Sunday, November 13, 2016

A Turkish (Herbal) Bath and Dead Sea Mud Masque




Mayes went into detail about she and her travel mates experiencing this in its natural setting. Still nothing can prepare you for the olfactory experience that accompanies it. Rotten eggs doesn't begin to do it justice. 

Prepared a Turkish herb bath last night using my dried summer herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano, sage, basil, lemon balm and fresh lemon), Epson salt and steaming hot bathwater. The mixture of the herbs and the salts was beyond relaxing. If you try this at home, make sure to pre-bag the herbs in a cheesecloth bundle before running hot water over them, or all your stress will return when you try to scrub them out of your tub at the end of the soak. It was beyond relaxing. 

Exquisite. 

Loofah'ed and packed my hair with a Aegean Oil Conditioner wrapping it. Then proceeded to open the Dead Sea Mud Pack.

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkkkkkkk...

Think mud, and something kelpish (seaweed) and the underlying aroma of extinct volcanic eruptions from 2100 BC (fire and brimstone). Yes. Lots of sulphur.

Not to be dissuaded, after all I am a woman who willingly ate Haggis this year,  I dipped forefingers into the muck and began applying it across my forehead, around my eyes, across my cheeks and nose...

"Ohmigod...now it is applied directly under my nose...WTH was I thinking???"

Down my chin and neck.

And NOW we wait.

It dried to a crackly greyish green in about 30 minutes...at which time it started to itch like mad. It looked like a mudflat that hadn't seen rain for weeks.

Okay....that is enough of that.

And, I must note, with snaky ropey hair from the conditioning pack and the scaling cracking sea mud...and the smell of hell-fire and damnation...a robbery at this point would have been laughable...because the poor bastard would have had a stroke if he'd peered in the bath.  

The Creature from The Black Lagoon had nothing on me. 

                                             "Did You Need Something"


Drew more steaming hot water and removed the whole mess.

The conditioning pack was a huge success and may become part of my weekly routine. My hair felt soft and silky and I could use a wide-toothed comb through it directly out of the bath. If you have long hair, you will understand how wonderful THAT can be.

Absolutely LOVE Aegean Oil!

The Herbed Bath was nice, as well. Soothing. Relaxing.

The Mud Masque? Yeah...not so much. And although it left my facial skin feeling porcelain smooth last night...by this morning there were two areas of irritation (redness) that had cropped up. So...no...won't be doing THAT again.

The smell in general was enough to put me off of it. 

Envisioning Mayes and her friends after their sulphuric soak at that restaurant. It is amazing they even got served.

"I'm sorry...you'll have to dine on the porch."



More anon...