Beauty and the Crease – Top 5 Most Bizarre Medical Spa Treatments

The name might sound innocent enough and it might even evoke the sensual image of a traditional Chinese geisha – until you discover that the geisha facial refers instead to a unique medical spa treatment that involves dabbing powder made from dehydrated bird droppings onto your face.

Used for centuries by Asian actors and actual geishas, the treatment has recently made its trip overseas and into some of the most high-profile spas in America – ranging from the famous Shizuka Spa in New York City to the more seasonable Diamond Hawaii Resort & Spa in Maui. Paying anywhere from $150 to $250 dollars for a single treatment, spa-goers from all over have been flocking to experience the skin-softening, enriching and smoothing power of the Geisha facial, with the treatment even making an awkward appearance on ABC’s morning talk show The View.

So next time you’re sitting under an awning and happen to find yourself the target of some renegade bird, simply remind yourself that those droppings that just landed on your new fedora might actually be worth more than the hat itself – that’s the miracle of capitalism.

NBC’s hit reality show Fear Factor may not have been the first idea to capitalize off of sticking people into a vat full of snakes – apparently some spas have been 減肥機 making money off of this concept for decades. The only difference is that with snake therapies, it’s the people paying the spa instead of the other way around. Hailing all the way from Israel, one of the world’s most famous snake spas is not so discreetly named Ada Barak’s Carnivorous Plant Farm, where guests eagerly line up to be massaged by these typically dangerous and disgusting reptiles – which the owner describes as being “therapeutic.”

The massage typically costs around $80 and is said to “cure aching muscles and joints” and provide a “relaxing massage.” But as far as I can tell, the only thing keeping the snakes from being terrifying limb-less monstrosities is the price of the treatment, in which case my patented fart-sauna therapy costs $100 bucks, baby.

Normally one wouldn’t associate a butt with a facial – that is until the wonderful world of beauty spas came along and combined the two. Yes, thanks to ever-more creative ways to market beauty, there are now an increasingly popular set of beauty spa treatments that apply the same techniques used on one’s face to improve the shape, skin and general posterity of one’s royal cheeks. And while some of these therapies focus more on cleaning and detoxifying, other forms of the treatment aim to reduce cellulite and reshape the buttocks for a more perfect pair of buns, such as is offered by the Smooth Synergy spa in New York City which designates special therapists for work on the derriere portion of the body. And though the treatment can be expensive – running from $60 to $300 for a 90 minute session – advocates of the treatment swear to its legitimacy.

“People used to always harass me because of my large rear-end,” Stacy Santiaggo from San Francisco said. “But after receiving my first butt-facial, I was signed to a modeling gig for Vogue magazine.”

While Stacy’s story might sound impressive, it is also made up. In fact, I couldn’t find any evidence anywhere that 90 minutes with a good set of hands can undo the years of snacking and sitting around that ultimately shape our butts.