The Dior Institute at the Plaza Athénée is Worth Planning a Vacation Around.

With Paris Fashion Week kicking off today, there will no doubt be a variety of incredible runway shows taking place in the City of Lights&nbsp;this week. Beyond that, if you&#39;re headed to Paris for a reason other than fashion week &mdash; either for a true vacation, or just to take in the scenery for a few days &mdash;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dorchestercollection.com/en/paris/hotel-plaza-athenee/spa/">Dior&#39;s spa</a> is worthy of adding to your must-visit list.&nbsp;

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Hidden inside one of the chicest hotels in Paris (Plaza Ath&eacute;n&eacute;e) the Dior Institute is the&nbsp;only Dior spa in all of Europe. Since the designer first showed his inaugural collection at the hotel in 1947, there&#39;s been an intrinsic connection between Dior and the&nbsp;Plaza Ath&eacute;n&eacute;e. Besides the glamour of entering the hotel&#39;s basement and being met with vintage black-and-white photos of Christian Dior (he frequently staged photoshoots there), a stunning pool and a clean, white space, the facial you&#39;ll get there is among of the best I&#39;ve ever had. The Dior Institute also utlizes the brand&#39;s Prestige line (the most expensive, high-quality products from the brand, all of which harness the power of Dior&#39;s native Rose de Granville), which, if you&#39;re not willing to shell out say, $400 for a face cream, is an excellent way to experience the products with the added benefit of receiving a service.

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When you first arrive, you&#39;ll be greeted with water, tea, and snacks in the elegant waiting room, balanced on a tray atop some of the label&#39;s most stunning&nbsp;fashion and beauty tomes. You&#39;ll also get to select your favorite scent from some of Dior&#39;s most famed fragrances, which the service will be scented with at the end through body lotions and perfume.&nbsp;The spa offers facials, body treatments, services for hands and feet, makeup application and of course, specialized treatments for men. Personally, I&#39;m someone who doesn&#39;t like massages but loves a good facial, so it was obvious which service I wanted to try. Not so obvious? Which kind of facial &mdash; many of them were centered around anti-aging, which I&#39;m not so concerned about. After consulting with the spa, they reccommeded the Dior Prestige Grand Facial treatment (220&euro; for 60 minutes).

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I wasn&#39;t completely sure what to expect &mdash; I had only had a facial that focused&nbsp;on massaging once before, and it was extremely painful to say the least. Luckily, this service was the exact opposite. Prior to my appointment, I had to select one &quot;zone&quot; to focus the treatment on (you can also add multiple zones, for an extra charge). Of eyes, lips and jaw, I chose jaw based on the reccommendation of the esthetician. Lips and eyes are recommended more for those who want an anti-aging effect, while the jawline can be more of an overall skin refresher for people of any age.

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The scent selection at the Dior Institute.

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First off, my esthetician used a device to measure my skin&#39;s levels, from moisture to elasticity, before reporting back on what it was I could improve on and what products I should use to get there. (My moisture levels were off the chart, but what I needed was brightness &mdash; and they reccommended the label&#39;s <a href="https://www.dior.com/beauty/fr_fr/parfum-beaute/soin/les-collections/dior-prestige-light-in-white/pr-prestigewhite-y0392528_f039252800-le-protecteur-uv-jeunesse-et-lumiere-spf-50+-pa++++.html?LGWCODE=F039252800FR;143911;6271&amp;gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwfGxgZfD2QIVEbobCh3jZgR0EAYYASABEgJgwfD_BwE">Light-and-White UV serum</a>.)&nbsp;In addition to the normal facial routine of cleansing, exfoliating, moisturizing and masking, the massage was incorporated.

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The treatment was composed of a 45-minute facial massage all over the face before getting to the more specific zone I had selected: the jaw, which was massaged for 15 minutes. The massage portion of the facial was intense, I won&#39;t deny that, but it didn&#39;t hurt like my previous facial massage I had. In fact, it was extremely relaxing and I almost fell asleep during it once or twice. The product that was used most of all during the massage (<a href="https://www.dior.com/beauty/en_us/fragrance-beauty/skincare/the-products/cremes/pr-theproductscremes-y0670530-la-creme-texture-essentielle.html">La Creme</a>, which was liberally massaged intro skin during that portion of the treatment) smelled amazing, too, and made my face incredibly glow-y and dewy.&nbsp;

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When the facial was complete, my&nbsp;esthetician recomennded the products she thought I should use,&nbsp;before applying a light layer of Dior powder and lipgloss. The most incredible thing about the facial massage was that for three days after, I felt like my skin looked so good that I (someone who never strays from full-coverage foundation) didn&#39;t have to wear any foundation&mdash;just a little bit of concealer here and there. For me, that&#39;s never been the case after a facial. In fact, facials&nbsp;often usually have the oppositre effect on my skin, making it red and inflamed.

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So, whether or not you make it to the extremely luxurious Dior Institute spa in Paris, perhaps a facial massage is the secret to glowing, makeup-free skin. When in the past I&#39;d been sticking with laser facials of the Skin Laundry variety, I&#39;ll now be investing in massage-based facials for the ultimate glow.

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Inside Dior's Parisian Spa

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