At Snooze micro spa | Custom spa

Quebec is full of fabulous Nordic spas, but the formula is pretty much the same everywhere, with large spaces shared by all customers. There is obviously something for everyone, but what if you could book your own spa to meet up with your loved ones? This is precisely the idea that massage therapist Françoise Pigeon had when she opened Au Snooze micro spa, in Grandes-Piles.

Nestled in the hills of Mauricie, the spa offers a treatment room as well as a proper thermotherapy circuit with hot bath, sauna and cold shower, but it never welcomes more than one group at a time. times, usually with no more than six people. “Six is ​​the magic number to make it comfortable for everyone, both in terms of indoor space and sitting or lying outside,” says Ms.^me Pigeon showing us its facilities, open since summer 2019.

The site, which has a large comfortable lounge as well as a beautiful suspended outdoor terrace offering a panoramic view of the Laurentian forest, is thus reserved entirely by one and the same group for a minimum of two hours – you can go up to at six o’clock. Customers can bring food and drink, they can even choose their own music. “I think it’s like renting a chalet, but where you can’t spend the night,” says Françoise Pigeon. You bring your food, your drinks, you enjoy the outside and the inside. And if people don’t bring anything, I always offer a tray with apples, cheese, dark chocolate, energy bars, herbal tea. It comes with it because I know that thermotherapy whets the appetite! » Towels and bathrobes are of course also provided.

As for the massage therapy treatments, they are offered à la carte: “If I have a group of four people who all want a massage, I’m the one who manages the schedule,” explains the owner. Often I do two clients in a row when people arrive, then leave the group together for a while, and then do the last two massages afterwards. Massage therapist for 18 years, Françoise Pigeon favors Swedish massage, but she also benefits from the various training courses followed over the years, such as the Californian method, reiki, reflexology or lymphatic drainage. “Swedish is a perfect massage, but it’s a therapeutic massage,” she says. Sometimes people also want to relax and not stay in therapy mode for an hour, because when you’re always feeling where you’re going wrong, you don’t pick up. »

We welcome groups of friends, birthday parties, team building sessions for small SMEs, but also many families. “I welcome children, say from 4 years old, but young people must always be accompanied by an adult until they reach the age of majority, remarks M^me Pigeon. Exactly, I also massage children! Besides, in the big spa where I worked, I was the one who was recognized for that. It’s not all adults who are comfortable with it, but me, in any case, it makes me happy. There are children who like it because they have already had a massage and others for whom it is their first experience; the initiation therefore does not last more than 30 minutes. »

Everything is intended to make the experience as user-friendly as possible, and this is certainly what distinguishes Au Snooze the most from large spas. “We’ll tell each other, it’s very beautiful, the big spas, it’s superb, you come in and it’s wow, recognizes M^me Pigeon, who has worked for eight years in a renowned spa. But there are a lot of rules, you pay a lot and you can’t talk, or if you try to relax because you’re tired, you’re sometimes bothered by those who have difficulty not talking…”