Beauty review: Lava shell massage

I've had various types of massages in my time and have been looking forward to trying out a lava shell massage which I finally got to do today at Skin3. It uses naturally self-heating Tiger Clam shells which have minerals and water in them, allowing the lava shells to stay hot for 1-2 hours. This means that there should be no stops and starts changing the shells like there is with a hot stone massage.

Since going to Go Ape the other week I've had some upper back and neck tension which hasn't been helped by the fact I'm working at home this week, editing my book, on the bed. Not good.

The lava shells were used about 25% of the time, the rest of the time it was usual massage contact. I'm not sure if that's standard or unique to the salon I went to, but it seems a little silly if you're going for a lava shell massage that it's more of a normal massage than anything else. The shells being filled up oddly sounded like someone brushing their teeth - distracting - and they needed refilling so it wasn't one fluid massage where you can just zone out for the entirety.

There were only certain times that the lava shells were actually nicer than the normal massage part and that was in my neck area. They seemed to suit that area perfectly, whereas in other areas - in particular my feet and my chest - it did not feel pleasant. AT ALL. If you're grimacing instead of relaxing, it's probably not the treatment for you.

I'm glad I tried it and the salon was nice enough, although a lot of salons really need to work on their sound-proofing. If I can hear conversations and noises around the salon, I can't really relax, so I didn't leave with that floaty, satisfied feeling that signifies a darn good massage. I was keen on trying a glacial shell massage which combines heated and chilled shells but I'm not sure I will now.

What's your favourite type of massage? Have you had a lava shell or glacial shell massage before? x

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