New Beauty Trend: The Tickle Spa

A new spa has opened its doors in Madrid, Spain, and it sounds…tortuous.

The spa is called Cosquillarte, which translates to Tickle Yourself and Tickle Art. Similar to your average spa, each treatment takes place in a dimmed room with soft music playing in the background. A massage therapist will begin by gently tracing their finger tips along the body, and then, lets a feather do the rest. 

Getting massaged by a therapist’s finger tips is one thing, but the feather part leaves us skeptical!

And while lightly draping a feather over a customer’s back seems like it would produce more irritation than tranquility, a reporter from TIME magazine says once feather hits skin, you can feel the tension pouring out of you.

We just have one question: what happens if someone is super-ticklish (read: this writer) to the point where glancing at a feather would send shivers down their spine? According to the tickle spa, they will press harder so the sensation doesn’t become bothersome.

“The idea is to relax them, not stress them out,” a masseuse at Cosquillarte said to TIME magazine.

Isabel Aires, a public-relations specialist, is the one who came up with the idea. She admitted that her father used to tickle her before bed to help her fall asleep. And so far, she claims a customer has yet to leave the spa dissatisfied.