Any treatment that guarantees bona fide centimetre loss in hours - and doesn't involve surgery, starvation or a marathon - is worth a try in my book. While I am not so naive as to think my more than ample proportions will suddenly become supermodel slim - and stay that way - I'm always alert to the possibility of shaping up with minimal effort, and therefore being able to have my cake and eat it.
Fresh in from Britain is El Beaute's latest offering to curvy Hong Kong residents - a range of thalassotherapy treatments and products from British company Finders that the salon combines with a body wrap to reduce your contours by centimetres.
Thalassotherapy comes from the Greek thalassa, meaning sea, and involves the use of marine elements such as seaweed, seawater, minerals and salt in various treatments. It uses beauty ingredients that date back to ancient civilisations, and a relatively modern-day notion that such sea-derived products are good for relieving water retention, toning the skin and reducing cellulite.
But it's no use lying in a bathful of water from any old ocean - you need to use products containing ingredients from the mineral-rich Dead Sea. It has 50 times more concentrated bromine (good for relaxing the body) and 15 times more magnesium (said to decelerate the ageing process) than in the average ocean, as well as being high in a score of other minerals including calcium, potassium and selenium, which respectively detoxify and increase blood circulation, balance the skin's moisture and reinforce the skin's ability to renew itself.
My therapist, May, started by giving me a gentle rubdown with a Dead Sea salt scrub to exfoliate dead skin and prep it for optimum absorption of the creams she would subsequently apply. After I had showered off the granules, she meticulously measured my limbs and torso - marking exactly where she measured on my skin with a pen - and noted down these vital statistics on a chart. She then massaged in a cellulite firming lotion from my neck downwards - a special bust-firming gel was used on my chest - followed by a cream called the HS Formula, which has the highest mineral concentration of all the Finders products, and then a 'super cellulite' cream to diminish the 'orange-peel' effect, boost circulation and flush out toxins.
May then wrapped my torso and each limb individually in non-toxic 'inchwrap' so I ended up looking like a clingfilm-bandaged mummy. The hardest part of the treatment was getting back on the massage couch without the ability to bend, but after that I had 35 minutes of shut-eye while the wrap and the creams got to work.
