La Vida Spa Santa Fe

Take this spa trail across New Mexico in search of authentic indigenous rituals, holistic treatments, industry-leading eco-consciousness — and night skies as vivid as a Georgia O’Keeffe painting.

• By Charlene Rooke

Just a short drive away to downtown Santa Fe and a short walk from its famous central plaza is Absolute Nirvana, one of the greenest spas in America. On this chilly spring day it feels like a slice of the tropics. “This is the treatment that started it all when Carolyn had it in Indonesia,” spa manager George Padilla tells me before my Mandi Lulur session, a ritual treatment traditionally given to young Javanese women for 40 consecutive days before their marriage.
Spa owner Carolyn Lee, who also operates nearby B & B-style accommodations, has long been committed to environmental practices. This four-room spa practices comprehensive “Greenistics”: organic products, natural cleaning agents, wind-generated power and treatment water repurposed for heating. “We’re green right down to the roots of our operation, though it’s not easy to operate this way and it’s expensive. People are still really unsure of what green means. But the awareness is coming,” says Padilla.
My therapist Georgina (who is from New Sarepta, Alberta — small world) shows me the house-made treatments: a mask of honey and yogurt, a scrub of ground brown rice with sandalwood and bright-yellow turmeric that makes my body look like a piece of performance art against the scarlet and ochre sheets. Her massage technique is “based in Swedish but ranges from rolfing to shiatsu to cranial sacral and deep-tissue work,” Georgina says. “And Hawaiian lomi lomi: when I get a massage I just love those long, flowing strokes.” After a steam shower I relax in a rose petal-topped granite tub, snacking on sharp ginger tea, fresh fruit — and one perfect, round chocolate truffle.
That night when I change into pajamas a rose petal clinging to my back floats to the floor, making me feel like an Indonesian princess all over again.

The Deluxe Spa treatments include a ritual footbath, an hour-long massage, your choice of a skin conditioning or detoxifying treatment, a steam room, and a rose petal bath. All supplemented by wonderful teas, lemon water, strawberries, and the faint essence of Bali. There are three different Deluxe Treatments: the Javanese Lulur (wedding day preparation, or for fun); the Ocean and Flowers Treatment, which has detoxifying seaweed, and the Brown Sugar and Papaya, for revitalization. For the descriptions, see ABSOLUTE NIRVANA’s Web site. I chose the Papaya and Brown Sugar Treatment, which uses the Spicy Bali Massage Oil, and perhaps it was this smell that took me more completely into the exotic. Besides the medical benefits of massage, which are numerous, (to name just a few: it helps your lymph glands to cleanse themselves, your muscles to relax and release toxic build-up) and besides the medical benefits for your skin (your largest organ) of exfoliation and cleansing with steam, what really happens is that you find the spa is a door you step through that allows you to find your own path, your own way, into the exotic and sensual and spiritual ever-expanding, ever-becoming you, as though you were always right there, waiting for the Nirvana Spa that will allow you to tap into the person you always wanted to be."
by Bliss Magazine, October 2005

By Jessica Matlin

Most Luxurious Treatment:
The Balinese Boreh, a ginger, nutmeg, and coriander body mask said to relieve muscle aches, soften skin, and even fight the common cold, plus a 20-minute foot massage. $220.
Top Pros: Janis Gordon for face; Lauren Janson for body. Best Amenity: All of the 120-minute Deluxe Treatments coe with teas, fruit and chocolates.

With Santa Fe boasting the highest number of licensed massage therapists per capita, we could easily be considered the de-stresssing capital of the country. Choosing the one ultimate indulgence from the city's numerous full-service destination spas was no easy feat. Absolute Nirvana absolutely lives up to its name. This Balinese-inspired retreat at The Madeleine Bed & Breakfast offers an otherworldly two-hour indulgence that begins with a cup of an Indonesian herbal elixir and a ritual foot cleansing. Next comes a full-body massage, after which a melange of cinnamon and brown sugar is mixed with warm oil for an all-over body scrub, followed by a honey and papaya mask. Then comes a stint in the steam room and a leisurely soak in a granite tub filled with hundreds of rose petals, a roaring fire nearby. A tray of chocolate truffles and piquant ginger honey tea provides the perfect finale.
by Santa Fean, May 2006

By SOPHIA DEMBLING / Special Contributor

The history of Carolyn Lee's spa and inns reads like an autobiography.

The diplomat's daughter moved from Paris to Santa Fe in 1987, and, a year later, opened her first bed and breakfast named Alexander's Inn, for her son. Twins born in 1996 were similarly honored when Lee transformed two historic buildings into Hacienda Nicholas and the nearby Madeleine Inn. After two trips to Bali, Lee was so taken by the island she decided to recreate its grace in a luxury spa. Opened in 2005, Absolute Nirvana is part of the Madeleine Inn and within walking distance of her two other hotels on a quiet Santa Fe side street, a few blocks from the busy plaza.

The spa: While spas elsewhere vie for honors as grandest and glitziest, Absolute Nirvana is a little gem where bliss is in the details. Check in at the inn, then cross the lush gardens to a building housing four treatment rooms -- two for singles, one for couples (with tub for two and fireplace), and one exclusively for facials.

All of the senses are caressed here. The massage table is covered in rich shades of purple and persimmon, a wicker chair is draped in silk, a ceiling fan gently stirs the air, a perfect spray of peach-colored blossoms in a blue vase is bathed in sunshine and birdsong drifts in through the open window.

Absolute Nirvana pampers the earth, too. A full 80 percent of the spa's energy is wind-generated. It has its own water-treatment system. And only natural and organic ingredients are used for the Indonesian-inspired treatments.

Top treatment: The Javanese Lulur, one of four two-hour deluxe treatments, originated as a wedding ritual for princesses in the 17th century. It begins with a foot scrub and a jasmine-infused tonic drink. But surreal relaxation comes with the hourlong massage in which the masseuse uses long, intense strokes. You're awakened with a gentle scrub of sandalwood, brown rice powder and turmeric, followed by a body mask of yogurt and honey.

While most treatments could end here, Absolute Nirvana lives up to its name with a post-shower bath, the tub filled with hot water and topped by a thick layer of rose petals.While soaking, you'll breathe rose-scented air, sip spicy-sweet ginger tea and nibble fresh fruits and an organic chocolate truffle.

The word nirvana is Sanskrit for "a place or condition of sublime happiness or fulfillment." That about sums up this New Mexico haven.

Details: A deluxe romance package for two, from $740, includes two nights at the Madeleine Inn or one of Lee's other properties, and includes champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries and a deluxe couple's treatment.

September 15, 2008

Nothing could be sweeter than the Brown Sugar & Papaya Extravaganza ($240, 120 minutes) at Absolute Nirvana Spa (Santa Fe, NM). The treatment begins with a ritual footbath, followed by a full-body massage using the spa's signature Spicy Bali massage oil, a completely organic blend of jojoba oil and essential oils. Next, an exfoliation is performed using organic brown sugar and cinnamon, and a freshly blended papaya-pulp body mask is applied. After a 10-minute steam shower to help the papaya and oils penetrate, the session wraps with a 25-minute fireside soak in a rose petal-filled granite tub that is accompanied by hot ginger tea and a tray of homemade chocolate truffles (and fruit). This fruit-filled infusion is most certainly the path to total bliss.