Finding your bliss

For the past 10 years, spas have been mushrooming around the city and for good reason: to relieve those with stressed, weary souls increasingly facing the demands of a lifestyle that was once known as good but is now known as toxic. Clearly, the want — more of the need — to find your way back to Zen is as essential as breathing.

Vastly popular among the lunchtime crowd is Yeu Sole + Body Spa strategically located in the city’s busiest districts. Unlike other spas, their thrust is alleviating stress from the most abused part of the body, the feet — practical and direct to the point, and really, all you need is an hour (okay, 30 minutes if you’re extremely busy) for yourself to get your groove back. "Yeu" is a Vietnamese word for love, and influences of Vietnamese culture are evident throughout the 100-square-meter spa and its 10 private rooms from the décor down to the serving of rose tea, the spa’s house tea.

The origin of the strokes of their massage, however, infiltrates deeply into an entire Oriental culture. The Vietnamese massage is a combination of different strokes like kneading, acupressure and reflexology among many others, citing the Chinese and Thai methods as the most influential. The Vietnamese method primarily uses lemongrass essential oil known for its antiseptic, invigorating and balancing properties. However, they also carry an array of more popular ones like peppermint, lavender, eucalyptus and grapefruit. The most requested service? The Yeu Sole to Soul Massage (P450 for 60 minutes) that begins with a Vietnamese Natural Facial, a relaxing foot massage and is capped off with a body stretch.  

Now if your boss is M.I.A., you know where to go…

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Yeu Spa is located at the G/F, Zaragoza Building, 102 Gamboa St., Legazpi Village, Makati City (tel. 893-3105). Operating hours are from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Monday to Sunday.