With mini spa treatments galore, sweets to your heart’s content and a swank downtown Los Angeles loft setting, who wouldn’t enjoy being a girl at the Pamper Yourself Fabulous event last week? I was lucky enough to be one of the 100+ attendees at this sold-out spa day, a girls’ day out unlike any other. No sample sales to stress over or wine tastings to get sloppy during, it’s all about rest and relaxation here. For $165 a ticket (10% of the proceeds benefit the charity Step Up Womens Network), we were treated to our choice of three mini spa treatments (each about 15-20 minutes long) from some of the hottest L.A. spas and salons, which most likely charge a pretty penny for their regular services.
Even though there was the uber-popular salon Neihule offering haircuts and styling, a spray-on bronzing by E! reality TV show/tanning salon Sunset Tan and a cold stone facial massage by Cote D’Azur, I opted for the simple pleasures, plus I already got my hair done and I’m already a lovely olive color.
Nope, instead I enjoyed a quickie makeover by Artform Studio where the makeup artist showed me the joys of shiny pink lip gloss. I then passed out during a luxurious hand and foot massage at El Leon Spa and got polished up with a little eyebrow shaping by Christopher Watt Esthetics.
And, yes, the treatments were a bit short, offering only a taste of what you could get if you paid for the regular service. But this was also a good way to sample something you otherwise would have overlooked for fear of trying something new.
I wish that I was allowed one more treatment as I would have loved to get a manicure courtesy of OPI. That gun metal gray color (OPI’s “You Don’t Know Jacques”) that my friend Jeannine sported was actually quite lovely.
For nosh, there really wasn’t any food per se. Cuidad was touted as providing the eats when really it was only mini gazpacho and chips and dip. I was sooo hungry! And since my stomach was fairly empty save for the yummy Moonpillows dark chocolate cherry mochi and ooh the white chocolate lemon ones, I thought it wise to stay away from the “champagne,” which was actually something called pink sparkling vodka.
Because the event only allowed about a hundred women in the Ford Brady Loft, a renovated downtown theatre space now used for events, it was easy to get around and sign up for the treatments, they didn’t run out of snacks and there was plenty of cabana seating to rest between appointments.
And even though that price of admission for a day of indulgence may make some of you cringe, you should know that the goody bag that we got after the event was filled with a bounty of products that probably equaled what we paid to attend. And it’s not the sort of goody bag filled with 80% of things you’d end up trashing, rather this one had the good stuff, like OPI nail polish, Philosophy’s Grace body gel, Hemp hair products and luxurious bath salts. Fun!
I don’t know when the next Pamper Me Fabulous will be, but if you are the type of girl who likes to treat yourself, this is an event you may want to check out next time it rolls into town.