Foot treatment from Clarins.

Spa therapists are a lot like craft bartenders – turn them loose with exotic new ingredients and techniques, and they’re happy.

As it happens, we’re big fans of plain vanilla – a basic massage by a skilled therapist makes our senses dance – but mash-ups that blend several treatments into one uber-experience have their charms. This week a slew of spas unveiled their latest creations designed to promote wellness, renewal and repeat visits at the annual International Spa Association event in New York. Five treatments – and a nifty fitness apparatus – grabbed our attention. And yes, we even found a couple of hotel – and New York — connections. (more…)

The Suite Spa Cart.

The new Hyatt 48Lex is a small, upscale hotel that offers guests everything you’d expect, from a restaurant and room service to a well-equipped fitness center – everything, that is, except a spa. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get a hot stone massage or an herbal facial without leaving the premises.

48Lex is the latest in a small contingent of hotels, including the Andaz Wall Street and the Grand Hyatt, offering the Cart – a spa on wheels outfitted with the basics a therapist needs to administer spa treatments in a hotel room.

The Cart looks like a rolling room service table, but instead of Eggs Benedict under a silver dome look for a facial steamer, magnifying lamp and towel warmer, a warming shelf for heating stones or wraps, (more…)

What are the top treatment requests at spas? Forget reflexology and mud wraps. Swedish massages and basic facials, the spa world’s plain vanilla, rule. But that hasn’t stopped spas from dreaming up fresh ways to promote relaxation, wellness and repeat visits.

Five new treatments, three at spas easily reached from New York and none of them cheap, caught my eye during the International Spa Association’s annual visit to New York.

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The Juice.

We’ve been hearing a lot about juice cleanses lately. From celebrity sightings – pictures of Sarah Jessica Parker juice bottle in hand, blog posts from Gwyneth Paltrow – to news stories weighing the pros and cons, those cute, colorful little bottles labeled Drink Me exude an Alice-in-Wonderland mystique and are hard to miss. (more…)

The Waldorf=Astoria.

Given the blast of parties, press releases and popping champagne corks whenever a spa opens at a hotel, it’s amazing how quiet a closing can be. Consider the Guerlain Spa at the Waldorf=Astoria.

This 14,000-square-foot swathe of luxury opened in 2008 to kudos from spa-goers and critics alike. Each of the 16 treatment rooms boasted its own bathroom, shower and locker. And first-time guests received a footbath and massage while filling out health forms. (more…)