Wine has been said to have the power to help you live longer, make you smarter, and help the health of your heart — so why not take a bath in it? Well, you can now, thanks the a Japanese spa service that lets you actually bathe in a pool of red wine. So, if you're planning a vacation to Asia and don't know where to hit up... the Yunesson Spa Resort of Hakone in Japan is obviously the only pace to go after a long day of sightseeing and eating sushi. Equal parts skincare and aromatherapy, the spa describes this goddess-worthy experience (also known as vinotherapy) on their website as a bright vintage wine bath with a rich fragrance, and noted that Cleopatra of Egypt was known for bathing in the good stuff.
As it turns out, there are actually a whole host of health benefits that swimming in red wine offers: The National Institutes of Health reported that resveratrol, which is found in red wine, is extremely beneficial to skin health.
Yunesson Spa Resort also has a coffee bath, so maybe you could start your day by bathing in java and end it by taking a splash in a pool of velvety vino? Just throwing ideas out there.
Red Wine Is The Answer To Everything
If a trip to Japan is out of your price range, consider road tripping to New York City instead to have a luxurious wine bath at Aire. "The polyphenols from red grapes are some of the most effective natural antioxidants with numerous studies that back their use in the field of cosmetics and skincare," Aire noted on their website. "It is scientifically proven that the polyphenols have an elevated antioxidant capacity, higher than that of vitamins C and E."
And, once you try vinotherapy, you just might be hooked. "It just left my skin really, really smooth," Linda Adams told Washington D.C. ABC News affiliate WJLA after her wine bath. "It was something that I [...] was going to pick up and going to try to experience it. That's where the love affair began."
However, while vinotherapy sounds like a dream come true, taking a wine bath at the spa is kind of pricey, costing upwards of $100 for a single session. And, to get the maximum skin benefits, you have to bathe in wine on the regular.
You Can Make Your Own Wine Bath... Kind Of
Right about now you're probably thinking, no biggie — I'll just stock up on two-buck-chuck and make my own damn wine bath. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. "Pouring wine in a bathtub is not the same as this vinotherapy treatment," Wine Folly explained on its website. "Red wine is alcohol and it’s going to dehydrate your skin (kind of like isopropyl alcohol does)." So, you actually need to mix other ingredients to mimic the effect that the vinotherapy treatment at spas provide. How does one do this? According to Wine Folly, a mix of grape seed oil, grape seed powder extract, and red grape tannin powder should do the trick. Check out their recipe here.
Bottom Line: You Deserve To Relax Like A Boss
While you're soaking your worries away, pour yourself a glass of Nasty Woman Wine to ensure you live a long life and continue to get smarter, and let the grape mush work its magic.
If you really want to commit, play the song "Red Red Wine" by UB40 for good measure. Hey, it can't hurt because, "Red red wine you make me feel so fine/You keep me rocking all of the time/Red red wine you make me feel so grand/I feel a million dollars when you're just in my hand." Seems like maybe UB40 knew something about vinotherapy way before the rest of us.
