Life’s little indulgences

The Zen Asia Spa is no newbie on the scene, and with business booming at its latest branch in JLT, it’s living up 
to an established name and more

If you do what you do really well, people are bound to come again — and bring their friends. If Mr Walt Disney will forgive the slight paraphrase, the maxim sure seems to have paid off for the folks behind Zen Asia Spa. With one outlet doing booming business in International City, their newest branch in Jumeirah Lake Towers (JLT) was a response to popular demand. The question was: was it worth a trip down from Sharjah on a Friday afternoon?

It wasn’t too difficult to locate the Thai-inspired spa in JLT. With a sister outlet for male clients just next door, the spa for women opens into an inviting space that has ‘unwind’ written all over it. The welcome drink was gladly received after the humid dust storm swirling outside that day, and once ready, I was ushered in for Phase One of my spa experience — a Swedish massage.

Relaxing and designed to ease out the knots and tensions in your muscles, a Swedish massage is a common request in the West. My therapist employed a variety of techniques during those 60 minutes, each working most effectively to make me forget the week’s worries.

Phase Two, on the other hand, was both intense and personal — probably the most accurate way of describing the Moroccan bath, as experienced by a first timer. While some may be aghast at the idea of being given a wash, the Moroccan bath is actually an old tradition practised across the Middle East, and especially undertaken by brides-to-be for that supple, glowing skin every woman so desires for her big day.

At the Zen Asia Spa, I’m told their Moroccan bath services are “literally booked till the end of October” thanks to a recent promotion, though if you’re lucky, there may be chances of an open slot on an odd day of the week. Nadia, the attendant at the spa and herself from Morocco, says they’re “extremely popular — mostly among Arabs but now slowly, among other nationalities too.”

The cleansing for the ‘regular’ treatment begins using the Moroccan black olive soap, which penetrates the skin and makes it easier to scrub off the abundance of dead skin cells that have built up unnoticed over time.

The room fills up with high intensity steam for about 5-10 minutes to open the pores and prepare it for exfoliating. Once done, Nadia takes to you with a Moroccan loofah and scrubs your skin raw. Though severely discomforting at times, it soon proves a ‘necessary evil’ as Nadia points out what looks like months of formerly invisible grime. It’s not poor hygiene, she assures a mortified me. Normal baths without the steaming and vigorous scrubbing that the Moroccan version offers just cannot cleanse the skin in quite the same way.

The final step is the ‘hosing down’ and the last traces of dirt and dead skin are washed away. In the end, whatever your reservations, the consensus by anyone who has ever experienced a Moroccan bath is always the same. You’re guaranteed to come out feeling cleaner than you ever have — and perhaps even looking forward to the next time.

Zen Asia Spa also provides a custom Dermalogica facial with skin mapping and analysis. Using an approach exclusive to the US-based Dermalogica, the spa therapist gives you an inch-by-inch analysis of your facial zones, telling you what problems your skin faces. Stress lines, pigmentation, dark circles or uneven colouring, they can spot it all. But this is no exercise in pointing out your facial flaws. What follows is a skin treatment tailored to your specific needs, with a personalised beauty regimen just for you.

With the constantly dusty atmosphere one is exposed to in Dubai, skin is probably more in need of regular cleansing treatments here than if you were located elsewhere. And with professional services at hand, there’s little excuse not to indulge in a bit of skin pampering every once in a while — even if it means driving down from Sharjah to JLT.

What we liked: The Moroccan bath; having my skin mapped

What we didn’t like: The final thwacks to the back at the end of the Swedish massage

Cost: Dh320

Contact: Zen Asia Spa, Jumeirah Business Centre 5, W Cluster, opp. Gold Damas, Jumeirah Lake Towers, 04-4572374

By Karen Ann Monsy (SPA TREK)

Khaleej Times