It’s been a long week. You’ve definitely earned a day at the spa with your girlfriends, but there’s just one problem: a spa day doesn’t fit into your budget. There’s no way you can afford full treatments for you and all your friends.
The good news is you don’t have to. You can treat your friends, ease your stress, and have the time of your lives with your own special at-home spa day.
A Relaxing Soak
Hot water and bathing has been a vital component of beauty and health treatments since the days of the Aegean people of Ancient Greece. The soft bubbling water eases tension, removes germs, and purifies your skin. It can even improve blood flow and circulation. Most importantly, it can relieve the stress that built up in your body all week, and relax you like nothing else can. It’s a must for any successful spa day.
Start up your hot tub, and get it ready for your day of relaxation. Make sure it’s fully stocked with towels, add your favorite fragrance to the water (as recommended by your tub’s manufacturer), and have plenty of tasty treats on hand. To complete the effect, put on some soft music and light a few scented candles.
Homemade Skin Treatments
Nice and relaxed? Good. Now it’s time to pamper your skin with some homemade treatments. The first step is to steam your face, which opens your pores and make it easier to remove any impurities. You could even add herbs or extracts to the water to improve the results and tailor it to your needs. After all, it’s your spa day.
The next step is deep cleaning to remove all the impurities and dead skin cells. Not sure what to use? Here are a few ideas:
● Lemon Juice — If you have oily skin, lemon juice will help cut through this impossible layer, leaving your skin squeaky clean.
● Oatmeal – This is ideal for gently exfoliating skin and removing dead skin cells, which can quickly clog pores and cause breakouts.
● Chamomile and/or Aloe Vera – Perfect for soothing and healing irritated or inflamed skin.
Now it’s time to apply a mask or treatment that will keep your skin looking beautiful, fresh, and young. Depending on what you prefer, it could be anything from acne treatments to under-eye, and anti-aging treatments. And finally, now that your pores are nice and clean it’s time to tighten them up again with toner.
Feeling good? Well, here’s how to feel even better.
Muscle and Full-Body Health
You’ve taken care of your skin, but what about the rest of your body? To feel as great as you look, you’ll need to work on your overall health and wellbeing. And your at-home spa day is ideal for massages or relaxing exercise routines such as Palates or yoga.
Of course, not everyone will have experience with these types of exercises. So consider bringing someone in, or having something quick and easy for everyone to follow.
For yoga or palates routines, you simply pop in an appropriate video or DVD. And as an added bonus you get to enjoy the relaxing music that often accompanies these exercises.
As for massages, you don’t need to learn any fancy movements or techniques. Here are a few simple ones that will work wonders on your body:
● Effleurage — firm strokes in the direction of the muscle
● Petrissage — lightly grab and lift the muscle
● Friction – use your thumbs and fingertips to make deep circles in the thickest areas of the muscles.
● Tapotement – light beating or tapping strokes
● Vibration — quickly shake an area to force it to release tension and relax
● Deep Tissue – firm effleurage or friction movements against the muscle’s grain
As you can see, having a spa day at home doesn’t take much effort at all. And the relaxation and relief you’ll experience will be more than worth it. You can make it even easier by mixing your homemade treatments a day or two ahead of time and hiring out as much as you can.
Before long you’ll love the convenience of your at-home treatment so much you’ll never ‘waste’ money at expensive spas again.