Besides the incredible weather, the laidback lifestyle, and the superb food and wine, California is also where you can spoil yourself with some of the best spa treatments in the world. And don’t you deserve to get pampered and enjoy some R&R while you’re in the Golden State? (Yes, you do.) Be prepared for future trips to California if you try any of these treatments -- they’re so good, you may find yourself making excuses to jet set to the West Coast more often.
Star Treatment: 8 Amazing Spa Treatments You Have to Experience
Meadowood
When you need a break from wine tours in Napa Valley, escape to Meadowood where you can still indulge in grapes, but in a different way. Their Grape Seed Harvest Wraps makes use of grape seed’s abundance of vitamins A, C, E, and antioxidants to help make your skin more resilient against environmental stressors such as pollution. It starts with dry brushing and hot towel compresses, and continues with a Cabernet Passion Fruit Scrub. Afterwards, your body is enveloped in a mud mask and blankets as you enjoy a massage. This may be a different way to consume your grapes than you’re used to, but one that’s just as satisfying as drinking a great wine.
Hotel Healdsburg
When in Sonoma County, you have to drink some of the area’s wine -- that’s a given. But how about a spa treatment that incorporates vino, too? At the spa at Hotel Healdsburg, get rejuvenated with the Wine and Honey Wrap, in which you get a face, neck and foot massage as you are enveloped in warm blankets. The signature treatment involves the blend of honey, organically farmed sauvignon blanc from Quivera Vineyard in Dry Creek Valley, and a hydrating cream designed to clear pores, get your circulation going, and moisturize your thirsty skin.
Osmosis Day Spa Sanctuary
If stress and achy muscles are troubling you, then the Cedar Enzyme Bath at Osmosis Day Spa Sanctuary in Sonoma should be your destination. This spa is one of the few to offer this Japanese heat treatment, in which you soak in a wooden tub containing ground cedar, rice bran and plant enzymes from Japan. It’s the fermentation of these components that creates warmth that is similar to the body’s metabolic process, and you reap the benefits of soothed muscles and joints, refreshed mind and body, and detoxifying.
Spa Radiance
If your favorite flowers are roses, then you’ll have to add the Red Rose Treatment at Spa Radiance in San Francisco to your bucket list. The two-hour treatment begins by getting your skin from head to toe baby soft with a body polish. Next, practice your deep breathing during European rose aromatherapy while you hydrate your skin with a steam tent. Finally, enjoy even more roses as a fine rose oil is massaged all over your body.
Peninsula Beverly Hills
You know that Beverly Hills, the epitome of Hollywood glamour, is sure to offer spa treatments that are simply beyond luxurious; its well-heeled locals expect the best, after all. And what could be more extravagant than a body scrub that incorporates gems and (yes, a girl’s best friend) diamonds? At the Peninsula Beverly Hills, the oils from diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires are used for their healing powers (diamonds promote harmony, for example) in their one-hour body scrub Gem Stone Revival.
Hotel Bel-Air
Bel-Air may immediately make you think of an extravagant lifestyle, so it’s fitting that La Prairie Spa at the Hotel Bel-Air offers one of the most extravagant facials in California. Your skin will be rewarded with the White Caviar Illuminating Facial, which lasts for 90 minutes and is composed of a peel, eye treatment, and caviar eye pads while the rest of your face is treated to the cellular Hydralift Firming Mask. At the same time, your hands, feet, arms, and legs are gently exfoliated, followed by a helping of Skin Caviar Luxe Body Cream.
Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire
One method that the Hollywood elite take advantage of to get picture-perfect bodies is the Diamond Magnetic at the Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire. You, too, could have that same luminescent skin with a relaxing scrub down using a mud composed of crushed diamonds, which is removed from your skin with the use of magnets; this helps rebalance your energy. Finally, any remaining stress is drained from your body with a full body massage.
Rancho Valencia
Although you do everything in your power to banish dandelions from your own backyard, this weed plays an important role in a detoxifying hands and feet treatment at the posh Rancho Valencia just outside of San Diego. Leave your tired feet (and hands) under the care of the spa aesthetician as they soak, scrub and spray them back to a healthy, stress-less and purifying state using ingredients such as burdock and licorice roots in addition to dandelion.
To find more ways to indulge in California, start dreaming here.