Bathtime for me usually involves a smattering of salts, a drop of oil or a lug of bath milk but last weekend I pushed the product boat out and settled on something rather out of the ordinary. Seaweed. Yup, that’s right – seaweed. The stuff that has me running out of the ocean like a screaming banshee, feels like eels round your feet and generally has the aroma of a fishmongers; three facts that I really should have remembered at the time of purchasing a box of it (from L:A Bruket stocked at & Other Stories, £25 if you were wondering, £3 for the Sea Salt). But alas, I was blinded my a blurb that shared its power to ease stiff muscles, increase blood circulation and help along skin irritations, oh and Lily was goading me to do it. So due to the fact that I’m an advertisers dream and one who succumbs easily to peer pressure, home I came with a box of dried seaweed, a packet of sea salts and a naive feeling of excitement…
One minor fact that I somehow managed to overlook is that you have to pre-soak the seaweed for 30 minutes in a bucket with a hefty dose of sea salt before adding to a bath full of water. In the mists of still being a relative newbie to living sans parents I do not own a bucket so saw it fit to empty my recycling bin and fill it with this funky smelling concoction. Note: I’ve deep cleaned it three times since and it still has a slight whiff to it. The smell was overwhelming and to tone it down I did end up giving in and adding a drop (or ten) of an Aromatherapy Associates Oil which managed to diffuse the scent somewhat. I left the seaweed to stew, ran a bath and then emptied the the rust-coloured mix, complete with now slimy seaweed in; the process of which did elicit a sound from myself that resembled a retch. Nice.
Once I finally worked up the courage to dip in – which included many chest slaps and ‘you can do it woman’ remarks to myself – I decided that the best way to immerse myself fully in the seaweed infested water was to shimmy it all up to one end and crouch up the other which certainly didn’t make for the most comfortable positioning. Eventually some of the seaweed began to attack, floating up towards me and having spent an amount on it that could have easily gone towards the purchase of two three Essie Nail Polishes (girl maths alert), I begrudgingly and halfheartedly ‘massaged’ the weed into my limbs. I don’t think I could have been more relieved when five minutes into this routine the doorbell went. Out of the bath I lunged, only to return with a sieve in one hand and room spray in the other.
So was the not-so-mermaid-like experience worth it? Well I was feeling suspiciously silky  the next morning, however it was nothing out of the realms of smoothness that I could achieve with a hefty dollop of body butter. Hilarious? Yes. Worthy of the lingering fishy fragrance? No. I think next weekend I’ll favour something a little less stomach churning and more chillax producing, but hey – it’s a weekend post that I’m not going to forget for a long while.
Comments