Outing Your Inner Beauty
Sun Herald
Sunday May 11, 2003
Bikini wax or aromatherapy session? The latest beauty buzz brings alternative therapies to the salon.
Carla is just back from a session with her beauty therapist and her skin's glowing, but she barely notices that. What she is describing in a dreamy tone is how good she feels. For this was no ordinary deep cleanse and zit extraction, more a one-hour session that started with a mask and ended with a clearing of her chi meridians (energy pathways). "About five minutes into the treatment, this blissful feeling started flooding my body," enthuses the 32-year-old hospitality executive. "It felt like the bed fell away from underneath me and I was levitating."
Increasingly well versed and trained in alternative treatments such as aromatherapy, reflexology and reiki, modern beauticians are moving on from the simple eyebrow shape and bikini wax. "Beauty is the art of making someone feel good in your presence and to do that you need to treat the whole person - body, mind and spirit," says David Wehner from Sydney's Nature Care College. "And you can't get that out of a jar." He describes the new breed as "beauty therapists, not beauty terrorists".
Heather Vounnou, skin-care specialist with The International Dermal Institute, a skin-care education centre in Sydney, calls the new approach to beauty therapy "treating mentally damaged skin". She believes that our skin doesn't show the signs of ageing simply because we turn 30, but because how we think and handle our emotions surfaces on our skin, literally.
This psycho-physiological approach to treating skin conditions has been championed by Dr Ted A. Grossbart from the Harvard Medical School. He has co-authored Skin Deep: A Mind/Body Program For Healthy Skin, a book that draws on his experience as a clinical psychologist to explain how the skin conditions we suffer, be it acne or rosacea, are often a reflection of how we feel and can be better treated through the emotions than the epidermis.
"People are a lot more aware now that outer radiance has to come from inner health," says Julie-Anne Kelly, co-manager of the Retreat spas in Melbourne. "When clients come in with excessive dryness of the skin, for example, or cracked heels, we do what we can beauty treatment-wise, then we advise them that a complementary therapy might also help. This might be kinesiology [muscle memory testing] or hypnotherapy, osteopathy or naturopathy, depending on the individual case."
Kelly explains that the incorporation of healing therapies came in response to demands from her clients, predominantly 25- to 35-year-old professionals.
"The physical and the emotional are interconnected; we know that," says Shane Herbert, director of mind-body spa Centre of Attention in Sydney's Double Bay. "When the physical is stimulated, you feel good. If you are coping with a lot emotionally, then that can manifest physically, too."
As well as shiatsu, yoga, naturopathy and meditation, Herbert's clinic offers a series of unconventional beauty treatments, such as the Tiger facial, where clay in various colours is painted over the face, like war paint, to correspond to different systems of the body. This treatment, from French company La Phyto, is "like reflexology for the face", explains Herbert, adding that the clays work on the muscular, nervous, circulatory and lymphatic systems of the body to release blocked "energy".
Sharon McGlinchey, director of Sydney's MV Radiance holistic skin rejuvenation centre, says that when she made the decision to embrace a more natural, holistic approach to beauty therapy, "doors shut on me. Other beauty therapists could not understand why I wanted to incorporate guided visualisation or yogic breathing into beauty treatments," she says.
What motivated her was her own life experience: "I was the classic A-type personality, stressed out, suffering from adrenal burnout and caught up in the rat race. When I started taking yoga classes 12 years ago, it was in the guided meditation that I found a stillness that changed everything." As a bonus, McGlinchey says, she appeared more "fresh faced" and regular breakouts along her jawline stopped.
Lyndall Mitchel, managing director of the Aurora Spa Retreat at The Prince Hotel in Melbourne's St Kilda, calls it "concentrated time out". Mitchel, formerly of Camp Eden health retreat in the Gold Coast hinterland, wanted to offer the same "amazing feeling" clients get after a week on a health farm, within kilometres of their home. Aurora - one of about 330 spas in Australia, up from three in 1997 - offers therapies from holistic life coaching to reiki. She states her mission is "to relax the mind, detox the body, nourish the skin", which is a far cry from plucking stray eyebrow hairs or peeling off dead skin cells.
Of course, this style of body-mind treatment is not for everyone. "I am not into it at all," cries Elizabeth, a 25-year-old investment analyst, who booked in for a facial after a week of demanding client meetings.
"I wanted to be pampered - but I felt as if I barely got anything. I wanted to walk out feeling like my skin had been massaged and steamed and scrubbed, but instead I felt as if I had paid $100 for the therapist to 'heal' my feet."
Make mine a...
Booking in for a beauty treatment
now requires fluency in a whole new language. Here are some common terms
Acupressure Based on the Chinese principle that energy (chi) flows around the body along meridians. Gentle pressure is applied to specific points to balance the flow of energy.
Aromatherapy Essential oils are used to affect the wellbeing of the mind and body through the olfactory sense.
Chakra balancing This Indian practice is based on the belief that energy (prana) circulates through the body along pathways (nadis). These converge at five major points along the spine and two in the head, forming wheels of energy, or chakras.
Energy work A term for any form of therapy that treats the energy flow within the body.
LymphATIC drainage Gentle pressure, with a focus on the lymphatic system, releases congestion and flushes toxins from the body.
Qi gong (or chi gong) Meaning "to cultivate life energy",
this ancient Chinese practice involves physical postures, breathing techniques and mental focus.
Reflexology Pressure is applied to points on the hands and feet to bring about physiological changes in the body.
Reiki A Japanese treatment that channels universal healing energy through the palms of the hands into the treated person's body. Can be administered with the hands touching the body, or with the hands off.
Shiatsu The Japanese interpretation of Chinese acupressure.
© 2003 Sun Herald
