A weird beauty experience

As I had a day off this week, I thought you know what, I’m going to book in a massage and a facial as yo to the freaking low it’s just been payday. I wanted to avoid going into Leeds city centre as it’s the school hellidaysholidays so I decided to go for somewhere new in north Leeds. As the address said Alwoodley, I thought it must be pretty nice so I popped my payment details into Treatwell (if you’re not familiar, this is an online booking service for beauty treatments), the address into Google maps and off I went. 20 minutes later, I’m in a residential area and realised pretty quickly that my treatment will be taking place in someone’s house. Nice one Lizi.

Still, I did think that though it’s a bit weird, that working from home isn’t uncommon and I was sure it would be OK. Well, it was an experience. The treatment room wasn’t exactly a calming environment as it was quite frankly, full of junk (even by my standards) but given I would have my eyes firmly shut for the treatment, I decided not to think too much of it. I’d booked a massage and facial which was half an hour of each and started with the back massage.

The massage itself was good – it was firm and worked knots out of my back that I didn’t even know where there. It did get a little odd when the therapist pushed down on pressure points from my feet, up my legs and right up my back as this included my ass. Not quite what I was expecting but I was going with it. I turned over and then it was time for the facial. I was asked to put on a plastic shower cap (the type you get in a hotel bathroom) so that the products didn’t get in my hair, so for a lot of the time, I could just hear rustling. As it happened, my treatment included a scalp massage so I left with products in my hair regardless.

I’m really not sure what products she used or what they did but there were three occasions where she left the room entirely without saying anything, the first two times were for a few minutes, but the last time was for at least 10 minutes. Is that weird? It got to the point where I was starting to wonder how long I needed to leave it before going to investigate whether or not she’d died. Luckily, she returned.

Another thing which I thought was a bit weird for a relaxing experience was when she put a ring light over my face (though I had cotton pads over my eyes, I thought if I opened them I might get blinded) and she went on to squeeze a spot that’s just next to my eyebrow. I don’t think that’s quite what I signed up for but I went with it, mainly as it was too late by this point to object. Whilst I’m all in favour of squeezing spots as I’m the kind of gross person who thinks it’s satisfying, I’m pretty sure the professional line is to leave them be, right?

Just when I started to think the experience couldn’t get any weirder, whilst I had one of the multiple facemasks on, she did a shoulder, neck and chest massage. Now, I don’t want to sound incredibly prudish but I’ve had a few treatments like this in the past and this was the first time that a therapist has massaged between my boobs, going as far down as just below the sternum. Without warning. I’m not a mega touchy feely or body confident kinda gal and I must admit, this was a fair bit out of my comfort zone, especially as it was a fairly firm massage. The rest of the massage bit was fine but it did make me tense up a little every time her hands were below my collarbones as I wasn’t sure if my towel was going to slip any lower!

By the time the end of the treatment came around, I was pretty keen to get out of there and whilst I can’t fault the massage or how my skin feels, I feel like I left with a weird story to tell rather than feeling all zen.

Have you had an experience like this before? Do you think I’m overreacting when I say that spot squeezing is a little too far? Let me know in the comments.