Are you looking for a place to spend Galentine’s Day with your favourite bunch of girls? OHLALA’s Fernanda Langhammer spent a lovely time with her favourite girl on the island for a beautifying session at Dessange.
This month, I went to Dessange Paris Bahrain, to spend quality time with my daughter. She is a 17-year-old that will soon flee home to study abroad and spending more time together while we can is one of our goals. We couldn’t have been happier when we learned that this month Dessange is offering special packages to celebrate the trendy but unofficial holiday – Galentine’s Day.
According to the urban dictionary, Galentine’s Day is celebrated on February 13, exactly one day before the famous and romantic Valentine’s Day. The difference between the two is that the first one is a non-romantic celebration, but no less important, while the other is when love birds go out for dinner and exchange gifts. However, both celebrate love, even if they come in different forms.
Galentine’s Day is about spending time with your girlfriends, a special date dedicated to honouring friendship in all its representations. Because even though you might have a boyfriend or husband (or no one in particular), who is the one that is always there for you? To discuss matters you don’t want to share with your significant other, give an outfit opinion or even be a shoulder during challenging moments. Your Galentine can be your bestie, your mother or, in my case, my now-grown daughter.
We were very excited to spend some time alone (without the other family members) and do something entirely out of our routine. Going for a manicure and pedicure had been in our plans for a long time, but we never had the chance before. But now, this was going to change.
We arrived at Dessange and my daughter was impressed with the size of the villa (I gave her a tour after we finished our treatments). She has heard me speaking about this beauty haven many times but never had the chance to come with me. We headed straight to the salon area – it was beautifully illuminated as usual and gave us a peaceful vibe.
Lovely Rosalie and Ashvita were there to welcome us with large smiles. They took us to the nail polish wall, a vision that left my daughter in a state of awe (she is an art student and vivid colour palettes are one of her favourite things in the world). This led her to say: “It’s so difficult to choose!” It is relevant to highlight that she’s never been treated to a professional manicure and pedicure before, so this was all very new to her. She was happiest when she discovered she could choose at least two colours, one for her hands and one for her toes. She went for a shimmering orange tone for her feet and shimmering green for her fingertips. I was in Valentine’s mood, so I picked a beautiful red for both.
We then sat on the comfortable chairs in the salon’s nail area. At Dessange, they are big, white and imposing seats with colourful cushions to help you find the most comfortable position. At the bottom, there is a bowl with a tap. The feeling of the warm water on our feet was just amazing! I always have icy feet, and the past days had been a bit too chilly. I never managed to warm them up – even if I wore boots. So the touch of the warm water gave me a wonderful feeling. The water keeps flowing and the temperature doesn’t change. I hate when you go to places where the water starts getting cold after a while. Not at Dessange, the foot inside the water is guaranteed to stay warm.
The next steps were soaking the feet, cutting and filing the toenails and then removing the extra skin in the cuticles with a cuticle eraser. Solar oil was then applied to the nails and a nice scrub was followed by filing the hard skin on our heels and calloused areas (actually removing my hard skin, my daughter’s feet are just as soft as when she was a baby). They dried our feet, gave us a gentle massage with cucumber peel therapy for dry heels and cream for the legs, and applied nail polish. The ladies then moved to our hands. The same process started, cutting and filing the nails and then soaking our fingers in the manicure bowl. After a while, they removed the extra skin in the cuticles and applied solar oil to the nails. They used salt scrub with a lavender scent and wrapped our hands in warm gloves. This was a very nice touch, and we both loved it. After removing the gloves, it was massage time! They applied the chosen nail polish and we were done.
While we had our treatment, sweet Michele from Dessange Café came to see if we wanted something to drink or eat. We both went for the Cupid Float, the juice for February. It was a combination of strawberry, pineapple and orange juices. It was refreshing and not really sweet, which is a big plus; I’m not too fond of sweet drinks.
We were then ready to go home. We felt like we had a great time together and left wanting more days like this. Maybe now that we’ve tried, we will stick to a once-a-month mother-and-daughter time, at least until she leaves the nest.
For more information or to book an appointment,
please call Dessange Paris Bahrain at 1771 3999.
@dessangebahrain