There is something about being unwrapped, laid bare, and then mentally and physically re-assembled that appeals to me.
This explains my attraction to spas. I actually like being institutionalized. I don’t mind the breakdown, the vulnerability of submitting my body to the pummeling and prodding, as long I’m put back together in an improved arrangement.
That was my mindset as I staggered to the small Austrian Alpine town of Bezau for a stay at the Hotel Post and its adjacent Susanne Kaufmann Spa. Kaufmann’s skin-care products, especially her herb-infused bath oils, have made her a name among beauty obsessives.
For years I’ve bathed in her natural remedies, filling my bathroom with the scent of mountain pine. When I really want to give my skin a treat, I pull her products out from their hiding place—my family likes to raid my stash—and marinate in her herbal oils. I was ready to take that immersion closer to the source.
Kaufmann is the fifth-generation custodian of the hotel and spa. Living next door with her husband, a musician, and their teenage son, she is often found chatting with guests in its wood-beamed sitting room in a building that was originally a post office. Kaufmann, a stylish blonde with glowing skin (no surprise), is kitted out in cozy neutrals of faux leather and cashmere, the unofficial uniform of the international guests.
The family hotel has grown in profile and footprint since Kaufmann took the reins in 1994, when she was just 23. “At first, this little post office would sell drinks to the coach drivers passing through town, then it made sense to make a little restaurant,” Kaufmann explains. “Between the two wars, my grandfather added rooms, and it became a small guesthouse. In those days, there was no skiing.” The land was known for its cheese and its mountain walks.
In the 70s, Kaufmann’s parents started a small medical spa in the hotel. The bathhouse, created by her father, an architect, includes a quirky wooden bridge suspended over an indoor swimming pool that leads to saunas and a steam room. (There’s a cold plunge outside.)
The hotel and spa now focus on a holistic approach to wellness with physicians who analyze guests’ gut microbiome, provide vitamin infusions, offer platelet-rich plasma injections, and mesotherapy, multiple small injections of vitamins and extracts that some believe encourage the skin’s production of collagen and elastin.
Kaufmann also introduced a Detox Program deriving from traditional Chinese medicine, with acupuncture, Tai Chi, meditation, and cupping. The chef focuses on eliminating acid-forming foods from the diet in the belief that they can cause fatigue, skin problems, and joint pain—while stimulating the metabolism and lowering cholesterol and blood sugar.
The gleaming spa is almost spartan in its clean simplicity. “I wanted no distractions from peace, no color except the nature outside, and no music—a place where guests can really unwind,” Kaufmann tells me.
Her products fill the rooms with the scent of herbs and pine, as if the mountain air had been bottled. Kaufmann worked with a nearby farmer, who was already creating lotions and balms for local stores using whey, a by-product of the goat cheese from his herd. Kaufmann added the Alpine herbs and flowers from her grandmother’s recipes.
More than 20 years later, everything is produced in a state-of-the-art solar-powered laboratory that she still shares with the farmer and his goats. They have their own state-of-the-art barn on the far side of his property, lucky goats!
My bedroom, one of 57 in the hotel, reflects the spa’s restorative ethos. When I checked in, a footbath, a jug of hot water, and a selection of herbal soaks sat by an armchair waiting for me. The bed was placed on a frame at a slight incline, presumably to enhance my micro-circulation while I slept. Even the pillows were special: handmade, filled with my choice of spelt or millet, dried herbs, and flowers. I picked peppermint, which purportedly alleviates aches and empirically seemed to work.
The detox meal plan begins with a robust breakfast of alkaline vegetable broth, porridge with fruit, basil-seed pudding, and vegetable juice. Lunch is soup and salad, and dinner is usually fish and local vegetables. Linseed and olive oil are always on the table to ensure adequate intake of fats.
Guests at spas can easily feel like patients, helpless and infirm, but that isn’t the case here. The treatments, including my medical pedicure, are lavish, especially the Body-Shape Wrap, in which a firming mask is slathered from hairline to heels before cling wrap swaddles the body, leaving you to sweat, also lavishly. During Kaufmann’s Signature Detox Treatment, my feet soak first in an alkaline bath, then are covered in oil and scrubbed, before my body is thoroughly and almost mercilessly massaged.
As for my brain? It, too, was cleared of stress and fog, thanks to daily yoga, morning meditations, steams, swims, and saunas. After four days, I felt like one of those well-tended goats and smelled infinitely sweeter.
Fiona Golfar is a contributing editor at HTSI and House & Garden
