By this time of year, I’ve normally already been to at least one wellness retreat. Alas though this is the cobbler with no shoes as this year has just been the busiest I’ve had since I started my company. The effects of my time at Palazzo Fiuggi are in the past, and I’m fighting bloat, gut health, and general aging in your 40s. So I’ve been on a quest to create the benefits I get from my wellness retreats around the world in NYC. That brought me to Clean Market’s Midtown location.
Atmosphere
The closest location to me on the Upper West Side is Clean Market’s Midtown location. I can’t speak to the other outposts in Noho, Brookfield Place or the Equinox location, the latter of which are IV drips only. My challenge in NYC is that I have top practitioners but their space is nothing to write home about. So I was hopeful about Clean Market from the website.
The Midtown location is a simple store front that inside introduces itself with a retail shop and a cafe. It’s all pleasant enough but it didn’t quite speak luxury wellness center to me. It felt more like minimalist Matcha cafe/book shop than anything. You check in for the spa at the back, and are led to a more dimly lit space. The treatment room is about an average size and is pleasant but nondescript. Some places like ORA Space are minimal but have a super premium feel to them. I wouldn’t be able to pick the treatment room of Clean Market out of a lineup.
My Treatment
They have a suite of services from the signature IV drips, infrared sauna, cryotherapy and lymphatic massages. I was there for lymphatic, as I’m in the search to recreate the benefits I get from SHA Wellness and Eastern medicine when I travel. I was recently in Hong Kong at the Rosewood and I was a dress size smaller once the therapist worked her alchemy on me. Of course I don’t put Western therapists on the same grading scale and my expectations are much lower. However I was at Clean Market as I had all hopes to find someone who has healing hands in the lymphatic space.
I signed up for the 90 minute lymphatic treatment that purported to have sculpting benefits. My therapist was a lovely woman who asked me if I had any experience with lymphatic massage. That was a good start as I liked that she wanted to level set with me that this wouldn’t be an intense deep tissue. My treatment was pleasant; I think I even fell asleep at one point. The results though weren’t like I’ve had traveling through Asia or even a few days later. I actually didn’t get any results so it was more of the same old, same old experience with mediocre lymphatic massage in the New York. I did find someone incredible though a month after this experience. Review to come but I almost don’t want to share her, she is so gifted. But back to Clean Market; it’s a valiant effort on their part but I would skip the Midtown location.
Overall: 6.9/10
I wouldn’t be opposed to trying another location in NYC, but I also wouldn’t go out of my way to try the other outposts.
