My quest to recreate the Korean Bathhouse experience at home

I only have one regret.  When I worked full time, my travels included regular visits to Atlanta and L.A.  Both of these cities have local Korean Spa/Bathhouses.  These institutions have been around in Korea and Japan forever.  Its an experience revered as an ultimate beauty treatment.

I'm sure that most of us do at home facials. Maybe we pull out our facial steamer and apply clay mask afterwards.  Yeah.....that's cool.....but it's time for us to graduate to the next level.

The biggest draw of the Korean Sauna is the highly intense body scrub.  And when I say intense, I mean INTENSE.  They scrub you with all of their heart and soul. I heard a couple of accounts where you actually see the pile of dead skin as a reward for the experience you endured.  For some, this rigorous scrubbing is a bit too much, but to me, this sounds like heaven.

You all know that I'm a huge fan of facial and body exfoliation.  I try my best to give myself an adequate scrub in the shower, but there are certain areas I just can't reach.   I'm humble enough to admit that I need professional help.  I'm willing to endure 30 minutes of enthusiastic scrubbing if that means that I get to enjoy "smooth as a baby's butt skin" for summer.

The other key to the Korean Bath House technique is what they use to exfoliate.  It's called an Italy towel, and from what I heard, it rivals the Salux Cloth.  Don't let the name fool you. These babies are directly from Korea.  Since it was quite easy to find online, I went ahead and ordered one.  I made the mistake of ordering from a Korean seller and, weeks later, I'm [impatiently] waiting for it to arrive.  I'm seriously considering placing another order from this seller who ships from the U.S.

If you grab an Italy towel and use it for your own beautification, make sure to loosen the dead skin first by working up a good sweat or standing in a hot steam shower for a while [or both].  That way your hard work produces better results.

While preparing for this post, I did a quick search to see if there are any Korean Spas in my state.  The bad news is there aren't any authentic bathhouses.....but the good news is there is a spot [about 1.5 hours away] that offer "Korean Spa Services."  I'm thinking that means they are non-Koreans who fell in love with the concept and decided to open their own bathhouse.  Works for me!  Now I just need to schedule in some time to make it happen.

Can't wait!




C'mon, you know you want one.




from Relaxed Hair Health http://ift.tt/1pFdy4q