Tesco spa: A leg wax as you stock up on Hob Nobs and soap powder

Add to My Stories Tescos bid for world domination, it seems, has reached a new zenith or perhaps I mean nadir. Not content with giving us cheap food, petrol and even pet insurance, it now has its sights set on our bikini lines, our open pores, our sadly greying roots and our nails.Two Tesco Your Beauty spas have just opened inside a couple of the aircraft-hangar style structures that house their superstores.So I as a spa veteran (beauty salons are no longer enough for me. Nowadays I settle for nothing less than the highest level of pampering) was dispatched to put them to the test.

Beauty therapy: Spa veteran Liz Jones gets her nails painted at she tries out one of Tesco's recently opened 'Your Beauty' countersDo we really want to have our brows threaded, our nails buffed, our roots retouched and our bikinis waxed in the middle of the weekly grocery shop?Arent the words Tesco and spa mutually exclusive?As I approached the wet car park at the Tesco superstore in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, having negotiated a great many mini-roundabouts, I couldnt have felt less enamoured of the place.

Going bananas: Liz opted to do a bit of shopping dressed only in a robe and slippers ahead of her treatments at the new spa in ChesterfieldIt is the polar opposite of descending into the scented candle heaven that is the spa at Londons Mandarin Oriental Hotel or tiptoeing into the new spa at the Limewood Hotel in the New Forest, stocked with Bamford organic products and nestled amid the treetops.Those are more my milieu. Not a shopping centre littered with trolleys and two-for-one offers.Passing by the rows of tellys and the personal care section, I eventually locate the Your Beauty spa. Its set back against the wall in a little recess not dissimilar to the area youd expect to f! ind the in-store rotisserie or cheese counter.Open-fronted and facing onto the aisle, its not the most private spa Ive been to people can see in while they browse the shower gels or look for the latest TV.
I elected to try the manicure, threading (which uses cotton to remove hairs, a less abrasive method than waxing) on my brows, upper lip and chin, and a shampoo, conditioning treatment and blow dry.The spa is in its infancy and there is no relaxation area yet, but to get in the mood, I bought a fluffy robe and slippers from Tescos racks.I had wanted an eyelash tint and hair colour, but was given that old health and safety mantra about needing a patch test 24 hours beforehand to ensure I dont have an allergic reaction, so that was out. To the staffs credit, they were very polite in the face of my apoplexy.

My therapist, Soraya, even re-applied the polish to my right hand after I had chipped the colour putting in my pin at the till after my treatment now, thats service.A man in the basement also washed my car, which is an extra you dont even get at the Urban Retreat, atop Harrods. To top it all off, this place was open until 9pm. My low mood was slowly starting to lift.The manicure was excellent and super fast. But in the interests of speed, a finger soak first is omitted, as is a massage, so cuticles are not softened before being pushed back, which earned them a black mark.

Cut and blow dry: The spa offers a range of hair treatments at almost half the price of what you would pay in the High Street - and is fast and clean tooSoraya went to cut my cuticles without asking permission (I dont believe in cutting them on my wedding day, a manicurist at the very chi-chi Cowshed spa at Babington House, Somerset, made my fingers bleed on my cream Helmut Lang trouser suit), but on the whole she did an expert job.Next was the threading. I could have had this done in one of the threading chairs, but! I didnt want my chin depilated in front of families stocking up on nappies (the salon is cleverly sited next to toiletries).A private room was no trouble and for this privacy you can expect a wait of about 15 minutes at most.The treatment itself, an ancient technique first used in India, was fast, almost painless and thorough. Finally, I had a conditioning treatment on my parched, over-coloured hair and a great blow dry.Did Miss Fussypants have any gripes? Of course I did! A loo within the spa would be good, meaning I wouldnt have had to run through the store in my terry robe and slippers (and I thought supermarkets were trying to eradicate shoppers in the aisles dressed in sleepwear?) and climb stairs. I could have done without the non-stop Rihanna on the sound system, too.Not enough treatments are on the menu at the moment: no Brazilian or Hollywood bikini waxes, no airbrush tan booths or facials and no pedicures a glaring omission that made me stamp my crusty feet. But these are all promised fairly soon.And Id like the spa to go the extra mile. How about I hand over my shopping list on entry and a lovely, buffed and tanned young man with excellent taste fills my trolley for me while Im being pampered?However, my main gripe about the Tesco Spa is the clinical atmosphere.

Kind and helpful: When Liz wanted one treatment done in private, staff found this no trouble, and were friendly throughoutWhile the supermarket lino has been swapped for laminate, the lighting in the spa is harsh, there is no ambient soundtrack of a tropical rainforest or warm footbath scented with rose petals to greet you.But thats not what this spa is about. As a woman called Carol, with four children under five, who had turned up on spec to get her nails done, told me: Sometimes lifes too short to muck about choosing the right scent of essential oil for your particular chakra. Ive got tea to cook.
Interest has alre! ady been piqued for this new spa concept: on a wet Tuesday morning, business was brisk, with women from teenagers to 70-somethings turning up for threading or a hair colour all relieved there is no need to book.There is no creche, but staff are willing to keep an eye on children and I spied a linen cupboard you could lock them up in.I do wonder, though, how many local hairdressers and beauty salons will go out of business, given the prices (shampoo and cut, 15; eyebrow threading, 5; eyelash tint, 5; half-leg wax, 10; manicure, 10) are generally half what youd be charged in the town centre.The Tesco spa is fast and clean. I noted the stringent sterilisation even of hairbrushes and a method of applying wax to the skin called Personal Hygiene Disposable that avoids the unhygienic double-dip technique where technicians fail to throw the waxing lolly stick away and plunge it back into the wax, which could introduce super bugs.
It is also very friendly (my therapists were sweet not the straight-out-of-technical-college types you get in provincial spas).And there are no juniors in the hair salon, so the shampoo and head massage are top notch and not accompanied by a row of bored teens chatting to one another over the top of your head, scorching and then freezing you. I was with Angela, whos been a hairdresser for 17 years and is in charge of training.

Very little choice: One of Liz's gripes was that the spa lacks a wide range of treatments, including bikini line waxes, fake tanning or facialsAlso, the no appointment policy is liberating, having been scolded for turning up late at the Aveda spa in Londons Covent Garden on many occasions, meaning I always feel more stressed, not less.But if you were to arrive here and there was a queue of 25 people unlikely with four beauty therapists on hand, not counting the hair stylists and such speedy treatments you could always do your supermarket sho! pping an d come back.So overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the Tesco Spa with friendly therapists and nice customers.After all, why shouldnt busy women on a shoestring get a bit of pampering for a change?Tesco Your Beauty spas are open in Chesterfield in Derbyshire and Leicester (Beaumont Leys). Threading chairs and nail bars are on trial in Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Manchester and Wembley.