Why Bother: At the new, elegantly appointed but awkwardly named the Spa at Trump, I couldn’t help but think I wasn’t in Istanbul anymore. True, the women’s lounge has candy-colored Turkish leather poufs Cheap Coach Factory Outlet Online, and Ivanka Trump hired a hammam expert to keep things somewhat authentic. For example, in the heated hammam room, the ceiling is domed and pricked with teeny lights, and the therapists use Turkish exfoliation mitts (called kese) and cotton soap bags (called torba), as well as castile soap made from coconut, palm and olive oil. Even the steps of the bathing ritual — wherein my therapist laid me on a marble “belly stone” heated to 105 degrees, doused me repeatedly with warm water, scrubbed me with the kese and then covered me in thick, foamy soap bubbles — echoed the steps of traditional Turkish hammams.
The Istanbul hammam left me feeling like I’d had an exhilarating, if somewhat aggressive, dermal adventure, but I emerged from the Trump version not so much scrubbed as artfully coddled. Afterward, in the cocoon-like relaxation lounge, I sipped mint tea and watched the wind and rain whip the plants on the Trump terrace. Not exactly Turkish, but still a delight.
Still, there were critical — and, frankly Cheap Coach Factory Outlet Online, more pleasant — differences. Checking into an Istanbul hammam a few years ago, I was unceremoniously tossed a miniscule towel and unwieldy wooden clogs, but at the Trump spa, a demure attendant handed me a fluffy white robe, a paper bikini and flower-emblazoned flip flops. In Istanbul, I entered a communal marble-floored room, amid dozens of other women clients, each completely nude. The aestheticians, possessing rather pendulous breasts and wearing only sumo-wrestler-style shorts, chattered among themselves. Not so in SoHo, where the hammam was my own, the orchids in the room artfully arranged, and my “hammam attaché,” a petite woman in an athletic bikini top and Trump-emblazoned sarong Cheap Coach Factory Outlet Online, took care to explain the treatment and to ask, repeatedly, if everything was to my liking.
Who: The Spa at Trump SoHo
What: Hammam Bathing Ritual
How Much: $100 for 45 minutes. To book an appointment, go to trumpsohohotel.com.
Courtesy of the Spa at Trump SoHo
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