Beauty Review: Spa Day Tragedy 2!

I'm getting the feeling spas and I don't mix. I don't get away to the spa to often and when I do there's always some sort of drama surrounding it. Back in April, I wrote about my 1st spa experience since having my son and what a bust that was. You can read it here. Since that experience, I haven't had the urge to do a spa day plus I'd rather spend my money on makeup! lol But Christmas came around and my lovely in-laws surprised me with a gift certificate for a Toetal Spa Package at Spa Toepia, a spa in the cute historic village of Streetsville in my area. My birthday is this week so I decided this would be the perfect time to use it. My package included a 60 minute massage, classic facial, and classic mani/pedi. Since I'm not too big on massages (I feel weird having a stranger massage me), I called the spa to see if I could switch out my massage for a half leg wax, rescue eye treatment, and eye tinting just for fun. I told her I would pay the difference of $16 for the tinting. Pretty straight forward right? Everything was booked and I couldn't wait to finally have a "me" day full of pampering and relaxation.

The Good:

• It's a smaller spa which meant it would be more intimate and less busy.
  
• I can finally see the skin on my legs now that the hairy monster has been stripped off!
• Everyone seemed nice and friendly.
  
• I had my first facial which left my skin glowing and the smoothest it's ever felt!
• I learned that my skin is in fairly good condition despite a few scars from blemishes. And my paranoid suspicions of sun damage were wrong (thank goodness) - my skin scars easily so the blemishes looked like dark sun spots. Need to get a microdermabrasion scrub to smooth out my bumps.
  
• Facial was done with Dermalogica products. I've been wanting to try the brand and really liked it. My skin felt amazing and didn't make my skin breakout. Unfortunately, I fell asleep during the treatment lol and forgot to ask what products she used!
  

• I got my first parafin wax treatment on my hands and feet and a body polish scrub for free (drama begins...)!

• I'm lovin' my orange-red tips from OPI called The Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It!. Such a hot colour for Spring - too bad it's from an older collection but OPI's India collection has a similar colour called MonSooner Or Later!

The Bad:

• Eye lash tinting was a bad call on my part. My lashes are black already, but I thought the tinting would intensify the black even more. It doesn't - so not worth it if you already have dark lashes. And it burns like hell, something the esthetician just didn't bother to tell me.
  
• It's a smaller space which is good but bad if you're spending the day there and the only place to chill out and eat lunch is at the front in the waiting area! How awkward did I feel sitting there stuffing my face while women waited to get their nails done? Thank goodness I didn't stay in my robe or else I would have freezed to death sitting by the door!
  
• There was no communication between the different esthetician's working on me. The one who did my facial thought I was done for the day, my mani/pedi person thought I upgraded my manicure and pedicure to include the parafin wax and wanted the body polish scrub. I was pretty clueless when it came to what each service included. I didn't bother reading the brochure and thought the parafin was apart of the classic mani/pedi and that the body polish was a complimentary service. I even asked the girl and she said it was included in my package. I thought "sweet!".
  
• My package said it would be a 4 1/2 hr day but I was there for 8.5 hrs! The wait time between lunch and my next treatments was a 2.5 hr wait! It only took me 15 minutes to eat and the rest of the time I sat at the front reading old magazines. Not my idea of a "relaxing" time. Even with the long wait my appt. was still a half hour late!
  
• A friend of all the estheticians came in talking about her lovely cold sore. I think it's cool that women can come and get their nails done and dish about everything. But I just don't think it's professional for a so-called spa to have their friends stop in and talk about picking at their cold sore until it bleeds. It grossed me out.
  
• The icing on the cake: so after everything was done and added up I was charged $100 + over my gift certificate! I knew something went wrong when I got the body polish! Apparently the person who booked my appt. was the manager and she upgraded me to a Spa Mani/Pedi instead of the classic that came with my package and added a body polish scrub. She also made it seem like my lunch was included in my package and encouraged me to choose whatever I wanted. Little did I know that it was an additional $15! It's not expensive but it's the principle. I never asked for any of those services and figured she got my appt. mixed up with someone else. She tried to compromise by giving me a discount on the additional services so I would only pay $70. No way! I told her that I would pay for the services I asked for plus the lunch. I understood that the extra services were already done but since it was my first time there figured it was complimentary because why else would they be giving to me?? I even asked the esthetician to make sure it was included in my package and she said yes! I wasn't sure why it was taking the manager so long for her to minus the extra services but realized she was trying to figure out a way for me to still pay for them. She tried wording it different ways so I wouldn't catch on that I was still paying for a few extras but I stood my ground and said I will only pay $16 plus the lunch. She finally gave in and didn't even apologize for the mix-up. Her esthetician apologized though so I gave her a $20 for her troubles because I actually did like her.
  
• I left the "spa" feeling more stiff than before I got there! So much for a relaxing time!

Overall, I will definitely not be going back to Spa Toepia. The bad points definitely outweighed the good points. It's not the type of environment to enjoy a full spa day plus the cashing out drama just ruined my whole day. I'm not the type of person to scam for free services and I hate to be made out like that. I guess it's ok if you're getting one service done at a time but it's so not worth it to spend the day there! If you're going to market yourself as a "day spa" then maybe you should have an actual area other than the waiting area for the clients to relax! The spa also seemed disorganized and no one knew what was going on, hence the mix-up. The first part of the day seemed so promising then it all went downhill at lunch. After 4 hrs I wanted to go home and was so over the whole spa experience. I'm sure had my girlfriends come along it would have been more enjoyable. I'm sure most of you reading this love the spa but it's just not my thing. I do my own nails, my husband gives me massages if I want it, and I can use a body scrub in the shower! Although, I'll probably treat myself to facials in the future but I'll never spend the day. I'd rather be doing other stuff like buying makeup!