News

Online article: http://directoryoflondon.net, published on October 21, 2009:



If you had gone to a spa a hundred or so years ago you would have found yourself down at Bath taking the waters or perhaps at Cheltenham imbibing some kind of miracle tonic that would make your bald patch grow over, increase your vitality or give your wan cheeks a pinch of blush. Nowadays, a spa appointment can take you from a massage table to a steam room, back via a facialist and a manicure and could even have you finishing off sitting inside a giant metal egg. As with everything else that we have to pay for, we demand results from our spas now. Unlike our ancestors we’re not prepared to rely on a foul tasting concoction, a bit of hope and a placebo to get the perfect complexion or brightened skin, no we want treatments that work, we want results. So the humble spa has had to get technological and is now often a place where science and beauty come face to face, often in the most fantastical way.

Like something from one of those films from the 60s that showed us all living in pods and traveling in flying cars, a giant oxygen capsule is the latest science/beauty crossover to arrive on the London beauty parade, more specifically at the Mayfair spa of celebrity foot expert Margaret Dabbs. Looking like a cross between an enormous metal egg and something you would make your escape from a starship in, the oxygen capsule is apparently your gateway to 15 minutes of pure relaxation. The 15 minute session costs £22 and is meant to “increase oxygen levels in the blood, enhancing both your complexion and your state of mind” as well as being a very effective sleep aid. I would have thought that this could also probably be achieved via a brisk walk across one of London’s commons but that almost certainly wouldn’t be as much fun as clambering inside a giant silver pod. Although undoubtedly gimmicky, the clamoring surrounding the arrival of the capsule is loud enough to indicate there might just be something there and the novelty factor should definitely draw in the crowds at least once (www.margaretdabbs.co.uk).

Margaret Dabbs
7 New Cavendish Street
London
W1G 8UU
020 7487 5510.