The One Where I Went to a Korean Spa: Body Scrub Edition

When I was in California my cousin took me on a terrifying unique adventure. We went to a Korean spa for body scrubs. Sounds delightful, right?? A gentle rubdown with scented scrubs and luxurious lotions?

IT’S NOT THAT.

“Seshin” is an intense Korean cleaning process that entails soaking in hot water then getting VIGOROUSLY scrubbed with a thin, sandpaper-like loofah mitt to rid the body of all the gunky dirt and layers of dead skin that accumulate naturally.

Scrubbed. All Over. Like, ALL. OVER.

Did I mention that you’re NAKED? For EVERYTHING? Once you enter the shower/baths/scrub area, you’re sans clothing. I believe some spas allow bathing suits to be worn, but that seems to be the exception. So going from shower to hot tub, cold tub, sauna, “body work” tables, etc. All naked.

I am NOT a naked type person, ha ha. So…this was an interesting experience for me. I definitely am not one to show off my body even when I was young and slim.

If ^ that is TMI for you…get out now while you still can, cuz it’s only gonna get worse. Ha ha.

I think that culturally, the US is much less “naked-tolerant” than other countries. Nude beaches, public baths, etc., all seem more common in other countries.

Public bath houses are a part of routine life in countries like Japan and Korea. They’re sort of like a rec center, with exercise areas, lounges, cafes, sleeping areas….and communal baths. The bath house is a place for people to gather, socialize, relax, get squeaky-clean, and improve health. Cleanliness is also highly regarded in Asia; bath houses allow people to get a deep cleaning that they may not be able to get at home. Most apartments (like mine!) do not have bathtubs, so the bath house allows for that deep soaking that dead skin needs to be removed.

I LOVE a bath. If you’ve been following me for awhile you know how much I crave having a bathtub. I soak in the tub, I read in the tub, I SLEEP in the tub. I warm up there in the winter. I cool down there in the summer. And I’m tub-picky. I’m not interested in a regular “builder-type” tub, which is what I call those like 14″ deep tubs found in most homes. When I re-did my bathroom in my cute lil Craftsman house, I had a 30″ deep soaking tub put in and it was a DREAM. It’s the one thing I splurged on. When I lived in the Brooklyn brownstone, I had an old clawfoot tub that was similar. I’m a Big Person. In a 14″ tub, hardly any of me is under the water! At 30″ I can have everything under water except my head.

The Korean baths are deep like hot tubs. You sit on a ledge/seat around the sides and most people were submerged up to their necks. I guess have a tall torso cuz I was a little more out of the water…but at least my boobs were submerged 🙂 Some women were sitting up on the edge, with just their legs in the water. I really admire them for that, but I will probably NEVER be in that group!

Let me back up. When you get to the spa you pay an admission fee just to enter and have access to the general facilities: exercise room, locker room, baths, showers, saunas and steam rooms, as well as the café and lounge areas. The lounge area had comfy seating, massage chairs, and sleeping mats on the floor. I’ve watched enough k-dramas to know that “the spa” is an acceptable place to sleep and clean up at an affordable cost. In CA and NY I’ve seen admission prices range from $30-75…and around Seoul, I see admission in the $5-15 (US) range. They’re so plentiful there, I guess the competition keeps the price down. If you want additional services (massage, facial, body scrub, etc) you pay extra.

When you sign in they give you a tee shirt and towel…which, if you’re plus sized, good luck with that. It’s like the hospital gowns – a big NOPE. In another room you can pick up a robe and a pair of elastic waist shorts. ALSO small. When I go again I’ll definitely check if it’s alright to bring my own robe or loose cotton dress for walking around in. They may not want anything from the outside world inside for cleanliness reasons but it’s worth an ask.

PS – everything seemed very clean. Everyone must shower before getting into any of the tubs. The high heat and circulation of the water keeps things moving and disinfected…and my cousin thought maybe it was salt water – like a salt water pool. Anyway, I’m not dead yet, so…that’s always a good sign.

We weren’t doing facials or massages or anything, so after putting our clothes in a locked locker and putting on the spa clothes (I did the best I could, ha ha), we went to the shower area. The showers have shampoo, conditioner, and body wash dispensers on the wall and lots of extra towels nearby so you don’t have to bring any of that with you. There are standing showers and seated showers. For the most part it seemed like the Korean women used the seated showers – which had a lower shower-head and a little plastic stool to sit on.

And then…it was time for my big debut, ha ha.

HERE I AM, WORLD.

Oofah. It was…uncomfortable in the beginning, but…when in Rome (or Korea)…and EVERYONE is naked…you just go with the flow. No one’s looking at one another like that. Honestly, the hardest thing for me in the beginning was NOT looking at people. Like, normally, you just sort of look around at people. Here I was making an effort to NOT look at people, so they wouldn’t think I was LOOKING at them (#alwaystheguiltcomplex), and that is awkward in itself.

We started in the super hot tub and yeah…it was super hot. I love hot HOT water but…this got to me pretty quickly so we got out and got into the ICY COLD tub…which is more my comfort zone. Still, you can’t last very long there, either, so next we got into the warm tub. The hot and warm tubs were larger…I’m guesstimating…10×15′? There weren’t supposed to be more than 10 (or was it 6?) people in either of the larger tubs at one time, so you’re able to stay distanced. The cold tub was smaller but there were never more than three people in there at a time cuz COLD.

Oh, the hot and warm tubs have (like jacuzzi) jets all around the sides, so the water is bubbly and…less transparent. That was a help. The cold water tub was still and clear.

I was in and out a bunch of times as I get overheated really quickly…and we’d gotten there well before our scheduled scrubs so we had a lot of soaking time.

My cousin robed up at one point to go exploring but I stayed soaking. It was really very relaxing. There was a steady stream of people in and out but it was never crowded…there were usually between 3-5 people in the tub at the same time. I wish I had a book!

When she came back she told me about all the different kinds of steam (wet and dry) and sauna rooms. Dry heat, ice rooms, a salt room, a jade room (??) and some kind of brick dome room that was set to over 200 degrees, OOFAH. That is not for me!

FINALLY we were called for our body scrubs. I had the usual “new experience” anxiety. The body work room had maybe 10 cubicles, open-ended but closed on the sides. Each cubicle had a table like a massage table, covered in…plasticky vinyl? The scrubbers were all Korean women who spoke in very short directives. You start out on the (slippery!) table face down, with a little folded towel to rest your head on. But that’s it. It’s not like a massage where you’re partially under a sheet. You’re just OUT THERE, which, I have to say, is a little terrifying, ha.

She starts at your feet and SCRUBS you with her little abrasive mitt…and she REALLY scrubs you. HARD. It wasn’t too hard for ME. I shower with a kitchen scrubby sponge – you know the kind that are sponge on one side and scrubby on the other side? I scrub myself with the scrubby side. So I’m no stranger to being scrubbed.

But by the time she’s worked her way up – legs, back, arms, and you open your eyes, you see all the little rolls of dead skin all over the table that have come off your body. ICK! As well-scrubbed as I thought I was…clearly there was still a lot of dead skin to come off!

THEN…”flip over.” Flip what now?? Yeah. Flip (without killing yourself) onto your back on the SLIPPERY table. And then it is REALLY all out there. Again, no sort of covering whatsoever. Nothing, nada.

And she gets into EVERY part of your body. Every nook, cranny, crevice, fold, flap, EVERYWHERE. I was clamping stuff shut ha ha just to retain a LITTLE dignity, but…she’s grabbing limbs and raising them up, over, this way and that, so she can get everywhere.

After scrubbing each side (front, back, and each side), she’d douse me with a bucket of hot water. Wash all that SKIN off me, uck. At the end she gave me a quick shampoo and condition

I was a little disoriented so it took me several moments to realize when I was being dismissed ha ha, and I slid off the table and hightailed it back to the shower room. Lather rinse repeat.

The whole thing lasted 30 minutes. But it feels very fast, like you’re in an alternate universe or something.

Oh, I don’t think I mentioned (important point), that the baths are not co-ed. There’s a men’s floor and a women’s floor and ne’re the twain shall meet. Til they’re dressed and meet on one of the “mixed sex” floors, like where the lounge and café are.

There are long seated vanity areas with mirrors and really good hair dryers (it was actually MY hair dryer, so that was nice) and baskets of goodies like lotion and toothbrushes.

And then it was over! We dressed and dried and headed up to the café for a treat, which we ate on the rooftop.

For all my nervousness and anxiety about NEW EXPERIENCE and PUBLIC NAKEDNESS, I really enjoyed it. A LOT.

PLUS, I am SO SOFT. Ha. I wish I had someone to touch me because they would be delighted, ha ha.

I’ve been looking for something comparable here…it would be nice/horrifying to go with a friend. And I KNOW when I’m in Korea I will avail myself of this treat a LOT. Even if just for the bath part. Apparently it’s not good to do the scrub too often.

For obvious reasons I took no pictures…but here’s a short video (3 mins) that was actually filmed at the place we went…so you can see what it looks like. Ahh, note…they have towel coverings in the video for PG purposes.

Have you ever been to a public bath? Would you?