Why a head spa is our beauty editor's treatment of the year
If every head spa review you’ll read this year starts in the same way, it’s because it’s true: no one knows how much they’ll love a head spa (or realise it was exactly what they needed) until they try it, including me.
Neither did I realise, when I posted on Instagram about my own head spa experiences (one at West London wellness centre Cloud Twelve; another at Sisley’s Mayfair day spa and a third at Hiro Miyoshi, also in Mayfair, London), how many people had been desperate to try a head spa without knowing where to find one. Which is shorthand for: my DMs blew up. (‘I watch them on TikTok all the time!’ said one. Who knew?)
My own head spa journey almost didn’t happen. While researching hair trends for the November issue of Red, I’d found an old email inviting me to try a treatment combining a personalised scalp analysis with ‘expert-led holistic hair and scalp care, in-house herbal medicine, trichology & aesthetics with a luxurious spa experience’. I’d filed it, forgotten about it, then – even after unearthing it – took my time in prioritising a booking. Appointments were postponed then cancelled (my bad; sorry Cloud Twelve) and I didn’t pick up the thread again until I knew I’d be in the area for dinner.
And honestly? I’d been feeling some scalp care fatigue, having experienced multiple deep-cleansing treatments and magnified scalp scans in the past couple of years; all illuminating (yes, my scalp was always drier/gunkier/more sensitive than I’d imagined) but none ever felt more experiential than the average head massage and blow dry. Now I’d rate a head spa as my favourite treatment of the past year.
What is a head spa?
Think a multi-step facial for your scalp, designed to remove dead skin cells and product build-up while stimulating blood flow to the follicles, and you’re on the right track.
‘It’s about hydration, it's about stress management and it's about deep cleansing the scalp,’ says naturopath, herbalist and Cloud Twelve founder Jenya di Pierro. With that in mind, head spa protocol will include a combination of steam, exfoliation, hot towels, pressure point scalp massage and the application of deep cleansing and moisturising masks and/or oils.
There should also be an element of neck and shoulder massage, says Hiro Miyoshi’s massage therapist Tomoe Taniyama, pointing out that that a tight neck and shoulders means a tight scalp, and a tight scalp can’t do its best work when it comes to strong and healthy hair growth. ‘Starting with a basic neck and shoulder massage helps you to release stress and relax your scalp, so you can get more blood flow and nutrients to the hair follicle,’ she explains an hour after she’d knocked me out with a mind-bending 30-minute treatment in Hiro Miyoshi’s basement beauty room then sent me upstairs to be vigorously shampooed and exfoliated, steamed and blow-dried.
Some treatments also start and end with a magnified scan of your scalp and roots via a trichoscope, the second image hopefully looking fresher and more gleaming than the first.
Where does head spa come from?
Head spa originates in Japan and is popular throughout Asia, where sink-side exfoliation and head massage are commonly part of the salon experience. ‘I am yet to try one here,’ says London-based consultant dermatologist and hair specialist Dr Sharon Wong, ‘but to be honest, when I get my hair cut when in Asia it has always been part and parcel of the salon trip to have scalp-based treatments for exfoliation and hydration as a standard offering,’ she continues, drawing parallels with other Asian beauty practices such as gua sha as ‘another 'trend' in western society that has always been deep rooted in Asian cultures.’
Hiro Miyoshi’s Tomoe Taniyama tells me that the camellia oil she rubbed into my scalp is a specifically Japanese tradition: rich in oleic acid, this is deeply nourishing. ‘When I massage your scalp I’m not just removing the dirt, I’m moisturising the skin, too,’ she explains.
Having lived in Japan for 12 years (while also travelling regularly to South Korea to experience spa culture there), Cloud Twelve’s Jenya di Pierro is meticulous about crediting head spa’s Asian origins, though once back in London she added a few ‘bells and whistles’ of her own, including a horizontal spa bed. Yes, at Cloud Twelve you’re flat out and cocooned in blankets, your head cradled over a built-in sink and protected by a giant plastic bubble. Oh, and there’s a soothing LED light show inside, morphing from turquoise to blue to royal purple to pink. It’s spectacular.
The beds had first been spotted by Tiffany Hall, Cloud Twelve’s in-house trichologist, who had seen the head spa movement ‘explode’ on a trip to California. ‘We wanted the best of all worlds – Japan and Korean traditions, a vertical bed, my naturopathic knowledge about herbs and homeopathy and techniques such as LED and micro-current to stimulate hair growth,’ says di Pierro. ‘I packed every possible technique into that protocol, for people who don't have time to do millions of treatments. You can get a bit of a facial, your hair and scalp care are covered and you get some relaxation, too’
In London’s Mayfair, the new Maison Sisley boutique offers a semi-reclining but equally gorgeous sequence of tapping, acupressure massage and scalp steaming in a dedicated treatment room-slash-mini-salon, followed by a post-treatment blow-dry that’s deliberately minimal, to avoid tugging or over-heating your newly restored strands. As a blow-dry devotee with frizz-prone hair the ‘minimal’ bit was not news I wanted to hear. But actually, my hair was left with an uncharacteristic willingness to fall exactly into shape and felt so soft I couldn’t stop touching it for days afterwards.
How does it feel to have a head spa treatment?
Here I can’t help you as much as I’d like, because I’ve fallen asleep in every head spa I’ve tried. OK, not asleep entirely but I have entered that hallucinatory state between asleep and awake… which makes even more sense when Tiffany Hall tells me that the sound of running water has a white-noise-like effect that puts us into a meditative-like state of relaxation.
On that note, both the Sisley and Cloud Twelve experiences involve a lot of running water, which at times can feel like having your head put through a small, luxurious car wash. I loved it but if that doesn’t sound like your bag, ask your therapist about ways in which this can be skipped or avoided. As for the massage, all three of the head spas I tried involved layer upon layer of stroking, pressing and manipulating using a range of tools and techniques. So if the hands-on part of a facial is the bit you like best, you’ve just met your new favourite way to spend an hour.
‘Even I can forget how healing the power of touch is,’ shares Jenya di Pierro. ‘When I talk to my clients about mindfulness techniques, I usually recommend yoga, meditation, sound healing and breath work. But any kind of touch therapy is incredible at resetting your nervous system and stress hormones, so head spa is relaxation at its deepest level. The therapists tell me that many clients fall asleep.’ Not just me, then. ‘And then you sleep better that night, which means another opportunity to restore and rebalance your body,’ she continues.
Ultimately, I’d call head spa an incredibly powerful head facial that leaves hair feeling soft and full. I came out from each of mine feeling I’d had a full body reset and as shiny-new as if I’d been scrubbed from top-to-toe. But do check whether your treatment includes a blow dry. Other than the minimal one offered at Sisley, mine had to be booked separately and in advance.
Does head spa have long term benefits?
Yes and no, depending on what you’re trying to achieve. I have no issues with hair thinning or scalp sensitivity, so I treat head spa as an occasional deep clean and a huge treat. I can also vouch for the power of some before-and-after 3D imagery to encourage you to up your haircare game at home; I now wash my hair far more frequently and have incorporated exfoliating lotions and a scalp brush into my routine.
‘I would position a head spa as an equivalent to a facial,’ agrees Dr Sharon Wong. ‘It’s a hydration and exfoliation boost to complement what should be a robust at-home routine to maintain a healthy scalp. Where I do think it would be particularly beneficial is in those who perhaps don't wash their hair as frequently – for example, afro textured hair. I would, however, be very clear that a salon 'scalp consult' – even with a magnifying device to look at the scalp up-close – is not a replacement for a medical assessment with an adequately trained expert.’
At Cloud Twelve, having trichologist Tiffany Hall on board introduces a further diagnostic element: therapists are trained to use the trichoscope camera in exactly the way she would use it herself and to look out for potential scalp conditions. ‘The pre-treatment scan flags up any issues like psoriasis or seborrheic dermatitis, which would affect what we can and can’t do during the treatment’, says Hall, who also checks in daily on the images uploaded during every head spa treatment. If she spots any skin issues or early signs of thinning or hair loss, she’ll send a sensitive email to that client, to signpost possible next steps.
On hair thinning, while no one sensible would – or should – suggest that head spa is a miracle cure, a growing bank of studies suggests that regular scalp massage can contribute to the thickening of individual hairs over time. Keeping the scalp clean can also help maintain healthy growth by avoiding the free radical damage and inflammation caused by dirt and oil oxidising around the follicles, while keeping cell turnover revved up by regular exfoliation and ensuring skin is supple and hydrated is believed to slow down age-related miniaturisation, whereby follicles start making hairs that are thinner and more fragile than before. ‘Sometimes you can't solve it completely but if you catch it early enough you can stop it from getting worse,’ says di Pierro.
Where to try a head spa in London
Cloud Twelve Wellness and Lifestyle Club, Notting Hill
Hiro Miyoshi Hair & Beauty, Mayfair
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