FASHION Magazine

By Carly Milne

Jade Spa at Matachica Beach Resort, Belize, matachica.com.

If you’ve ever dreamed of having your own private escape, specifically designed to help you dissolve your stress, the Jade Spa at Matachica Beach Resort is your solution. Located on Ambergris Caye, an island off the coast of Belize, Jade Spa uses soothing colours, scents and exotic murals in their thatched-roof getaway to create a holistic experience that’s very much in tune with the small country’s unspoiled tropical nature. Take their Sea Salt and Sea Clay Body Mask Massage ($127), for example. Essential oils and locally-sourced salts are blended to make a purifying body scrub, which is followed by a healing and restoring sea clay body mask that nourishes your skin. This is all courtesy of Maria Luisa, Jade’s head spa therapist, who comes from a long line of Mayan healers and herbalists. While she and her staff have conventional training, their emphasis is on traditional knowledge of Mayan remedies like fresh ginger, hibiscus, honey and sea salt. These are combined with tropical ingredients such as banana, papaya, brown sugar and coconut milk to make the spa’s unique masks, scrubs and body wraps. You should also try the Ninety-Minute Therapeutic Massage ($177), which transports you to an otherworldly realm using a mix of massage techniques to balance out your energy. The combination of curative touch, sea breeze and sounds—courtesy of the casita’s curtained, open-air concept—makes you feel like you’re a million miles a way…and you are.

Shown: A casita at Matachica Beach Resort in Belize.

Feel like going to French Polynesia? Read up on a luxe spa getaway on Tuamotu and read about more great spas in the November issue of FASHION.

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