A freshly squeezed pedicure please

Yet again I had one of those days where I just know I'd be fabulous as a millionaire. I went back to the Bliss Spa for a special Birthday Pedicure. You may wonder how good a £60 pedicure can be. Well, let me tell you, it can be wondrous.

It lasts an hour and this is a place that has a menu of pedicures, hot almond and milk, double chocolate, head over peels! I went for Freshly Squeezed because a) you got a free glass of orange juice and b) you got a special Essie nail varnish. I'm all about freebies. It was delightful from the word go, fresh orange slices went in the water along with their blood orange gel and essential oils. It smelt heavenly. My feet were buffed, scrubbed, buffed more, scrubbed more, attended to with more detail than you can imagine and then massaged and finally the toenails painted with meticulous care, they are a work of art. The orange juice was all iced up and delicious, I had magazines galore. Sex And The City was on the television. Basically it was a dream pedicure. My feet were like baby feet at the end.

I picked Essie's Oli Caliente for my colour, again there was so much choice, it was a bit overwhelming.

At the end I was given my bottle of nail varnish in Freshly Squeezed - exclusive to the salon don't you know and full size. I was also given some body butter as it was my birthday (well, it is on Monday) and get this - if you go in your birthday month, you get 15% off your treatment. As if it couldn't get any better, there was a tremendous sale on and I got a whole load of goodies for half price. I don't think I could have been happier, I bounced out with my baby smooth feet and hit Liz Earle and Peter Jones. But that's a different story...

I highly recommend the Bliss Spa, no spa I've been to is comparable to the treatments. It's fun and totally pampering.

An update

I wanted to update you on a few things, none of which warrant an individual post.

First up, you may remember I wanted to try the new MAC moisture gel. At the airport last week, I had some time to kill and there it was. At £20 I figured, why not? It's nice and very light, this is not for winter time. It's actually a good holiday moisturiser when you've put on loads of sun cream and need something light after your evening ablutions. No SPF. This would be great on teenage skin I am sure but it's a little bit too light for my ravaged face!

I am sure you've all been on the edge of your seat awaiting a status update on my Shellac nails. It's good news my friends! We are eight days in and not a single chip and the nails are still super-shiny. I'm a bit fascinated by this, how can it be possible? My only complaint is I've knocked a few nails on something white as they have very tiny white marks on them - this is my fault however. ETA: I just used nail varnish remover to get the white marks off and it worked! I shall be doing this for any future holidays as it's great to have your nails done and that to be that. I won't be doing them regularly though as I don't like committing to a colour for so long, I'm already a bit bored with this red. Nonetheless, recommended highly.

A Brazilian Blow Dry update. It's been three months since I had the treatment and it has pretty much worn off now. My hair was much easier to style and generally looked better every day than when I don't have it done. This is not a life-changing treatment but I think it's worth having. So much so that I've booked it again through Wahenda. I wouldn't spend over £200 on it but then you never need to with these offers.

Hammam

A holiday isn't a holiday unless you partake of a treatment. After two days traipsing round Marrakech (with associated 'helpful' locals constantly talking to you, trying to sell you something or pointing you to the square which seriously, anyone could find without help) we retired to the mountains for a few days of R&R.

Every guidebook to Morocco will tell you about hammams. Anyway, what it means is a full body scrub. This treatment is not for the body shy, you have to strip naked and have hot water poured over you. Then you are soaped everywhere with strange soap that is a bit like earwax (to look at, it smelt nice enough!) and then you are scrubbed with flannels. It's a strange sensation and it almost hurts they scrub you so hard. They wash and condition your hair too. Then some sort of mud concoction is applied. And then it's all washed away with hot water which is ladled into a bucket and then ladled on to you. Why they don't use a shower is anyone's guess!

Did I enjoy it? Well, yes I did once I got over the shock of being completely naked and the harshness of the scrubbing. It was strangely relaxing. The whole thing took an hour and I emerged a bit like a new-born baby blinking into the sunlight to the view above. There are worse ways to spend an hour. And my skin has never been so smooth.

If you are heading to Morocco then this is well worth having done but go somewhere a bit touristy or associated with your riad as I think this could be quite unpleasant in a back street without some serious hygiene rules.

Bliss Fully Loaded Facial

Today I skipped off in the torrential August rain for my Bliss Fully Loaded Facial as mentioned last week. The Spa is on Sloane Avenue and given that I have no sense of direction, I managed to get lost and it was raining in a biblical manner so I hopped in a cab for a four minute journey. I arrived fraught and damp but was soon soothed by this fabulous place.

This is a spa to end all spas. Never mind my cosy little facials down the road for a fraction of the price, this is where the serious moneyed come to maintain their glossy good looks. From the minute I entered, I felt like all was going to be well. I was ushered downstairs with my printed itinerary. Lockers were stocked with white robes, a towel and a bottle of water. I changed and waited in the Bliss Lounge which had every single magazine you could ever want to read and a plate of cheese and fruit, brownies, some super-healthy cold tea bursting with antioxidants and various other goodies. I managed to have some tea before the impossibly beautiful facialist (darling) came to collect me.

The room I was shown to was lovely and she told me to get into the bed and make myself cosy. The bed was heated underneath - heavenly. She came back in and proceeded to ask me the usual questions about my diet and skin routine. She did some preliminary investigation of my face and declared I'd be ideal to have a peel - not a chemical peel, some Japanese mushroom thing. She must have seen me coming. It cost an extra £50. At this point, I am entranced so I said yes (bearing in mind a large proportion of the cost was a giftcard). She went away and came back with some vial of elixir which she applied to my visage.

What followed was literally dozens of applications of unguents on my face and decolletage, waiting for various amounts of time and then being taken off with scented hot flannels. While the potions were working I was treated to arm and hand massage, foot massage, shoulder massage, head massage and she put a hair mask on me too. It was utterly over the top and of course I loved it. There was one bit I didn't like, she went away and came back in with some rubberised potion and said close your eyes and then put it on, it was very heavy and basically sets on your face and you cannot open your eyes with it on. I suddenly felt very claustrophobic and sweaty. I told her I didn't like it and she very sweetly said she could only remove it when it set. This made me feel worse. So we had a rather awkward five minutes of me trying to calm down and her giving me an extra foot massage before it was peeled off.

To the extraction. I've never had extraction like it, she used some electronic thing all over my face (no idea what it did) and then a plain old blackhead remover but oh my word, she was thorough. She went behind my ears. Who knew I had blackheads behind my ears? Actually, nobody would ever know but I am pleased to report they are now gone. She practically went up my nose, in my ears. No square millimetre was left untouched.

At the end she consulted with me in the lovely big light mirror in the changing room, looking at all angles of my face, to check I was happy. What service! Then I showered with gorgeous Bliss products (to get the gunk out of my hair) slathered myself with their expensive body lotions, used their state of the art hairdryers (totally need one of them) and downed a bottle of water - very dehydrating having a facial.

Upstairs she'd picked out products to try and sell me (they sell more than Bliss and use more than just Bliss in their facials which I think is nice) but honestly, it was more than enough money for one day so I resisted. She gave me a load of very generous sized products though and I swung out feeling like a million dollars. Oh, and my skin is properly glowing - not red at all from all that extraction work.

Upstairs was amazing. It's where they do manicures and they have television screens playing Sex and the City episodes which is kind of obvious but nonetheless, quite cute.

The whole experience was sublime, I've never had a facial like it. I want to move in for a weekend and have every treatment. If you aren't lucky enough to be given a gift card and feel like spoiling yourself, I can't recommend it highly enough. It's rare for a spa to be so normal and down to earth and yet make you feel really special. Bliss gets it just right.

I am already plotting a future visit.

Maintenance

I need these medicinal looking women to spend about 48 hours making me gorgeous again. Work is rather intense at the moment and I have spots, yes, spots. My roots need doing and my nails are a mess. I need to be dipped in a vat of wax, pummelled with massage, hair coloured and cut, a facial and a mani/pedi.

Today I had five minutes free at work and so I spent them usefully. I booked in for a Bliss Spa Fully Loaded facial. I got a very generous Bliss gift card for my birthday so it's free! I am very excited about it, especially the Hair Dew treatment. I am going next weekend.

Then I booked a leg wax - not very exciting but the South of France calls and I can't turn up looking like a yeti. I booked in for a cut and colour with my hairdresser too. I call that five minutes very well spent. I topped it off with buying a pair of shoes online.

Sometimes you need to just spend money on yourself. Now I am 21, this is more important than ever...

Fishy pedi - reporting back

I was going to post a picture from Google of fish eating feet but the faint-hearted among you may not thank me. Google it if you are interested.

Last week, as advertised, I paid to have fish nibble my feet. It was bizarre. You have to wipe your feet with a wet wipe first and then you literally plunge your feet into a tank of fish and they swarm round and start eating. I hated the first 60 seconds and wanted to pull my feet out but then I had a word with myself and settled in. It's deeply weird and icky but I must say after their 30 minute dinner, my feet were very smooth.

Having said that, I am not sure I'd have it done again as the more I think about it, the more I think urggghhhhh.

Fishy pedicure

Tomorrow I am going to let fish eat my feet. Lucky fish. I shall be reporting back. This might be my shortest post ever. Has anyone else had a fishy pedi?