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VOL. 12.9

ARCHIVES:

Take-Away Health and Beauty  Products

By Collin Piprell

“Nine or ten years ago," says Tom Mockler, founder of the Hideaway, "we wanted to do a Thai massage with oil. We were told: You cannot do this. Full stop. But, we responded, we're dealing with European customers, and they expect oil. And we went out to find the local ingredients we could use in local products." They came up with things such as plai, a kind of ginger root, that girls traditionally rubbed on themselves with a stone before steam baths to beautify the skin.

Customer demand here and abroad has led to a current range of 37 high-quality yet inexpensive products, including essential oils, bath oils, shampoos, soaps, conditioners, sun products, and body lotions. The Hideaway is now looking at Thai clays for use in body wraps. It's also supplying a number of Samui spas with herbal beauty and health products. "We haven't tried to reinvent the wheel, with our products," says Mockler. "The wheel already exists."

Dorinda and her husband Khun Nikorn, of Kamala-based Roseberry Co. Ltd., are producing high-end essential oils as well as other herbal products and a variety of Thai salts and clay. Dorinda, who is also a spa consultant, has 16 years experience in spa management and design from the Sanctuary in London to Phuket's Banyan Tree. Nikorn has among other things served as manager of the spas at the Banyan Tree and the Thavorn Beach Village. Dorinda herself - at the time of this writing nine full months pregnant - is a wonderful advertisement for their rejuvenating and beautifying products.

Roseberry "Healing Range" of essential oils, salts and clays for mudpacks - all of them made by traditional methods on Phuket using indigenous products, and sometimes under house brand names - are found at Amanpuri, Jasmina Spa, and the Spa Cliniques, which also carry Australian Jurlique facial products (noted for their kindness to sensitive skin).

The Banyan Tree Gallery also sells an extensive line of branded massage oils, essential oils, bath and beauty products, and incense produced in Thailand, as well as a wide range of handicrafts. Hotel guests can enjoy extras such as the Banyan Tree Spa Kit, packaged in a portable rattan basket.

The Layan Spa Village sells its own branded conditioning shampoo as well as Jurlique facial products and Natural Touch oils. Santi Spa, at Andaman Cannacia Resort, Kata, sells local oils "made in Bangkok" and Guinot skin-care products from France.

The Nakalay Spa offers Jurlique for facials and Sebastian (US) for hair treatments, as well as a range of local herbal oils and ceramic oil and incense burners. The Royal Spa also sells Jurlique facial products.

The Andaman Garden Spa, at the Club Andaman, retails Golden Moor products, also from France.

Other souvenirs include the massage, yoga and meditation classes offered by some of the spas. At the Island Herb and Spa, you can also treat yourself to "body painting" (temporary tattoos) or delicate flowers and butterflies on your nails.

Jill Robson, at Le Meridien's Spa Clinique, would even suggest that their approach to personal training and whole-body, holistic fitness introduces more people to fitness. "Where many previously feel threatened by the whole business," she says, "they get such good service and understanding advice that they often return home with lasting new habits."