Your First At-Home Spa Day!

Now that you’ve completed your prep work, you’re ready to – shhhhh! – actually have your very first at-home spa day! This can be as elaborate as you want it to be; the plans in this post are just suggestions to get you started. You might want to do more; you might want to do far less. Either way, it’s okay! It’s your day!

Make sure you’ve completed your prep work! You want to have a peaceful time and that means you need to have followed the strategies in the “prep post,” so click here to double check!

Ready to begin? Great! Here’s what you do:

• Lock the door! This is your time.
• I’ve linked to several “kitchen spa” recipes to get you started. Click here!
• Assemble your ingredients and decide what order you’ll use for your spa treatments. I suggest scrub, steam, bath, mask, and toner. You may want to include a manicure, pedicure, hair mask, or other ways to pamper yourself.
• Slice up a quarter of a cucumber and add it to a pretty pitcher of ice water (filtered is good, depending on your tap water situation). Let this chill and drink it often! (Don’t like cucumber? No problem! Use lemon, orange, or berries!)
• Lay out your snacks – use those pretty dishes of your aunt’s that you keep, but have never really figured out when to use.
• Turn down the covers on your freshly-made bed. You may want to nap later.
• Change into your pajamas or fluffy robe.
• Put on your “spa playlist,” turn down the lights, and light some candles.
• Put a pot of water on to boil for the steam. You can add a few slices of lemon or orange to the water, if you like. Mint and lavender are also great.
• Dip a clean washcloth in the warm (not-yet-boiling!) water, squeeze it out, and lay it on your face for a moment – remove it before it cools.
• Using a gentle circular motion, apply the scrub to your damp skin with your fingers, then use the warm washcloth (dip it back into the water) to completely remove the scrub.
• Remove the pot of water from the stove, drape a clean dishtowel over your head and steam your face for 10 minutes. NOTE: The water should not be boiling when you do this! Give it a minute once you take it off the stove.
• Pat your face dry with a clean towel, and run your bath. Make sure the tub has snacks and water within reach.
• Just before stepping into the bath, apply the mask as directed.
• Relax with some of that spa water you made!
• When you’re ready to leave the bath, splash off the mask.
• After you’ve dried off (pat, don’t scrub yourself!), apply plenty of your favorite lotion.
• Run a cotton ball soaked with toner (witch hazel is always good and easy-peasy to find at the drugstore) over your face to remove any lingering bits of the mask.
• Moisturize your face well.
• Slip back into your pajamas or robe.

What’s next? (Note: Not clean-up. Yes, there’s little clean-up to do [unless you make your kids do it!], but that’ll wait for an hour or three.) So what’s next?

Movie? Book? Nap?

It’s all up to you!

If you enjoyed this – make a date with yourself on the calendar to do it again in the next month. Don’t just promise that you’ll do it – put yourself on your calendar! Try different recipes. Maybe paint your toenails some outrageous color that you’ve never considered before. It doesn’t really matter what you do, so long as it’s something you enjoy that pushes you a little more toward the boundaries of your comfort zone.