Friday Flop: It’s A Wrap! Hollywood Body Wrap

Hollywood Body Wrap: Boo.

With awards season upon us, I like many others have been glued to my TV watching the SAGs and the Emmys, the Grammys and soon the Oscars. Oh the fashion, it parades past with bright colors, flashy prints, and expensive accessories galore! The one thing I wanna know is, how do they get in those dresses?? After checking out a few things I googled, one name kept popping up. Hollywood Body Wraps.

According to the Hollywood Body Wrap website:

The safest, most effective body wrap on the market today for toxin removal and guaranteed inch loss! With this wrap, you can expect to lose 6 to 20 inches in your first wrap, tighten and tone skin, reduce stretch marks, smooth ugly cellulite, increase energy and enjoy a healthy, refreshed feeling. The Slim Wrap is our signature wrap. This is the Body Wrap that you have seen on The Tyra Banks Show, The Rachael Ray Show, Ellen, The Fabulous Life of, Fit Nation, The View and many more. This is THE wrap that all of the Hollywood Stars get before their Red Carpet events — now available to you!

I was curious, so I said what the heck and scheduled a wrap the next day. When I arrived at the “spa” (it was literally just a store front in a strip mall with no real spa facilities what so ever.) I filled out a health sheet that asked the usual questions about if I was in good health, no heart problems, poor circulation, etc. I completed  that  and was shown to a small dressing room behind a curtain where I stripped down to my unmentionables and waited for the wrap tech. She was a pleasant little woman. She had a clip board with a sheet on it and as she calculated my before measurements with a tape measure and wrote them down, a plastic bin appeared under the curtain that had large, rolled ace bandages in it. The tiny woman didn’t tell me what my measurements were, but got right to work mummifying me in the warm, wet ace bandages. Quickly, she wrapped me from head to toe in the mineral soaked bandages with a strength that belied her small stature.

After I looked like I belonged in ancient Egypt, she threw a tarp over me for modesty (The website showed plastic body suits) and asked me to hop on an elliptical machine where I did about a 45-minute set. I was guessing that I needed to keep my blood moving while wrapped so tightly, but this was only a guess since after I was wrapped and placed on the elliptical machine my small, Herculean assistant disappeared. No explanation of what was going on or what I could expect. After 45 minutes on the elliptical, I was finally approached to move to this Segway-looking machine where all I did was stand on it while it vibrated at 22 miles per hour! (I can only imagine what my fanny looked like all wrapped up and jiggling at that speed!) After 30 minutes of that, I was ushered back into my private dressing room to be unwrapped and remeasured. Like before, I was measured almost in silence except for the questions I would pepper in here and there. After she was through she left and I got dressed to meet her in the lobby. When I got there she had added up my “inch loss” and told me I had lost 19 and a half inches. I was skeptical. I saw myself in the mirror when I was getting dressed and I didn’t really see it. My clothes fit a little looser, but I didn’t really see any change.  When I went to pay I got the hard sell for buying a package of 3 to 6 wraps that would be like upkeep for my 19 inch loss today. The website says to lose one pant size you need to do the wraps 3 to 6 times, but really, who has the money to drop on that?? I politely said no, paid my $159 plus tax and tip, and went home to check out this loss in my own mirror. Yeah, I still didn’t see it.

So there ya have it. Does the Hollywood Body Wrap work? Maybe yes, maybe no, but at $159 a pop, I think I’ll just keep doing the running and dieting thing. That’s free!

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