Packaged Pleasures By Janet Bennett Washingtonpost.com Staff Wednesday, April 12, 2000

A massage can help circulation as well as banish annoying aches and relieve stress. Reginald A. Pearman Jr./washingtonpost.com

I had signed up for something called a Body Break, a $155 package that includes a therapeutic full-body massage, facial, manicure and pedicure. First on my busy agenda, said the receptionist who greeted me in the marble and pink reception area, was to be a massage. Clad in all white, my therapist Karen (I had requested a woman), leads me back through a maze of rooms (the facility is 6,000 square feet); I wished I had thrown bread crumbs when I tried to wend my way back later that afternoon. For the next hour, as I lay beneath a mass of towels in a pink candlelit room to the accompaniment of soothing music, Karen applies almond oils and other fragrant-smelling potions while she kneads, presses and pulls the muscles in my neck, back, legs, hands and feet into submission. When I can't keep back an occasional ouch, she explains that's because my muscles are all knotted in those particular places. By the time my hour is up, though, those pesky old knots seem to have magically liquefied, and even the nagging pain in the small of my back has disappeared. Karen then leads me, or shall I say I float along with her, to my next appointment.

I'm only standing for a few seconds before I'm back down again, this time face up, as my facial expert, Shahlah, analyzes my skin. She does so under the microscope and recommends a vitamin-replenishing facial for my dry, delicate skin. All of Jolie's facials include the same basic steps (analysis, cleansing, steam, extraction, mask). The differences come into play with the masks that are formulated for individual skin types. Before she starts on my face, Shahlah rubs a Vitamin E lotion on my hands and then wraps them in plastic baggies and encases them in heated mitts. That, along with my clay mask (to remove impurities) and I'm feeling much like a mummy. Strange, but not unpleasant. The closest this experience comes to unpleasant is the extraction phase – that's a euphemism for Shahlah bearing down – hard – against my nose and forehead with a tweezer-like instrument to remove blackheads. Mercifully, this is followed by a yummy-smelling, cool herb mask with a strong basil scent. Next, Shahlah covers my eyes with wet compresses and puts a honeycomb net over my face through which she pours a cream that smells just like wheat germ – this is the vitamin part.

Before asking if I'm claustrophobic, Shahlah leaves the room for about 10 minutes during which time I drift off until it's time for my next appointment – a pedicure and then finally a manicure with Maria. Shahlah points me in the right direction, but somewhere along the way I make a wrong turn and have to ask directions back. Maria finds me and leads me back to yet another treatment room where I soak my feet in a not-very-warm whirlpool bath, get another foot massage and before long my toes are pretty in a kind of red/orange way.

When I finally leave the premises at 6:30ish (having arrived at 12:30), my skin feels soft and supple and when I sneak a look in the mirror in the changing room, my face has an attractive pinkish glow. I check out and pay, noting, happily, that there is no pressure to buy any of the alluringly packaged products on the surrounding shelves. Already fantasizing about my next excursion, I bring home a copy of the menu of Jolie's treatments. Wonder what a seaweed and algae wrap would feel like? Hmmm.

N.B. Jolie is showing its age. The ceilings and some of the walls need a paint job and the chairs in some of the treatment rooms need to be replaced. Renovations are currently in progress, according to management.

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