Never on a Sundae

Ice Cream Spa Treatments for the Preteen Crowd

By Mike Norton

Having a chocolate-covered strawberry pedicure might not be everyone's idea of a great time. But it's become quite a hit among the 6-to-12-year-old set at the Great Wolf Lodge Resort in Traverse City, Mich. For that matter, so have manicures and pedicures that smell enticingly like caramel apple, peaches and cream, coconut cream pie and – believe it or not – gummy worms.

Those are some of the services on tap at Scoops – a "spa for kids" developed this spring at the Traverse City Great Wolf. Youngsters who sign up for the service can have their nails buffed, get facials and even have a light bit of makeup done while soaking their feet in fizz baths flavored like their favorite ice cream combinations – while their moms relax in the nearby adult spa.

"The idea was really that you could sign your children up for an ice cream pedicure while you were getting a massage," says Lee MacDonald, director of spa operations at the resort. "But what usually happens is that they see how much fun the kids are having and hang around taking pictures instead."

Based in Wisconsin, Great Wolf Lodge is best known as a chain of indoor waterpark resorts aimed at families with younger children. In the past year the company has been adding other amenities, from miniature golf to high-tech fantasy role-playing games, to attract new customers.

While its network of Aveda spas welcomes customers of all ages (they've had a long-standing "Mother-Daughter Escape" package for years) there haven't really been spa services specifically geared to the preteen set. It was MacDonald's own daughter who first gave her the idea of designing a spa for youngsters. "She's a pretty normal 10-year-old, but even at that age she had what I'd call a strong affinity for the spa experience," McDonald says. "Children like to be pampered as much as any adult."

Soon MacDonald was combing through catalogs in search of themes that might appeal to youngsters, and it wasn't long before she stumbled across a line of ice-cream-scented beauty products from ME! Bath that sounded like exactly the right thing. The idea proved a big success with the first youngsters she tested it on: her own. Even her son got into the act, thanks to the creepy-sounding "gummy worm fizz bath," which tickled his appetite for the bizarre.

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