Under Wraps

This celebrity spa treatment promises to trim inches in minutes

By Elizabeth Stein

Excerpt...

“We were on vacation a year and a half ago and one of the hotels had the body wrap option,” says Judy. “I doubted it at first. It seemed a little too good to be true.” Her daughter decided to try it out. “I was extremely satisfied with my results,” says Mara.

“We did some investigating and it turned out that there were no detox wrap programs in Rockland County,” says Judy. “We went down to North Carolina and took some classes and got certified as aestheticians and wrap specialists.”

Since a TV news report about the spa appeared this spring, the ladies say they have been filling up with appointments every day of the week. “Business has been good,” says Judy.

“We get a lot of mothers and daughters — a lot of women coming in to lose a lot right before their wedding or before a vacation. Or people who come in to jump-start a diet.”

About 90 percent of their customers are female, ranging in age from 16 to 85, all looking for the magic answer that will make them feel and appear more slender, more toned, more healthy.

According to Judy, the treatment “rids your body of toxins that are stored in fat cells, causing the cells to flatten and your body to lose inches.” She says that the treatment also cleans and clears pores, removes metabolic waste, and increases metabolism. This creates a loss of six to 30 inches per one-hour session. Similar boutique salons across the nation — and now in the tristate area — are marketing the treatment at a cost of $150 and up per session. While different companies produce mineral wraps, Suddenly Slender is probably the best known, although Simply Slenda uses the GoodSpa brand. These companies claim the wraps detoxify you in minutes, and continue to take inches off your body and intensify your metabolism for up to six days after the treatment. Of course, many doctors don’t believe “toxins” exist in the body due to constant filtering by the liver and kidneys — and detractors say the wrap is simply removing excess water, which will be replenished after a few days.

Whether or not it really works, or to what degree, everyone seems to agree that the process doesn’t feel as heavenly as many spa treatments do. After all, stripping your body of inches doesn’t sound exactly pain-free. “People describe it as moderately miserable,” admits Mara, who has been wrapped three times. “But it’s completely worth it.”

How worth it? I went to see for myself exactly what it means to “lose inches” and if the treatment would actually transform my own body. Before I was wrapped, I was measured in 20 different areas and directed to drink a mineral solution “to intensify the detoxification.” Then I was enveloped from toe to head in hot, mineral-soaked ace bandages — bound so tightly I could hardly bend my knees or take a deep breath. Once I was completely mummified (and understood all too well what Mara meant by “moderately miserable”), I was instructed to jump on a trampoline and march around.

After 20 minutes of “exercising,” I was doused with more of the mineral solution. This sequence of events was repeated for two more 20-minute sessions. After an hour, all of the bandages were removed. Eagerly I looked at myself in the mirror, hoping to find a magically reduced me. Needless to say, I didn’t think I looked even an ounce thinner, though Judy and Mara were unanimous in their efforts to convince me otherwise.

“You lost 26 inches!” exclaimed Mara after remeasuring me. “Wow. That’s fantastic,”

I answered with uncertainty. According to her measurements, some of my biggest losses were in my lower thighs (two inches), my forearms (two inches), and my neck (one inch). I left the salon feeling a bit mystified by my experience. Is it really possible to lose dozens of inches in less than an hour? Maybe there are others who have seen more dramatic results immediately. But for me, it wasn’t until three days later that I noticed the straps on my shoes were loose, and my tummy looked more toned....