The Salon Experience

Oxyrich Water. 300% more oxygen (is this even possible?). Patented Process. This is what my water bottle says. Then if you read carefully: 300% more oxygen is with reference to source water, under standard test conditions. So much for the patented process. I love the advertising in India.

Ahhh. The weekend. The Saturday morning women’s class was all about dropping back from Tadasana into Urdhva Dhanurasana. There was a lot of explaining and Geeta’s mood was a little less than cheery. I think most of us were relieved when it was finally over and the weekend began!

We had several delicious meals on the Terrace in the apartment next to mine. Heidi and I switched off cooking as Christine and Gabrielle took turns doing the dishes. I hope that this arrangement continues through the rest of my stay at this apartment! So far, I’m still homeless for January.

Sunday, we ventured across town to the big, beautiful swimming pool surrounded by palm trees and waiters waiting for your order. It was nice to lay in the shade and to swim. It actually felt like vacation. After examining some sparkly gemstone necklaces (Gabrielle and Heidi have been on a shopping spree), we took off for the Salon. Still not feeling 100% better, I decided to go for the full bourgeois treatment: a facial and a body oil massage. The place is swimming with women. Ladies getting their hair cut and hennaed pedicures, manicures, head massages, body massages facials, waxes, etc. etc. Treatments are a far cry from our Western experience and I couldn’t help but giggle throughout my process.

First, they take you into the sea green back room where they have small cubicles containing massage tables. They lay a layer of thick plastic on the table. They have you undress and put on a gown that resembles a hospital gown. She started the facial. I lay on the plastic, she massaged some thick creamy substance into my face (and all I could think about are the parabens it probably contained and whether this was really such a good idea). Then she tissued off the cream, turned on a very modern looking steam machine that let out a long sad whistle as she prepped it. Here I broke into a fit of uncontrollably laughter and while my masseuse laughed with me she also asked “why are you laughing”. I couldn’t exactly answer. She steamed my face for few minutes, quickly cleaned my pores and then gobbed on an exfoliation cream. Everywhere. The tiny grabules are rubbed into my closed eyes, my eye sockets, my ears, I mean everywhere. Then she told me to get up and follow her to the hair sink in the other room to rinse my face. I couldn’t open my eyes at all because of the cream and so I had to be lead, like in a dream, to the sink where the sink squirter didn’t quite reach my face and somehow we were gonna get all this stuff off of me. I started laughing again. By time I opened my eyes, my vision was completely fogged over.

She led me back to the room to begin the oil massage. It wasn’t really the deep tissue massage I was hoping for. As she squirted oil over me again and again and lightly rubbed it in, I rationalized that the experience was at the very least probably good for my skin, again ignoring the voice in my head thinking “parabens”. As she massaged, I began to slip and slide on the plastic. Up and down. There was no doubt: I was oiled. Then she returned to the facial, rubbed more cream into my face and hair, tissued it off again, paint brushed on some kind of mask, put wet tissues over my eyes and then promptly left the room for what seemed like eons. I wondered: if the mask was meant to dry, I might be there for a really really long time. Eventually she came back into the room, once again led me blinded to the sink in the other room to rinse my face. When the mask was simply not gonna come off with water, she hastily grabbed what looked like a kitchen sponge to get the pink stuff off of my face. When I opened my eyes this time, it was as if I was looking through water. Then she led me to another room. “Steam bath” she said. Now this was great: a steam shower. She even brought me a huge bucket of really hot water and told me to wash it all off. I asked if I could stay a little bit longer here and next time I think I might just ask for the steam room all by itself. I left feeling well-moisturized, hungry, thankful for the humor of the experience and wondering when and if my vision might return to normal.