I Was A 40-Minute Mermaid

There's plenty of folks who love to swim in the sea, but no one likes the seaweed part of it. Seaweed is that stuff you swim away from, that slimy stuff that makes you sick to your stomach when you feel your legs or arms or fingers accidentally brush up against it beneath the waves. No one likes the touch of seaweed. No one would ever opt to sit in a bath of the stuff for nearly three quarters of an hour. No one but the Irish.

A bathtub full of seaweed??!!

Seaweed baths are an old Irish secret for good health. They're such a secret even many modern-day Irish people don't know about them. But the word is getting out--especially in places like Enniscrone, Co. Sligo, Kilkee, Co. Clare, and Newcastle, Co. Down. The last of these towns is the location of a 5-year-old spa called Soak. Soak is owned by Dermot Devine and Claire Dickinson, a husband-and-wife team who were inspired to open their own seaweed bath house and spa in 2000 after taking a dip in some seaweed tubs while on holidays in Enniscrone. It was Claire and her girlfriends who first braved the baths and then convinced Dermot and his male buddies to give the baths a go. They all thought the experience fantastic--and for Dermot and Claire apparently life-changing, as the couple would take the seaweed bath idea back with them to Northern Ireland and open up Soak in 2006. Their business would be (and remains) the only seaweed bath house in the United Kingdom and the only one on the east coast of Ireland. And it's been doing well enough to expand with a tea room, treatment rooms, and self-catering accommodation--everything you need for an ideal weekend getaway for the girls. For guys too, as while the majority of Soak's customers are women, men make up 20% of their clientele.

Soak spa, located on the lower promenade of Newcastle, Co. Down, Northern Ireland

Inside Soak seaweed bath house and spa

Soak's lovely front desk room

Sip, the Soak group's tea room

But let's get back to those seaweed baths themselves. Who would take one? Were Dermot and Claire crazy to bring the growing seaweed bath craze to Northern Ireland? Only crazy as the Victorians and old Irish fishermen and farmers of the west coast it seems. Seaweed baths arose in the 19th century out of the Victorian practice of "taking cures" for such problems as arthritis and rheumatism combined with the Irish belief in seaweed  and seawater as having especially good benefits and healing properties. Irish fishermen along the coast had long noticed that there was nothing better than seawater for healing the cuts and sores they often got while working. Irish farmers meanwhile knew seaweed was rich enough in minerals and nutrients to use as fertilizer on their soil and even to build up soil when mixed with sand. It was only a matter of time before someone had the idea to find out how well taking a bath in the stuff (both seawater and seaweed) might work for the human body.

There's a lot of good in this small space. Soak's stock of seaweed.

It turns out the benefits for people are multitude. Seaweed baths are everything from a great stress and pain reliever to a uniquely Irish detoxifier and hangover cure. While taking a long, hot bath is always nice for both the soul and the blood system, a seaweed bath in hot seawater has extra benefits to offer. For one, the seaweed has natural oils that come out during a bath that soften the skin and hair. As well, the tiny barnacles attached to seaweed can act as an exfoliator when the pieces are rubbed against the skin.

The white spots on this seaweed are little barnacles that exfoliate the skin. The red water in the bath shows the richness of minerals such as iodine found in seaweed.

As for the benefit of using seawater, in the early 20th century a French scientist discovered that seawater has almost the exact same alkaline level and composition of minerals as human plasma (i.e., our blood, spinal fluids, lymphatic fluids), so much so that human white blood cells can survive on their own for a time in seawater whereas they'd die in any other substance. This similarity makes bathing in seawater a great way to replenish our body's biochemistry. Indeed, using seawater instead of regular water is a key element to gaining the full benefits of a seaweed bath. At the beginning, Dermot says Soak used regular water for its seaweed baths, but switched to seawater (after implementing a system in which they could pump it in from the sea) once they realized regular water wasn't producing the benefits they'd noticed from their initial experience in Enniscrone.

The Irish Sea in Newcastle. What does seawater have in common with our own blood?

So what's it like to take a seaweed bath? Do the benefits justify the experience? Does sitting in a tub filled with seaweed feel gross? Slimy? Strange? Unnatural? Well, after enjoying a seaweed bath at Soak recently, I can report that while I was in the bath I felt a bit like a mermaid, and by the time the bath was over I felt like a melted mermaid, as relaxed and smooth as a cup of hot cocoa.

My seaweed bath initiation began with Dermot giving me a back-of-the-house tour of the spa. I got to see where Soak keep its fresh stock of seaweed and how the seaweed is cleaned before each bath. When seaweed is cleaned it changes color from a dull brown to a bright green. After cleaning Dermot takes the seaweed, about a half-gallon per bath, and brings it into the spa and pours it into the tub, adding a few inches of hot seawater to get the oils and minerals working for release into the bath.

Dermot with a bucket of seaweed for cleaning.

Before it's cleaned and soaked, seaweed is a dull brown color...

But as it's soaked it turns a bright green.

Dermot bringing two buckets of seaweed for two baths into the spa.

Inside the bath room, bathers begin their treatment with a 10-minute steam to open up the skin's pores and thus make the body more receptive to absorbing nutrients and minerals. At Soak, customers have an option of starting their treatment with a modern steam or a Victorian-style steam. The Victorian style involves sitting on a shelf inside a wooden box with a hole at the top for the head and neck to fit through. A button inside the box gets the steam going. While my friend Lisa chose a room with a modern steam, I chose the old Victorian style. I just like doing things the old way.

Victorian-style steam box inside the bath room.

After sitting in the box with a towel wrapped around my neck to keep the steam from seeping out, I was all sweated op anmd open-pored and ready for the bath itself. The moment of truth. Dermot told me beforehand I could fill up the tub with as much as I wanted, but warned me against making the water too hot for my first time. The bath comes with a cold and hot water tap so you can adjust the temperature to whatever suits you best. However hot you want it, Soak advises giving yourself at least 40 minutes in the bath to get the full benefits.

My tub of weed.

After lowering myself oh so slowly and a bit nervously into the tub, I admit at first sitting in a pile of seaweed felt a little weird. I wasn't sure exactly what to do with the stuff. Just sit on it or heap it up on top of me? After a couple minutes, the hot water started working its magic and relaxed me--that and the oils in the seaweed, which felt more silky and almost velvety than slimy. After a few more minutes, I started feeling experimental, even a little playful, and began draping the seaweed over my legs and arms, weaving it through my fingers and toes, piling it on top of me and even on my hair. It's like being Ariel in The Little Mermaid, I told myself, or Daryl Hannah in Splash! A few more minutes and I was more like a jellyfish than a mermaid, with my brain off in la-la-land. At some point I had a moment of clarity and realized my 40 minutes were just about up. But I don't want to get out, I thought to myself. Ever. I want to be a mermaid/jellyfish forever. It's just a life so easy.

My feet in the bath, seaweed-weaved toes and all.

Somehow I managed to pull myself out of the bath, take a quick cool shower, get dressed, and rejoin reality. Lisa, a seasoned pro at taking seaweed baths, was already finished with her bath and collapsed in a soft chair in Soak's front room. I joined her on another chair and we spent several silent minutes staring into space and out the window at the Irish Sea beyond, looking at it longingly like two stranded mermaids missing their under-the-sea home. Dermot laughed when he came out into the lounge and saw us, nearly sliding off the chairs in our maximum state of relaxation. He asked me how I liked it. I think it took me about 5 minutes for my brain to formulate a three-word sentence. "It was amazing," I said. "How will I ever get dinner made now?" Lisa wondered. Dermot told us to get takeaway. After opening up Soak, I thought it was probably the best idea he ever had. There was no point in in breaking our mermaid spell and ruining our nice seaweed bath buzz.

Me before my seaweed bath--standing a little too straight and rigid.

Me after my bath, red-cheeked and relaxed.