Grooming was never my cup of tea. I've always been at sea in a sea of conditioners, toners, moisturisers, emollients and emulsifiers. Call them what you will, I always thought these were a woman's domain. Going to a beauty salon to get a facial, manicure or pedicure sounded very odd to me. Moreover, it seemed like a narcissistic exercise, and narcissism is not my cup of tea.
So when my editor ordered me to set off on a journey of spa treatments, I did not particularly believe I was the right choice, seeing as I had never undergone a beauty treatment in my entire life. It seemed like a big ask. But then, who was I to argue? The prospect of being groomed did initially make me feel nervous - like a terrified chicken being force-fed by a farmer. Then I did a rethink. Why shy away from looking better? Maybe the grooming could lift me up from being a boring, rebarbative, mundane nobody to a soigné rara avis, bursting with hubris and radiance, the kind of transformation models undergo in commercials promoting certain skincare products.
I decide to grasp the nettle. Casting my doubts aside, I set off for Man/Age on a recent Sunday afternoon. Recommended by my colleagues, this luxury men's spa located in Dubai Media City would change my whole view on grooming…
The interiors of Man/Age are elegant, particularly in the reception area, with soft lighting enhancing the effect of the dark chocolate coloured walls and burnished wood flooring. A glass rack showcasing beauty products stands near the entrance, a white sofa and a small low table for magazines take up the space behind it, while columns grace the walkway to the counter. Sophisticated hues, refined environs. I am beginning to like it. Roselle Navarce-Padua, operations manager at Man/Age, greets me at the reception. She kickstarts the conversation with, "Would you like something to drink?" But I was too nervous to accept the offer.
The spa looks like a haven for someone brassed off with the rigours of city life. Yes, that's what grooming is for says Navarce-Padua: it is a break from a stressful lifestyle. "Men are now more conscious of their looks. They want to look good, they want to feel good, be pampered and they want to relax."
Man/Age offers a variety of services and treatments for the client who wants to look good and feel good: hair care, body care, massage, face care, manicure and pedicure.
The Royal Moroccan
The Royal Moroccan (also known as the Moroccan bath or hamam maghrebi in Arabic) kickstarts the grooming treatment for me. This is a head-to-toe exfoliation which is good for removing dead skin, says Navarce-Padua. It is a very popular treatment that I am told banishes the toxins from the body. "Moreover, it kills muscular aches or pains," she says. Here I have to enter a ‘steam room' for the treatment.
Before I enter the steam room, Padua asks me whether I am claustrophobic, asthmatic or have high blood pressure. "Goodness, no," I tell her. But why does she ask? "Because the steam and the enclosed space can make some people feel uncomfortable," she tells me.
Hamid, the Moroccan bath therapist and supervisor at the spa, who will be giving me the treatment, asks me to change into a pair of black shorts. He doesn't follow me into the steam room immediately, he will come in after 10 minutes or so, at which point I will be perspiring from head to toe. When I enter the steam room, it is like entering a dense fog. The room is not very big; there is a ceramic bed with a cushion on top at one end of the room, with a pipe that lets out the steam near the entrance. I grope my way through the ‘fog' towards the ceramic bed and sit on it. It feels odd, sitting by one's lonesome, in a ‘smoke'-filled room that gets warmer and warmer as the minutes tick by. The heat is on, literally, and my sweat glands have been galvanised into action. Brace yourself for what's next, I tell myself.
Hamid enters the room after some time, and convinced that I am sweating profusely, rinses my body with warm water. He takes a black soap, which looks more like paste to me, and applies it to my body. Then he asks me to wait for a few minutes so "that the pores can open and make it easy for exfoliation" (by now the steam pipe has been turned off). Exfoliation: there's that word again - a high-sounding term whose full import I am yet to grasp.
The next thing I am told to do is lie on my stomach and, with a bluish loofah, Hamid starts scrubbing me, beginning with my back. No one has scrubbed me like that before, but it's not irksome or cumbersome. Rather, it ushers in a feel-good state that just refuses to go away. In between his soundbites rent the air: "The Moroccan bath has a medicinal value. It relaxes and de-stresses the body"; "I hail from Casablanca, Morocco. My father also had the same practice, but has now retired"; "your skin is very dry, you should moisturise it regularly." My position does not give me much room to acknowledge his lines by way of nodding my head. But no matter. He has my tacit approval.
After scrubbing me for what seems like an eternity, he rinses the body to "wash off all the dead skin". I note a distinct difference already: the skin already feels soft and hydrated.
There is more work to be done, but suffice it to say that with each step, I am beginning to enjoy the treatment more and more. It is as soothing as the soft strains of music that waft over the room.
Like all good things, this body cleansing treatment comes to an end, and just when it was crowding in on my senses. I wish it had gone on for longer.
The facial
For a long, long time, my concept of a facial was limited to washing my face with a bar of soap and then towelling off the dampness. After that I was ready to face the world. That is until I joined Friday. I was immediately catapulted into a strange new world where the differences between moisturisers and emollients, water-based moisturisers and gels, and many other such esoteric comparisons were drawn regularly by my female colleagues. I often felt I was in a foreign language class. Eventually I realised the world of beauty was not as simple as I had thought it to be. And so it was that all these bits and pieces of half-knowledge that had stuck in my mind made their worth felt as I entered the facial room. In a manner of speaking, I was more switched on than before.
The facial I try is called The High Performer, a deeply hydrating protective and conditioning treatment. Maggie, my facial therapist, shines what looks like a magnifying lamp on my face and says, "You have dehydrated skin." Do I? (Various scraps of admonishments from my female colleagues on my lack of skincare drift by. I need to brace myself for the ‘I-told-you-sos'.)
Maggie then lets loose a volley of questions: "Do you have any medical problems?", "Have you undergone laser hair removal?" (now that's an interesting question, considering that I am ‘follicly challenged'). "Are you undergoing treatment from a dermatologist?" "Do you smoke?" The replies to all of the questions are negative.
I lie on the bed and am asked to close my eyes. After a few minutes, I hear a whirring sound and the next thing I feel a rather cool lotion being sprayed on my face. "This is a toner," Maggie explains. "This is for balancing the tone of your skin."
How did you determine my skin type, I ask her, eyes still shut. "Because I saw flakes on your skin. There is a magnifying lamp here, to show what skin type you have." I offer her my silent sympathies.
For the exfoliation, she puts a paraffin wax mask on my face. "I can't even see how I look in the mirror," I muffle through the mask. (A flash of a scene from H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man streaks past my mind's eye.) I try not to think too much about how I look.
After the mask is removed, it's crunch time: the removal of blackheads and whiteheads. (I wish I had paid more attention to what the girls in the office talked about.) Maggie goes about the task in a slow, unhurried fashion, while I assume a boulder-like immobility.
"You need to have a facial at least once a month," she tells me politely. "Do you keep products for the skin at home?"
"No."
"Why?"
I have absolutely no clue what to say as the answer to that.
"You have to use a moisturiser regularly [that word again!], and a sunblock always so that your skin is protected." She then says the dreaded words. "You have a few wrinkles around your eyes and on your forehead." She suggests I go in for microdermabrasion.
Again I am not sure what to say. I am beginning to think I have begun on a journey that has taken a route of which I know nothing. Not very encouraging. Here I was, happily oblivious to the passage of years, fully believing that age is a state of mind. But now I have a distinct feeling of being hit by a bolt from the blue.
After the blackfeads and whiteheads have been dealt with, Maggie says, "You must take care of your face on a daily basis." If she weren't so nice and helpful, I would think she was reprimanding me.
She wraps the facial up by massaging the face with an energising facial oil.
"There is no need to wash your face tonight," she tells me. "But drink lots of water," is her parting shot.
Back home I stepped up to the mirror with trepidation and braced myself. What did I see? Clearer skin and dare I say it, softer looking too. What was I thinking all these years?
The manicure and pedicure
My version of a pedicure and manicure over the years, in much the same vein as a facial, was limited to the monthly use of the nail cutter. Clip and you are done. But my visit to the spa changed all that. Overnight, my parish-pump attitude underwent a volte-face: tender loving care, not wear and tear, became the bellwether.
The Signature manicure and pedicure are done simultaneously in a room of white sofas and removable foot stands with bowls for the pedicure. The pedicure is done by James, and the manicure by Sharon.
I didn't know legs needed an antibacterial gel, or foot files or buffing, or that a manicure needed an exfoliating paste, a cuticle softener, and buffing too. What did Mr Flintstone do? But then we have come a long way since then. (I hadn't, but then again here I was, coming of age.)
After the treatment, my feet and hands look entirely charming. "You need to apply cream on your feet and hands because you have dry skin," Sharon tells me. I am beginning to think I have been parched all my life.
The treatments have led to one result: I feel relaxed, refreshed and reinvigorated. My skin feels good, my face, as my colleagues tell me with ill-concealed glee, looks better, and they don't have to spend any more time lecturing me on the importance of grooming. Chuffed, I am going a bundle on an encore.
The most fitting remark comes from Hamid, when he suggests that I should come to the spa at least once a month for the Moroccan bath.
"Maybe," I tell him.
"Don't say maybe. Say surely," he quips.
