So spa, so good: spa review

A spa virgin, having little more than a facial in my entire lifetime, I review my first experience of a real grown-up pamper day.

A 30th birthday weekend break often involves some trademark activities. Lots of food, drinking, shopping and probably some beauty therapy time. So when my friend invited me along to her birthday weekend, and chucked the word spa in for good measure, I was more than excited for some adult indulgence.

For our chosen day of relaxation - a therapeutic morning after the night before - we chose to visit the Thermae Bath Spa, renowned for it's treatments and fabulous facilities.

Facilities
✌ ✌ ✌ ✌ ✌
Clean, well-organised, complimentary tea, a relaxation room - with fashion magazines. That's before we even think about the four different-scented steam rooms, heated indoor pool with mini-rapids and the heated outdoor pool with the jaw-dropping view over Bath.

Now I really cannot testify to how amazing the rooftop pool was. I wish I'd been able to snapchat the moment we stepped out of the lift and into the glorious sunshine beaming off the steaming-hot pool. It was like something out of a James Bond film, only with middle-aged women and couples as extras.

The steam rooms were really a lovely cathartic experience. And the pools had water reminiscent of the Indian ocean. With showers - hot and cold - and water fountains abundant, it would have been difficult to feel any discomfort.

Staff
✌ ✌ ✌ ✌
Smiley, soft-spoken and calm. But when my beauty therapist appeared from nowhere and looked like she'd just taken early retirement from the marines I became just a little more tense. Further justified when your friend later whispers to you: "I'm glad she wasn't mine". And with questions about how you're feeling, how well you're sleeping and how emotionally stressed you are, the beauty therapy questionnaire began to feel like actual therapy.

Ultimately though, they were great. Top marks for not forcing small talk.

Treatments
✌ ✌ ✌ ✌ 
We invested our bodies in the 'Treat' package: a back massage followed by a facial. The back massage was, at points, uncomfortable but ultimately a resurrectory experience. A few cracks and some knots popped straight out of my shoulders - it's like I've never slept on a floor or forgot to stretch. The facial, on the other hand, was so relaxing it sent me to sleep.

Points deducted for price only, but when you're working a student budget and living a Bradshaw lifestyle, anything that costs more than free is a sacrifice.

Bonus points for fresh, dry robes post-treatment.

Overall score:
✌ ✌ ✌ ✌ ✌
Now, I can't testify to the food or drink, but I can say that a glass of champagne would have just been the icing on the cherry on top of what was a really perfect visit.

It's hard to hate mondays when you're sitting in a jacuzzi pool, in the glorious sunshine with two of your best friends.

Treatments undertaken: May 2015 at www.thermaebathspa.com

From break up to make up: makeover review

When I was so unceremoniously broken up with this winter I made a decision: if I'm going to feel miserable, I will look fabulous.

As a beauty-therapy first timer, I threw myself in at the deep end. I was heading to Thailand for two-weeks and thought it was about time I undertook some of those treatments that are key to a low-maintenance beauty regime. So I went to a local beauty parlour across several lunch breaks to get a variety of treatments - and give my body the first-rate makeover it needed.

Here's what a waxing/threading/tinting virgin thought of them.

Shellac nails

Expectations: Gorgeous nails with no-maintenance.
Reality: Gorgeous nails! For about a week. Sometimes they last months, sometimes they chip almost instantly. There's no guarantee. And taking them off is far more difficult than normal paint.
Discomfort rating: Take a friend if you're not a fan of awkward small talk with your technician. Not an activity you can fiddle on your phone during.

Overall score:
✌ ✌ ✌ ✌

Eyelash tint

Expectations: Thick, long lashes that were invisible before because they get a bit blonde at the end. Right?
Reality: Realising that your lashes aren't shy. They're just not there. But nonetheless, perfect if you want to look more naturally well-groomed in a situation that doesn't require a full face of warpaint.
Discomfort rating: Being led down for ten minutes with your eyes closed? Unless you're allergic, this is probably the least uncomfortable treatment I've ever had.

Overall score:
✌ ✌ ✌ ✌

Eyebrow threading

Expectations: Shaped-up brows with a natural attitude.
Reality: Good shape, but was the pain worth it?
Discomfort rating: Eye-watering. Stick to plucking or try waxing.

Overall score:
✌ ✌ ✌

Eyebrow tint

Expectations: A face that's effortlessly sassy.
Reality: You might find it a bit terrifying at first. There's something about defined eyebrows that changes your facial appearance quite drastically. Once you're used to it, it'll be one of the most cost-effective facial treatments you can have.
Discomfort rating: You might look a bit weird. But hey, at least nobody's looking at your butt-hole.

Overall score:
✌ ✌ ✌ ✌ ✌

Eyelash perm

Expectations: Curvy, fluttery eyelashes that'll give you Zooey Deschanel eyes.
Reality: Curled eyelashes that really need to be tinted to give the full effect. Doesn't quite last the six weeks you're promised and the treatment takes nearly a full hour. Not a good one to undertake on a lunch break.
Discomfort rating: The little rods were a scratchy surprise.

Overall score:
✌ ✌

Leg wax

Expectations: Some ouchies resulting in smooth, razored-free, beach ready limbs.
Reality: Grows back a lot faster than you paid for. If the hair on my head required as much cutting as the hair on my legs, I could give Rapunzel a run for her money.
Discomfort rating: Not so painful as the bikini wax, but when your therapist is more interested in chatting than working, you might as well just shave.

Overall score:
✌ ✌ ✌

Bikini wax

Expectations: This will hurt. This will be worth it. I will have the genitals of a dolphin.
Reality: Talking about your holidays with a total stranger whilst face down, holding your butt-cheeks apart and praying that the next wax strip won't draw blood. Long term? Little-to-no maintenance leaving your holidays (or a naughty weekend) razor-free.
Discomfort rating: Breathe through it. It's not quite up there with piercings and root canals, but boy, sometimes you will want to kick your therapist in the crotch.

Overall score:
✌ ✌ ✌ ✌

All treatments undertaken at Eastern Arts, Winchester, March 2015.

"I never feel so much myself as when I’m in a hot bath."

Sylvia Plath ruined baths for me - which is surprising because you'd think out of any household object she'd probably ruin ovens.

In The Bell Jar, the self-absorbed, potentially-autobiographical, protagonist nonchalantly claims that she can recall every bathtub she's ever been in. This absolutely torments me.

Each time I take a bath, I lie in that god-forsaken cream coloured tub and try to count backwards all the bathtubs I can remember being in.

This bath: the family house bath, comforting, echoey and shallow.
My last university house: steep and deep and just a bit dirty.
A hotel in Turkey: excellent acoustics for an album or two.
My first university house: undissolved epsom salts and lukewarm water.

Then it starts to get really difficult.

• Did that place have a bath or a shower?
• Do hot-tubs count?
• What if there was someone else in the bath with me?

I like to think that until the moment Esther Greenwood recalled all of her previous bathtubs, she had led a very sheltered life. Perhaps she'd only ever been in three baths - so actually, her recollection ability isn't that impressive.

The point is, The Bell Jar, is not a novel that leaves no lasting affect. When you finish a book, or a TV show or a particularly good film, sometimes you'll experience that sense of loss. What do I do with my life now?

But The Bell Jar has an incredibly unique effect. You don't feel a passing loss for the story or the characters, instead the bell jar itself begins to form around you. Whether it was there before, and you simply didn't see it, or whether it forms with every passing Plath sentence, The Bell Jar - novel and psychiatric condition - becomes more evident, and harder to get over cope with.

I couldn’t see the point of getting up. I had nothing to look forward to.

With lines like that, I was not the only lit student rendered mildly depressed and bedridden post-Plath.

Esther's bathtub speech comes very early into the novel, and, I believe, is a poignant moment in noticing her internal dislocation. She states that she feels more herself when she's in the tub. And she's right. I also never feel so much Esther Greenwood as when I'm in a hot bath.