Celebrity Retreat Uses Diets and Head Massages to Cure Female Baldness

by Alexandra Kilpatrick

About eight million British women suffer from hair thinning or hair loss at some point in their lives, with causes ranging from hormonal and genetic to dietary and psychological.

Luckily, one medical spa offers a treatment package with the goal of halting female hair loss.

The SHA Wellness Clinic, located in the mountains of Valencia, Spain and voted best medical spa by Conde Nast Traveller, features a weekend of serious medical assessments, bolstered by a strict no-caffeine, no-alcohol, no-sugar vegan diet to cleanse the system and treat hair loss.

The luxurious resort has hosted celebrities like Barbra Streisand and Donna Karan.

SHA’s hair loss treatment package focuses on improving health through natural therapies combined with Eastern and advanced Western medicine. The weekend-long program examines every aspect of each individual’s medical history and includes a health check as well as individual spa treatments.

Each client is then placed on a macrobiotic diet, based on 60 percent grains as well as seasonal local vegetables, seaweeds and seasonal local fruit. The delicious, delicate and aesthetically pleasing meals make brown rice, soya and tofu seem like a fine replacement for meat, fish, eggs and cheese, according to Sarah Hartley of the Daily Mail.

“Nutrition expert Kenneth Prange asked if I suffered from kidney problems (yes) and poor circulation (yes),” Hartley wrote in the Daily Mail. “I spotted a chart on the wall of a woman’s face indicating related areas. Mum and I are both blessed with bags beneath our eyes – not related to sleep deprivation – and that area was linked to…the kidneys.”

Prange suggested that Hartley and her mother, who both attended the weekend-long treatment program, stimulate and strengthen their kidneys through diet and make sure blood flows to their heads through massage and exercise. The nutrition expert prescribed a daily cup of Japanese Mu tea to support the kidneys.

The daily treatment program offered optional nutritional lectures and macrobiotic cooking demonstrations. To encourage circulation, Hartley and her mother swam in the spa’s outdoor pool and indoor pool circuit with hot and cold plunge pools, baths, a sauna, a steam room and an ice fountain.

They also had two daily treatments, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The first was a 25-minute nutritive capillary treatment, which cost about 120 dollars and included nourishing, repairing and hydrating treatments, using Ayurvedic massage and vigorously applying essential oils to stimulate the scalp. The second was the 50-minute SHA capillary treatment, which cost about 200 dollars, started with a relaxing massage using rosemary, mint and sesame oil to increase blood flow to the scalp and included massage techniques based on traditional Chinese medicine, aided with a glass-cup method to stimulate blood circulation.

“We both followed a macrobiotic diet for three months [afterwards] and felt tremendous,” Hartley wrote in the Daily Mail. “It requires serious dedication long-term. But the essence of the program remains with us both, which has been a surprise. I now drink only green tea and have turned vegan and Mum limits meat to once a week. We’re now both big fans of almond milk and spelt bread.

“Our hair has responded brilliantly to what turned out to be simple adjustments and it was well worth the effort. We no longer fret if the plughole occasionally looks like a scene from a horror film. We simply step up the scalp self-massage and neck exercises we were taught, keep the diet in check – and talk about our next booster visit to SHA.”

If you or someone you know would like to learn more about hair loss and how to treat it, please feel free to contact one of our representatives today!