G O O D R E AD
Getting my feet wet
GETTY IMAGES
After decades of hotstone, cold-cucumber, and sea-salt treatments, Ann Hood inexplicably remained a mani-pedi virgin—until a journey with her mother helped her make peace with her past (and pedicures).
Photograph by Kristin Zecchinelli
MARCH 2015
45
I HAVE BEEN RUBBED, scrubbed, buffed, and scraped. I’ve been wrapped in banana leaves and lavender and towels soaked in chamomile tea. I’ve been exfoliated with rare pink sea salt, cornmeal, loofahs, flower petals; soaked in Malbec, sulfuric springs, water from the South China Sea. In India I had a head massage with oils that I couldn’t wash out for weeks. I’ve stretched out naked on beaches from Hawaii to Vietnam for massages, had hot stones and cold cucumbers placed on my body, been oxygenated, squeezed, pounded, and once even kissed, all for the delights of loosening muscles or obtaining glowing skin or just to feel pretty. But there was one thing I had never done. Ever. Me, who loves spas and beauty treatments, was still, technically, a virgin. Left alone all day and night on a cruise ship slowly heading to Bermuda while my mother gambled in the onboard casino, I naturally headed to the spa.
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