a chemical or glycolic peel. This time I asked for just the facial, "just the fun stuff", as we call it. The pure and absolutely indulgent pleasure of a Teri Exum facial is like visiting a lush tropical garden, a shrink, and a massage therapist all in the very same hour.


She put no less than 15 different Eminence organic creations on my face each one carefully applied and infused into my face with two hot towels. My favorite this time was a new product by eminence called Raspberry Eye Masque. A week later, I still feel like it took 8 years off my eyes. I am finally at the age where a special eye cream is a necessity and I think I have decided on the Herbal Eye Contour Cream. If you try only one eminence product in your life (which would be an incredibly foolish mistake given the tremendous amount of pleasure offered and the fleeting nature of life and joy) try this one. I do not know how they make an eye treatment product (of which you put only a minute amount around your eyes) that makes your entire body smile like a confident super model, but they do. At one point I was so relaxed my body began twitching. If it weren't for this twitching I wouldn't have woken myself up thus missing the remaining 45 minutes of this ultimate sensory pleasure. This has happened to me before and I imagine it is the equivalent of a junkie buying a bag of baking soda with their last pile of cash. It is not pleasant and I recommend doing whatever necessary to avoid falling asleep on Teri's table.

That night I was a completely different person with no trace of insanity left. I ran into an old friend at the market and happily gave her and her groceries a ride home. Everyone I encountered that evening commented that I seemed to be glowing. I knew the facial was going to leave me financially broke. That seemed a small price to pay for a complete lobotomy that left me smelling of blueberries, raspberries, Jasmine Flower Petals, Evening Primrose Oil, Stone Crop, and any other fruit, spice or heavenly essence that Eminence adeptly packs into their facial treatments. Over the course the beach vacation that followed my facial it increasingly came to my attention that my day spa affinity is more accurately described as an addiction - seeing as how I am completely willing to spend my last metaphorical dime on a number of "necessary" treatments. And at the suggestion of friend I have changed the title of this blog to reflect this admission. It also seems more fitting to rename the blog as I am obsessed with day spa treatments and yet am completely willing to spend the three days immediately following said pricey treatment dressed in torn jeans and fleece pullovers with a massive knot of curly unwashed hair piled atop my head. These are not so much the habits of a beauty queen. I suppose since I was little grooming and hygiene which allowed inner beauty to shine interested me much more than loads of makeup and hairspray which somehow seemed to negate any feeling of glamour. At least that's how it was, and is, for me. And at 27 it's so nice to be me.

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