WAILEA, Hawaii — The spa at the Grand Wailea resort on Maui offers wine baths, six-hand lava stone massages, Hawaiian sea salt baths, volcanic ash facials, and paraffin pedicures.
The biggest spa in Hawaii, the Grand Wailea’s 50,000-square-foot Spa Grande, overlooking lush tropical gardens fronting the Pacific Ocean on the island’s south shore, seems to have everything.
Including, increasingly, men.
“It’s the fastest-growing demographic,” said Sharon Ogawa, spa director, as employees scattered hibiscus petals, shined the tile floors, and piled up pyramids of freshly laundered towels just before opening time.
The proportion of spa-goers who are male has shot up from 31 percent less than 10 years ago to 47 percent, according to the International Spa Association, or ISPA. There’s even been a boomlet in bachelor parties at spas.
Advertisement
Spas are responding with macho relaxation rooms — no hibiscus petals there — featuring darker colors and microbrews alongside the cucumber-infused chilled spring water, and with shiatsu instead of Swedish massage options, father-son packages, and masculine-sounding treatments like Spa Grande’s “Men’s Tune Up” body therapy, and “sports pedicures.” Other spas provide “executive men’s facials” and “golf massages.”
“Men respond to different terminology,” Ogawa said.
But what’s bringing them to spas in the first place, she said, isn’t just manly choices on the menu. “They’re realizing that spa is not just pampering, but that in order to stay physically fit, it’s a necessity.”
After all, Ogawa said, men have been going to spas since Greek and Roman times, and even longer than that in Eastern cultures.
The typical modern-day male spa-goer is 25 to 44 years old, makes at least $50,000, and is likely to hold a job as a manager or above, according to statistics collected by ISPA. In short, said Lynne McNees, the association’s president, he’s likely to be more stressed out than a Greek or Roman.
Advertisement
“It’s not just about luxury or pampering,” McNees said. “It’s much more than that. It gives you permission to pause, and that’s what we truly need.”
Spas are going all out to encourage this phenomenon, both in their settings and their services. The CasaMagna Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort & Spa reported a 21 percent jump in male spa guests last year, and offers such men-only services as the “Just for Him Facial.” The spa at the JW Marriott Grand Rapids in Michigan treats men with a “Brew ’n’ Renew” process using hops and barley from nearby breweries.
“There’s been a lot of personalization and customization of the treatments to make men more comfortable,” said McNees. “Men may not want to go into a spa with pink robes and flowers. And in the treatments themselves, we’re finding a difference. . . . Men want tangible results. They want to walk out feeling that they’ve really made a difference in their body, mind, and spirit.”
At the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua on Maui, the “gentlemen’s spa” has a waiting area with a flat-screen TV, a sauna, a steam room, and a hot tub in a volcanic stone grotto female employees refer to as “the man cave.”
This spa offers facials, simultaneous scalp and foot massages, deep tissue and sport massages, and manicures and pedicures to men who exchange awkward “ ’sup”s and tend to avoid eye contact in the halls.
Many men remain demonstrably uncomfortable with the idea of going to a spa. Nearly 40 percent of men in the ISPA survey said they avoid spas because they’re not familiar with the etiquette, and one in five said spas are for women.
Advertisement
That’s changing fast — including in New England.
“Men have always been dragged with a spouse or a partner, but for them to be booking services on their own, that’s a growing market,” said Karen Smegal, director of the spa at The Essex resort in Essex, Vt., which, among other services, offers father-son experiences, a draft beer list, and an 80-minute “Muscle Melt”: a body wrap with herbs and liniment followed by a massage to relieve sore muscles and swollen joints.
“The impression that men had five years ago was that it was just a froufrou place for women to relax and gossip,” Smegal said. “They would come and not tell their friends, and that has changed.”
Now, in fact, men bring their friends; bachelor parties in spas — particularly spas that serve alcohol — are a hot trend, spa directors said.
“Men are just getting comfortable with having that spa experience in groups,” McNees said.
Women are encouraging them, too; Guerlain Spa in the Towers of the Waldorf Astoria New York reports a 64 percent increase in Father’s Day gift cards last year.
The entry drug for most men, though, is the massage, according to ISPA. About a third move on to pedicures, manicures, or facials.
That’s because “they become more comfortable with the environment,” said Smegal. “The massage is a safe starter treatment for them, to see what the spa environment is all about.”
Advertisement
Men also respond to the idea that spas can give them a competitive advantage, she said.
“Taking care of yourself, whether it’s having a manicure and having your nails looking presentable, to the haircuts — all of those thing send a lot of messages,” Smegal said. “They know that to get a leg up on the competition, they have to look good.”
That kind of advantage doesn’t come cheap. Prices range from $150 for the Muscle Melt at the Essex to $442 for a three-hour package at Spa Grande, including exfoliation, a massage, a facial, a haircut, and lunch, and $472 for a 2½-hour men’s facial, massage, and scalp and foot massage at the Ritz on Maui.
Cicy McCrea, a spa concierge at the Ritz, said men particularly like the 50-minute, $80 pedicures.
They “love having their feet rubbed” said McCrea. (“That’s because no one else will do it,” piped up her colleague Erin Rinker.)
If they tell their friends, said Smegal, so much the better.
“As men start to experience spas more often and become more comfortable talking about it,” she said, “you’ll see this trend expanding even more.”
Jon Marcus can be reached at jon@mysecretboston.com.