The Spa Diaries

Tales of nightmare clients from a lowly spa worker. (And some of the stuff I go through while trying to survive in NYC too)

[thespadiaries]

Puppy love

I love dogs. I really do.  

Ever since I was a kid I’ve felt a kind of kinship with them.  They love everyone and when I first meet people, I’m kind of the same way...that is until humans open their mouths and show me just how awful they are. 

So I’m at the spa one day and I see that an editor from one of New York’s top magazines is booked with me for a Brazilian wax.  i’m not going to say which magazine it is because she is a major editor and it would give it away, let’s just say it’s national, and you’d have to be living under a rock to have never heard of this magazine. 

This editor has a reputation for naming certain companies “Best of ....insert business category here” in said magazine. Here’s the fucked up part...every company she has named “Best of” are companies that she uses personally to get her shit done. Laundry, hair, waxing, laser, facials, pedicures, etc.  So,  as a reader, you would think “Oh Acme Laundry Co is the best place to take my wedding dress because they have earned such status” Um, no. Hate to break it to you but that’s not how that works, at least not for this bitch who happens to look a lot like Lucille Bluth to begin with.  😒  A company offers her free shit, she automatically names them “Best of ..”  It’s not right. 

Anyway, I digressed. 

She has a yorkie. She brought in the little thing to her wax.  Places it between her legs and the fucking thing is sniffing her you know what the whole time!

What can I say, that shit was awkward as fuck. Not only do I have to see 60yr old labia...I also have to play bouncer to this woman’s vagina and keep the dog away during the wax. #helpmelord #spa #ny #fashion 

[thespadiaries]

Circle circle square

Here’s how laser hair removal works:

It works best on those with black hair and light skin. It can also work very well on those with dark hair and darker skin tones but for the most part, it’s the ones with the biggest contrast between how dark the hair is and how light the skin is, will get the best results.

The laser, when triggered, will seek the pigment in the hair follicle. It does this in less than a second. So, let’s say you’re doing your Brazilian and you have a tatoo on your hip bone. If there’s hair there, we’re not going to be able to treat it because since the laser targets pigment, it will zap the tatoo and not the hair. Not only will it mess up your tattoo, it will hurt like hell and cause a burn.

So, a few days ago this girl comes in to do her Brazilian. She already had four sessions and most of her hair had already fallen out.

When someone comes in whose had a lot of sessions, even if they say they only have a few hairs “here” and “here”, I still laser the entire vajayjay. We do this so that nothing is missed.

I mean, it makes sense, right?

If you did 6 sessions on your underarm, and wanted to do a touchup, it would make sense that the laser technician would still do your entire underarm

I ask Melissa to settle in for her brazilian treatment and I gave her a few minutes to get settled. When I walked in, I checked her bikini. Or at least I tried to, but she was using her hands to cover it which didn't make any sense because I'm about to laser it. So I made her move her hands and she said "so I still have hair here 👉, here 👈 and here 👇. " I looked down and she had a bunch of black circles on it. 😯 👈 My face when I saw the black circles on her white skin. "What is this?", I asked. "Oh I drew circles with a sharpie so you can see where the hair still is" 😐👈 My face If I could have done a face palm to my own face, I would have. I know there are stupid people out there but I'm always taken aback when I actually meet one. I said "Well, the way laser works is that it seeks pigment. Now that you've done that, I won't be able to laser you. Even though the hair starts to fall out after a few sessions, we still treat the ENTIRE area so we're not going to miss anything anyway." She started "Oh! I’m so embarrassed!" 😅 Then she couldn't stop covering herself with her hands. At that point I didn't care to look anymore, but that was the height of stupidity. I've been doing laser hair removal for 9 years and I've never ever had anyone do this before, EVER. People are annoying and like to point out where their hairs are..but no one has ever drawn circles around them which leads me to why I wrote about this. 

After I sent her home, I picked up my next client who was also doing her Brazilian. I put her in a room and told her to settle in. In 2 minutes, I walked back into the room, only to walk in on her DRAWING CIRCLES ON HER VAG with my black pen. 😐 #done 

[thespadiaries]

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Let me tell you a tale of this guy I dated a couple years ago. Mike was 35 and had a daughter.

I am attracted to men that are strong willed, stubborn and ultimately are passionate. I believe me falling for this quality over and over again is the reason I’ll be single f o r e v e r but maybe there’s another reason? It can’t always be me, right?

So Mike was a good guy, would pay for dinners, hold my hand in public and was pretty much awesome. He did everything right. He called, he texted, he was attentive and funny.

One night I was home, chillin by myself watching Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It’s a Woody Allen movie where two American girls go to Spain and fall for the same guy who has a volatile relationship with his ex wife. Mike asked what I was doing and I told him I was watching it.

I don’t know if this movie has some sort of hidden message I’m not aware of, but Mike went ape shit. He said he couldn’t believe I was watching such filth and that I was a WHORE for watching it! I kept asking him why it was so filthy? Aside from a girl on girl kiss (which, seriously?!? Who cares?!) there is nothing in this movie that merited that kind of reaction! Excuse me, I meant to say OVER REACTION.

He never gave me a satisfactory answer and instead broke up with me. 😐

Three days later he calls. Of course, I don’t pick up. Fuck him. I let it go to voicemail and listened to the message later, in between Brazilian waxes.

"Hey my mom’s coming to town Sunday. Wear something nice, we’re having brunch with her." Click.

👿 Oh No He Didn’t! 🔥💣🔥💣🔥💣🔥💣🔥💣🔥💣🔥💣🔥💣

Did this MOTHER FUCKER have amnesia?!???!?

Of course I called him back to ask him if I could bring Vicky and Cristina to brunch with me. And then I told him to fuck off and enjoy his date with mommy.

🙌

[thespadiaries]

Divas

Sam was a 6’4” tall, blonde man who is in really good shape, you can tell he works out.

I know you think you know where this is going and let me stop you. I’m not into blondes. Not that I don’t think there could ever be a hot blonde man out there for me, they’re just not not my thing.

So he comes in for laser hair removal on his “shoulders”. Let’s stop for a moment for a quick anatomy check. 👀 Look at where the shoulders are. Not a very big area, right?

So imagine my surprise when he tells me that “the last tech” (who I now want to murder 🔪) “did a spot between my shoulder blades too”

I just looked at him and said “we only have it in the system that you purchased a package for your shoulders. I’m happy to do that area for you, but there will be a charge.”

Now, I’m pissed at the last tech, who was a newbie to the business and a total sweetheart pushover. I’m not here to give away free services. This is not a charity. We work on commission and giving something away for free only takes away from our paychecks and frankly, from the business being able to STAY in business. This guy got that area done for free the last time, and he thought he’d get away with it again. Sorry Bjorn or whatever your name is, you won’t win here.

"If I had known that, I wouldn’t have bought the GROUPON for the shoulders, I assumed it was included" Really dumby? You don’t know the difference between your shoulders and your upper back? And 🙈OMG!! You spent Soooooooo much money on a Groupon! Poor you! I’m so sad for you! 😥

Thanks to about ten years of being in this business, my patience has just about run out. People are cheap and ungrateful so I’ve stopped caring. I know when it’s worth a fight and when it’s not. I marched up to the front desk and told them, I’m gonna do this guys spot on the upper back to shut him up, but he has to pay going forward, no exceptions.

I went back into the room and told him to lie face down on the table. Zap zap zap ⚡️ I was done with the spot between the shoulder blades. Since I’ve been doing this for so long, I can do a full back in about 20 minutes. A spot like that takes about 2 minutes.

Right after my last shot I said “ok, you’re all set, have a good day!”

He sits up and has the fucking audacity to say…”Are you sure you got everything? I feel like you didn’t do a good job”

😐 If my eyes could shoot lasers, he’d be dead. 💀 Those blonde curls of his would be found floating in the east river.

So let me get this straight. You come in, demand something for free, that you don’t deserve…it’s not like you’re a loyal client who spends lots of time and money at our spa, you’ve only been here one time before (on a fucking Groupon) but you have the balls to complain that because your laser specialist is efficient, she’s not good????!?!??!?!??!????

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

I said “I did get the entire area. You’re just not used to someone with as much experience as me. I’m not slow”

"Can you go over the area again? I feel like the last tech was a lot slower and gave me a better treatment."

So….being a slow poke all of a sudden means better service? This wasn't a fuck fest asshole, it’s laser hair removal.

"No. If you have a problem with that, you can talk to management" and I walked out.

The only solace I get is that the hair he wanted treated between his shoulder blades was blonde too, so it won’t work. Ahh..Karma. I love you. 💗

[thespadiaries]

Read my lips

So I currently work at a spa that offers a bunch of services. I do mostly laser hair removal so my day goes by at a pretty rapid pace.

It’s vagina after vagina after vagina with a few other body parts thrown in. I mostly do Brazilians all day.

Today, this white woman around 50 years old (she kind of reminded me of Patricia Heaton) came in because she was scheduled for a Brazilian.

The front desk person came into the break room, where we have a computer that monitors customers comings and going so we know when to go pick up our clients in the lobby. She told me “just to let you know, this woman Lee, is here just to do a small area on her bikini that we owed her because of a scar she had from surgery. She knows if she does the full Brazilian, she has to pay.”

"It would help if I knew exactly where the area is that I have to laser or else you KNOW she’s going to play dumb and try to get me to do the whole thing for her."

The front desk girl gestured to the top part of her bikini. “Here and nowhere else, or she has to pay”

"Ok" I said, and walked out to pick up Lee.

I took her back into the room and I always find it best to immediately address the situation so that I can take charge of it right away. I’ve been in the business a long time and people are assholes. They will try to get stuff for free all the time.

"So, I see you’re here to do a small area that we didn’t do in your last session." I said,

"Well, no."

😒 ugh. Here we go.

"I’ll show you where I still have hair. It’s the inner lips" she continued.

(Bitch, your lips on your face)

I said “Ok, (with a forced smile on my face) why don’t you go ahead and undress from the waste down, settle in and I’ll be right back.”

I left for a moment and came back to see her sitting up on the table.

"Ok, so here’s where I still have hair, you see this?" as she was yanking on a few strands of gray hair that were growing out of her labia. She used her fingers to spread her labia apart so that I could get a good look 👀

"Uh-huh ok. So, laser hair removal doesn’t work on gray hair 👵 so I can treat it but it won’t work."

"But look at this, there is dark hair still growing out of here" as she kept fingering herself in front of me. "The last girl, I don’t know WHAT she did but I didn’t feel any pain at all! I think she was new and was scared."

Side note- I’m scared now too.

"Ok, so I’ll treat you today but just know that the labia is a hormonal area and some hair will always continue to grow there."

I grabbed the laser and started zapping. The labia is a small area so I was done in a few seconds.

She sat up and looked in between her legs. “You’re done?”

"Yes. It’s a small area. It doesn’t take long"

She spread her labia again with her fingers. ugh. Disgusting.

"Are you sure you got everything?"

😐

"Yes" I said gesturing to her labia with the pen I had in my hand. "Do you see this area here?" I said as I made an imaginary circle around her ‘lips’ midair with my pen, "you see how it’s all red? I didn’t miss anything. Have a good day!" 🏃 And I bolted out of the room before giving Lee a chance to say shit.

I went and got a chocolate bar after that. I deserved it.

The End

[thespadiaries]

Chicken

I used to work at a marketing firm before leaving corporate america for the spa world.  I was used to working in a professional environment and let's face it, I was kind of a snob. I wore very nice clothes that I worked hard for, I had the latest Marc Jacobs bag, I wore Prada shoes and I hated my life every single day so I quit to manage a day spa in NoHo. 

This place was beautiful and huge.  I didn't know anything about the spa world.  My fellow co-workers would always buy me gift certificates to go get a massage after we wrapped up our marketing campaigns but I never went.  I just didn't know how to relax, that's how tightly wound up I was. 

So, this spa i worked at was owned by three business partners.  One was already familiar with the business and ran a bed and breakfast upstate that also had a spa.  He also owned a restaurant a few blocks away from this spa.  The next owner was a former lawyer who was disbarred for running naked along the 59th St bridge while high on a cocaine binge.  And last was Ben.  

Ben was a 50 year old jewish guy who got his investment money for the spa from a business he inherited from his father- a live chicken butcher shop. Ben even LOOKED like a chicken.  His nose looked like a beak and I could swear he moved his head just like a chicken! Whenever I would ask him for something for the business he would respond the same way "yeah, yeah, yeah"  He would say it really fast and then never say anything else.

It made it impossible to get any work done, so eventually I stopped going to him for anything.  Sometimes I would sit at the front desk and he would walk in so fast that I could swear he would leave chicken feathers in his wake.  

This never happened but I always kinda wished that when he gestured while talking, that a bunch of feathers would just go flying around. 

#thoughtoftheday 

[thespadiaries]

To market to market

I started this blog a few years ago when I was just slightly miffed about clients coming to my spa and leaving me shitty tips after getting really expensive services.  I thought it was only fair that a-holes like this should be outed on the internet. 

Now it's 2015. I went to graduate school and learned a whole new set of unmarketable skills, and now i'm just bitter.  So..it's blog time again, yay!

I know the title of this blog is The Spa Diaries, but I live in NYC, there's just too much to write about. Like today, for example.  It's my day off.  I woke up feeling good, made a paleo breakfast complete with bulletproof coffee, and then I walked my dog.  

After scooping up her poop, because I'm a decent human being, I got ready to go to the Supermarket.  Because I'm an esthetician, about half of my paycheck comes in the form of cash tips.  Some people leave tip on credit card, and I don't like these people, but others leave cash, I don't like these people either but at least they are smart enough to leave cash money.  I prefer to look like this when I get home at night:

My point is, I carry a lot of singles around with me.  So, I went to the supermarket and here's the first thing the Indian cashier did wrong:

Me: Hello!  (trying to be nice here people)

Her: Hi :(   (Like some kind of Sad Sam. It's fucking 10:45am, what are you sad about already???)

I placed all my items on the belt and she just stood there, sucking her teeth. Like I have no where to go.  I can just stand there, like an a-hole, just watching her forever.  So, I scooped everything up with my arm and shoved it practically on top of that metal scale they use to weigh produce.  Apparently, this woke her up from sleep mode and she started to ring me up.  I watched the computer monitor as she scanned the last item.

$32.97 was the total.  I took out two $5's and the rest was in singles. It took me about 10 seconds to count that out. 

She goes into sleep mode again.  She just watches me count out the money. She doesn't bag my many items. She just watches me.  

So I hand her the cash, the two 5's and the singles.  She counted that money like we had just made a huge drug deal.  She counted those singles out like ten times.  One of the singles was a darker shade of green for some reason, so she stopped to show a co-worker.  This is when I lost it. I snatched my groceries and started bagging everything myself.  When her co-worker said the slightly darker green dollar bill was fine, she….you guessed it…counted. the. money. AGAIN!!

I said "It's THIRTY THREE DOLLARS!! Trust me!"  and I snatched my bags and yelled "Keep the change!"  as I stormed out of the market. 

Next time, I'm ordering Fresh Direct.