ENGLEWOOD, Colorado — “Is this going to make my face high?”
At a spa tucked in a suburban retail megacenter outside Denver, an esthetician lightly strips off the remnants of yesterday’s mascara, and preps my face for a cannabis oil-infused treatment. In a hushed voice, she assures me that topical applications of THC create no psychoactive effects. I make a half-joking mental note to not eat any lotion.
The Primal Wellness Day Spa and Studio opened last October, operating at the budding intersection of beauty and marijuana. Clients select from the usual spa offerings of facials and massages, but each treatment includes the option of a cannabis-oil infusion.
“I believe that cannabis beauty products will become as commonplace as aloe and jojoba within the next decade,” Primal Wellness founder Danielli Martel told Mashable. “People are catching on quickly to the myriad of benefits the cannabis plant offers, and it’s only a matter of time before the demand will yield supply.”
The green rush of pot-repreneurs intrigued Martel, but it was her own experience with medicinal marijuana that brought her from Florida to Colorado in February 2014. “I had been on many prescriptions for several years, and discussed cannabis with my doctor,” she said. “He felt it could be an appropriate course of treatment for me. Unfortunately, the law was not on my side.”
Eight months after relocating her family, Martel opened Primal Wellness down the street from a Walmart and Starbucks drive-thru. This is the emerging normal in many parts of Colorado: independent businesses capitalizing on cannabis, mixed amongst retail giants.
The majority of the spa’s clients are still out-of-towners on canna-tours, who, like me, are intrigued by the applications of legalized cannabis in ways that have nothing to do with getting high.
For 60 minutes, my face soaks in serums, scrubs and cannabis oil. As the treatment finishes up, my face feels plump, I smell like subtle mix of hand lotion and a joint, and I feel relaxed — definitely not high, but in that blissful, post-spa mental space.
And my skin looks fabulous.
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