Renew Your Senses with Floral Extracts in Las Vegas Spas

Like delicate flowers that emerge during the season, your skin should be soft and glowing, and more importantly, hydrated.  Let nature's powerful florals deliver you blissful treatments that will rejuvenate your skin after the harsh winter and give you a new sense of beginning.  Drift Spa and Hammam inside Palms Place offers the Cherry Blossom Full-Body Ritual.  The luxurious 50-minute treatment starts with a cherry blossom exfoliation that naturally polishes and cleanses your skin.  Then, indulge in the sweet fragrance of a moisturizing cherry blossom wrap and a traditional dusting of silk powder to complete this sumptuous ritual.


For those of you who indulged in long soaks over the winter, you'll love the Lotus Flower Bath at Qua Baths & Spa inside Caesars Palace.  Concentrated with detoxifying lotus flower extract, the bath is the perfect remedy for jet lag and other imbalances due to environmental effects.  Essential oils derived from natural sources have gained notoriety for their healing properties.  And, like a lotus flower that manages to produce beauty amid its murky environment, the Lotus Flower Bath will deliver purity to your skin.

Closer to the desert environment is the healing essence of desert sage.  Appropriately named after one of the Southwest desert's natural remedies, the Desert Sage Massage is a signature treatment at Spa Mandalay inside Mandalay Bay.  Native American Indians use it to purify the mind, body and spirit before prayer and ceremonial rituals.  Developed with the purest essential oils, you will experience rejuvenation through sensory-stimulating aromatherapy.

Aligning Your Chakras

Ayurveda means the "science of life" and has been practiced in India for over 5,000 years.  As a perfect opportunity to celebrate National Meditation Month, I experienced a Chakra Balancing at Qua Baths & Spa inside Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. 

A little tense that my artisan might find out even the most minor conflicts in my life, she gently laid me down, placed a cool compress over my eyes and started reading my energy zones (Chakras).   An aromatic infusion burning sage filled the room.   Using a quartz crystal suspended from a string, she slowly read the vibrations from my body.  

After discovering where my imbalances were and sharing them with me, she gave me a brisk Ayurvedic massage.    Using  large amounts of oils, infused with herbs, the massage is meant to promote heat and accelerate the penetration of healing properties into my skin.  The overall experience was surreal.  After the workup, another reading took place to reveal a more balanced and relaxed me.  The parting gift was a necklace comprised of gemstones that would help keep me balanced and consciously work to realize my intentions.

Vdara Health & Beauty - First LV spa on Green Spa Network

Committed to sustainable luxury, Vdara Health & Beauty inside Vdara Hotel & Spa at CityCenter in Las Vegas, sets the stage for social and environmental responsibility, as it is the first Las Vegas spa to be part of the Green Spa Network.  From the rich Sapele wood that gracefully line the corridors, to the water-saving bath and shower fixtures and the vibrant vegan nail polish line,  Vdara Healthy & Beauty makes it easy to be green.  The spa focuses on holistic health, with an emphasis on using nature's healing elements.  At 18,000 square feet, the spa is a refreshing retreat that is not only revolutionary in design, but intimate and luxurious.

On the lobby level, you are encouraged to enjoy the fitness center, the salon, the champagne bar, and a boutique, which features a discerning selection of products that support the spa lifestyle.  One level above, is a co-ed relaxation lounge centered around a trickling rock fountain that meets as cascading chandelier of glass bubbles.  From withing 11 private treatment room, Vdara Health & Beauty offers a variety of body treatments, skin care therapies, massages and more.  One of the spa's specialty massage is the French Lavender Soothing Massage.  Calming lavender oil helps your body unwind, promotes restfulness, and balances the central nervous system to recharge your mood.  For the face, the Herbal Enzyme Facial is the ultimate purifying treatment that uses either black cherry of pumpkin enzymes to clear skin and slow down environmental damage.  Utilizing high-grade ingredients derived from herbs, flowers, fruits and vegetable oils, Vdara Health & Beauty is the ultimate in green indulgence.

The Spa at Green Valley Ranch

What could be more soothing than to receive a relaxing massage treatment under a ceiling of rippling water? Not much can top it. Thankfully, The Spa at Green Valley Ranch has eight treatment rooms that have been specially designed in that fashion to give you the ultimate experience of being under a hydrotherapy “spell,” if you will. It all starts from the moment you arrive. You’ll be treated to friendly and professional service and experience a distinct ambiance that is unique to The Spa at Green Valley Ranch. Planks of dark hardwoods, natural stone, water features and plenty of skylights provide an open feeling that’s also warm and comfortable. Choose from a wide range of services, including massages, scrubs, facials, salon services and yoga classes. Work out in the gym, which opens up to a 25-meter outdoor lap pool, or try some of its specialty treatments, like the Green Valley Green Tea Wrap, which includes a grape seed body scrub, followed by a green tea, seaweed and ginger root wrap. Or, try the Hydra Quench Cocoon, where your treatment blanket provides soothing heat while it works to detoxify and re-mineralize the body. The Spa is an especially great place for couples. The couples’ room has an oversized tub and a private outdoor lanai area. The co-ed lap pool, whirlpool tub and steam room are also perfect places for couples to enjoy their day at the spa together. So, hail a taxi to The Spa at Green Valley Ranch, and get ready to spend the whole day in blissful relaxation.

Teas - A new trend in social spa-ing at Qua Baths & Spa at Caesars Palace Las Vegas

Steep in relaxation in more ways than one at Qua Baths & Spa inside Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Spa goers will truly appreciate and indulge in the tea lounge that offers a unique international loose-leaf tea menu developed by the spa’s in-house tea sommelier Melissa Fielding. “Qua has paved the way with a new trend of social spa-ing, and there is no beverage more appropriate to share with others than tea,” says Fielding. In collaboration with Steve Schwartz, owner of Beverly Hills-based Art of Tea, Fielding developed a signature blend that evokes flavors of black tea, passion fruit, jasmine and vanilla, as well as tea menus specifically created for men and women.

On the women’s tea menu, Fielding blended teas with flavors that appeal to the tastes and needs of women. Fruit and flowers capture the taste buds in selections such as the Summer Rain, a cantaloupe and lychee-blended white tea, as well as the White Peach, where a combination of the osmanthus flower and peach essences create a refreshingly crisp taste.

The tea menu on the men’s side include the Gunpowder tea, a wok-fired Chinese green tea, which is rolled into small spheres that resemble actual gunpowder tablets and derives a smoky flavor.

So, while at Qua Baths & Spa, take in all the goodness from its therapeutic Roman Baths to world-class body therapies, and sip the benefits of tea for a whole-body experience that promotes wellness through and through.

Vinotherapy - Cheers to being ageless!

We’ve all been hearing for years about the benefits of consuming wine. So, it’s not at all surprising that the grape has found its way into the most exclusive spas in the world. “Vinotherapy” got its start from Bordeaux, France, where the latitude and longitude provides the perfect climate for grape growing. The Cabernet grape is king in that valley, and the French knew early on that drinking it was just as good as lavishly painting and kneading our bodies with all the fruity goodness that’s left in the wine press.

Though it may sound like a passing esthetics fad, vinotherapy is strongly rooted in scientific research. Mathilde Cathiard-Thomas and her husband, Bertrand Thomas, credited for creating the world’s first trademarked Vinotherapie "wine spa" -- Les Sources de Caudalie – in the Bordeaux region of France in 1999, base their philosophy on scientific findings.

Through research, they discovered that grape seeds discarded at the end of the grape harvest contained powerful anti-aging properties. Grape seed polyphenols have an incredible capacity to fight free radicals, and therefore fight aging. No offense to Vitamins C and E, but this antioxidant is more impressive. Grapeseed oil is also high in ologonomeric promanthoscyanidins (PCOs), another strong antioxidant which can greatly strengthen and repair connective tissue and promote healthy, vibrant skin.


VINOTHERAPY WORLDWIDE (Many of these are within or near vineyards - a true exotic journey for wine connoisseurs!)

U.S.

Spa Agio – Redmond, WA
Offers sumptuous wine baths and a variety of vinotherapy treatments for the face and body.

Aquae Sulis – Las Vegas, NV
The “Wine Down” vichy therapy uses finely crushed grape and champagne grape seeds.

Vinothérapie Spa - New York, NY
A Caudalié spa inside the Plaza Hotel that offers a wide range of grape therapies, inlcuding the Grand Facial.

The Spa at Chateau Elan - Braselton, GA
The Vine Mud Body Mask combines crushed grape seeds and rich, French clay.

Delluva - New York, NY
A “full-bodied” grape exfoliation and wrap uses grapes from South Africa.

Ritz Carlton, Lake Las Vegas - Henderson, Nevada
A couple’s ceremony commences with a Chardonnay sugar exfoliation followed by an intimate soak in our jetted tub and finishes with a A full-body massage with body butter made with grape seed, lavender, rosemary, chamomile and jojoba.

OUTSIDE OF U.S.

Balgownie Estate Vineyard Resort & Spa – Yarra Valley, Australia
Indulge in a Pinot Noir Bath, or grape see exfoliation.

Santé Winelands Wellness Center - Stellenbosch, South Africa
Revitalize after a shiraz scrub or a chardonnay cocoon wrap.

Hotel Marques De Riscal – Basque, Spain
The four-hand grape seed oil massage is another Caudalié Vinothérapie signature treatment.

Les Sources de Caudalie – Bordeaux, France
This is where it all started. The 100% Grape Ritual offers three exclusive treatments : Red Vine Bath and Honey and Wine Wrap, in combination with a Crushed Cabernet Scrub, Vinosource Riche facial treatment and Pulp Friction massage.


AT HOME
Want to harvest the benefits of grapes with products you can use at home? Visit the following sites to browse their products:

Caudalié (www.caudalie.com)
Leroux Creek Spa Vine Therapy (www.lerouxcreekspa.com)
Napa Valley Spa Products (www.napavalleyspaproducts.com)

Vegas spas then and now

We think that the “spa” concept originated during the Roman Empire when battle-weary legionnaires healed their aching bodies in hot, mineral wells. Not much has changed today. We, too, seek refuge from our daily crusades. Leaving our weapons of cell phones and PDAs in private lockers, we escape to our own hot wells that are tiled with African jade or other exotic stones and surrounded by delicate rose petals and flickering candles.

Spas have evolved since the ancient times, and looking at just the last decade, resort spas in Las Vegas witnessed a revolutionary change. Once they were nothing more than amenities, which included a sauna, steam room, whirlpool, conventional Swedish massages and a few whining excercycles. Today, the menu of offerings is modern and eclectic, from Watsu pool massages to seaweed body cocoons and equipment fit for NASA’s training program.

Before Mandalay Bay, THEhotel, Four Seasons, Bellagio, Paris, and The Venetian joined the strip, resort spas were sparse. Las Vegas now has the highest spa density in the country, and these mega properties boast the largest spas in the nation. When Canyon Ranch SpaClub completes its expansion, it’s poised to be the world’s largest spa - maxing out at 143,000 square feet – bigger than most gaming floors on the strip.

Originally, luxury clientele like Casino VIPs made up most of the spa-going crowd. But, today’s clientele has virtually no profile, as spa culture has developed into an activity of the masses. Men are also joining the “feel-good” club, which may explain why Canyon Ranch SpaClub is adding the conservatory, a grand 2,700 square foot co-ed gathering space. “In Las Vegas we create an experience that they (patrons) cannot get at home,” says Blake Feeney, Spa Director for the SpaClub.

So what makes Las Vegas spas so unique, and how have our expectations evolved as intelligent spa enthusiasts? We want to be invited into a tranquil setting that has indoor streams and stone bridges, accompanied by the sounds of a fluttering bamboo flute in the background to reconnect us with nature. We desire to be taken far away from society to experience an exotic massage where the therapist kneads our backs with her feet. We want to paint our partners with colorful mud before taking our Swiss showers. We eagerly partake in a questionnaire to discover our aromotherapeutic needs and create a customized concoction of oils to be used during our massage. We expect classes in power yoga, meditation and Pilates. And, since we’ve been known to spend an entire day at the spa, we order in a delicious meal to our relaxation room that surrounds us with soothing color therapy lights and trickling waterfalls. And, when we’re all rejuvenated, we dare to get an application of body art made up of tiny Swarovski crystals to show off when we go out on the town.

Our contemporary hot wells have significantly evolved over time, but the fundamental concept of cleansing and rejuvenation is still the core elements of the present-day spa. Despite how spas have grown in the last 10 years, in Vegas, we may be still be closer the Roman ages when drinking, merry-making and feasting preceded the healing therapies they found in nearby springs. Perhaps that’s why some of the best restorative sanctuaries for the mind, body and soul, are found in Las Vegas.