Fashion

Beauty

The body wrap that you, the Oscar nominees and Neil Patrick Harris can use to look good.

Considering that I rarely ever make it to the gym these days (I blame my toddler), when the offer of a body treatment that guaranteed at least a six-inch loss over the course of two hours was presented, how could I say no?
Body Beautiful’s Universal Contour Wrap is being doled out at a very exclusive (sorry, Lisa Rinna) pre-Oscar gifting suite this week—likely appealing to anyone who either fell off the wagon or got a last-minute invite and is hell-bent on pouring themselves into an Hervé Léger bandage dress.

At Toronto’s GQ Spa (99 Sudbury St., 416-533-0772, gqspa.com), I was all ready in my fluffy robe for their GQ Slim treatment ($199), when co-owner Irene Lee gave me the heads up: “This is not a spa treatment. It’s not relaxing.” So scratch the facial that I was initially told I was going to receive whilst wrapped. “It’s just too uncomfortable for clients,” she explained. I suppose it made sense, but if I thought that was mean, I was mistaken. Because next I was asked to strip down to nothing but the disposable thong I was wearing so that 18 points of my body could be assessed with a measuring tape, marked with pen on my body and logged for comparison post-wrap. Do I really need to quantify the degradation? I think not.

As Lee began to wind damp Tensor bandages around me, she explained that the clay they’ve been soaking in “acts as a magnet,” drawing out all the toxins from my lifetime (yes, lifetime.) These nasty guys reside in fluid between your cells, so once drained you see the slimming effect. Once I was completely enveloped in what could only be described as a giant cold and clammy girdle, I then (when does the humiliation cease?) had to don an oversized silver plastic suit—similar to a Hazmat suit, minus the hood—to prevent the bandages from drying out. Instead of lying down for the required hour to wait for the magic to happen (too boring!!) instead I opt to head to the lounge to read magazines. But it’s clear that attempting to be mobile should not be taken for granted—I have to shuffle slowly because of all the extra weight and the fact that I can barely bend.

5 minutes: flipping through a mag while my gut is being held in for me. 15 minutes: I want these off. Now. 30 minutes: I’m either getting hungry or this get-up is way too tight on my stomach. 50 minutes: UNLEASH ME FROM THIS HELL!!!

The verdict: I lost approximately 7.5 inches with the most coming off my back fat and a slight lift in my bum. Nice. But in order to maintain this I’m supposed to drink lots of water, avoid body lotion (clogs pores) and abstain from coffee, tea, sugar, salt, fried and fatty foods…but um, well, that didn’t happen. Guess I won’t be allowed on the red carpet.