May 27, 2007
Just Calm Down Spa Takes You to Morrocco
Ellen Wernecke READ TIME: 2 MIN.
You can't argue with a spa whose name is Just Calm Down. Before I got to the Gramercy Park address where I was going to sample the new Morocckin' On The Marrakech Express massage, I was tempted to indulge in a few of my favorite high-stress New York activities -- joining a twenty-deep line for the cash registers at H&M, or getting stuck on an express train. If the heated massage with oils was as good as promised, surely I would no longer face the Starbucks line with a knot between my shoulders.
The concept behind Just Calm Down's newest product is to give you the experience of a Moroccan public bath, or hammam, without the day-long scrubbing or foreign-language gossip. So, along with the flickering candles in the massage room, you get soft Eastern-inspired music; instead of stretching, your masseur or masseuse bends your limbs into place after covering you with a heated blanket and rubbing you down with oils. Don't be surprised if your masseur starts to gently hit you with a rolled-up towel - this, too, is customary, and it's very gentle.
One key difference from a desert expedition: Instead of lying in sticky sand, you're on a water-bed table during your massage. Which means that while your masseur works, the vibrations carry on into the table. It's hard to get used to at first, but once you get used to it, it's as if you're floating with only the masseur's hands tethering you down. I didn't fall asleep (as has happened to me before on the massage table) - instead I felt energized by the end of the massage. Walking home I felt like I was floating, and my skin smelled so good I didn't want to rinse off.
It isn't Morocco, but the corner of Manhattan occupied by Just Calm Down manages to shut out the outside world just fine, and the Morocckin' on the Marrakech Express massage is a sensually appealing twist on the classic rubdown.
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Just Calm Down Spa is located at 32 W. 22nd St. in New York. For reservations, call (212) 337-0032. For more information on the spa (including adding a manicure and pedicure to your Morocckin' massage), please visit their Web site, http://www.justcalmdown.com
Ellen Wernecke's work has appeared in Publishers Weekly and The Onion A.V. Club, and she comments on books regularly for WEBR's "Talk of the Town with Parker Sunshine." A Wisconsin native, she now lives in New York City.
