Mentioning the moor mud wraps last week inspired the following comment from a fellow writer at a dinner party: “Yuck, I’m not into sharing my mud. I can only imagine the other things I’m sharing.” While I can see her point, my new friend, who declared a preference for the single-serving mud wrap, did not seem adverse to the collective spinach dip.
The mud bath is a spa-menu staple, because of its push-in-minerals, pull-out-impurities action on the skin (just in case you didn’t read last weeks’ post). But like many communal bathing traditions, none of which were created by the descendants of the Mayflower, mud baths have been privatized for the 21st-century spa-goer, who may prefer not to share her mud with total strangers—either at the same time or in succession. So I gave my friend with the heebie-jeebies a couple fabulous examples of modern mud treatments on either coast, which I now share with you. Note: Bring a bathing suit you won’t be sad to see ruined. Mud is unforgiving.
The Standard Spa in Miami debuted outdoor single-serving mud baths in their Adult Playground a few years back. A scoop of mud sets you back just $10—three are three types, including one laced with spirulina—and you’re hosed off elephant-at-the-circus-style by an attendant 20 minutes or so later. While the mud’s all yours, you’re the entertainment for whomever might be lounging nearby at the pool and marina.
The Bathhouse at Solage in Calistoga, California, offers a mud treatment that’s a private version of the public mud baths at Dr. Wilkinson’s, located in the center of this budget-friendly Napa-area town. For the MudSlide ($95), a mud mixologist adds your choice of essential oils to a pail of frothy mud blended just for you. You apply the mud, and steam in a private room until the mud turns you a crispy golden brown. (The VIP room has outdoor showers and a heated-tile bed for two.) After a DIY shower, you soak in a clawfoot tub into which an effervescent bath bomb’s been dropped, and the treatment ends with a nap in a chair that vibrates in time with music playing on headphones. (Purists might want only the nap.)
