Skip to main contentSpring cleaning doesn't stop with your closet, chum. Turn that synergistic Zen-ergy inward to assess the state of your simplest self. And, if you dare, make some changes that will radiate in both your complexion and your "chi." Need inspiration? Try a consultation with local therapist Wendy Jones. A former soap actress (As the World Turns) and voice-over talent (DC Comics' Poison Ivy and Lois Lane) in the early '90s, Jones hung up her show-business star when she began to be confronted with persistent health problems at the early age of 20. In an attempt to clean up her lifestyle (and who doesn't need a little of that in show biz?), she embraced radically cleansing mind-body therapies like reiki, colonic hydrotherapy, and a raw-food diet. This path has led her to create her own consulting business based on these treatments: Chakra 17 West. (She has become the one-woman West Coast branch for NYC's popular Chakra 17 East.) And what can I say? She oozes beauty and health--you know: glossy skin, teeth like a quarterhorse.
Show biz dug her new style, too. Jones' Chakra 17 East treatments attracted a celebrity clientele--confidentiality agreements dissuade her from saying just who, but let's just say it's a healthy mix of rock stars, supermodels and movie folk--seeking a quick fix for the high life's ravages. (Having observed the epidermal and deep-down havoc that serious partying wreaks on the pretty people, she urges, with a passion Nancy Reagan could never muster: "Don't do drugs.") Now relocated to Northeast Portland for the April-fresh air and spic-and-span living, Jones offers the same range of toxins-begone treatments to Portland's hippies, hotties and holistic-health junkies.
New Agers notwithstanding, why do the shallow 'n' gorgeous types pursue therapies as deep-digging as reiki (which involves the movement of energy through therapeutic touch) or as invasive as colonics?
"Because there are immediate beauty benefits," says Jones. "Zits: gone. Tummy bulges: gone. With constant work, you can slow or even reverse the aging process. It doesn't get any more vain than that."
If you're seeking to slough off in a salon-esque environment, aesthetician and licensed reiki therapist Jane Brodie has opened Skin Care by Jane on Northwest 23rd Avenue to bridge the gap between traditional spa therapies and the woo-woo realm. The herbal inch-loss wrap ($95) uses enzyme-active aloe vera to deliver "toxin-cleansing herbs" to your fatty tissue, which is designed to cause excess fat and other baddies to be flushed out through the lymphatic system. All of her therapies are meant to give skin (and self) a fresh start for greater well-being.
Brodie believes that reiki ($60 for 1 hour) has particular renewing powers: "It can heal physical injury, from cuts to stomach aches, just by laying hands on the affected area." Gushing personal testimonial: After a half-hour treatment, that stressed-out scrunch that usually contorts my forehead was replaced by smoothness and placidity (it can't last).
But Wendy Jones stresses that skin-deep benefits are only a tiny part of scrubbing down one's internal junk drawer. "The coolest thing is when people come in for the surface benefits of something like reiki and end up addressing heavier issues"--squelched trauma, relationship woes, the stuff chronic illness and wan complexions are made of.
Does that kind of spring cleaning really happen? "It's unavoidable," she says. Good mind-body therapists like Jones avoid the quick fix, and prefer to walk you through a series of consultations and treatments that lead to lasting personal progress.
And you thought Botox went deep.
604 NW 23rd Ave., Suite 4 891-0521
493-9656 www.chakra17.com .
This nonprofit women's sanctuary will host a daylong beauty event featuring massage therapists, reiki masters, psychics and more. Vegetarian lunch provided.
WWeek 2015