As there is nothing I enjoy more than trying out the latest in beauty trends, when I discovered that there was cryotherapy available in Montreal, I dove at the chance to check it out this past winter.
What is kind of hilarious however is as I write this, I just checked out the link for Spa Cloud where I tried out cryotherapy, the process of being being exposed briefly to about -140 Celsius for about three minutes therapeutically, only to realize that it is now closed. I can’t update my blogs as much as I would like to because I always have to opt for the actual paying jobs.
None the less, as another spa is likely to pop up with a chamber that offers the service as it is all the rage in Los Angeles right now, the experience, because it is so extreme, is totally worth talking about, instead of this, which is way more fun.
On a particularly frigid February day I raced down to my 10:30 am appointment in Griffintown, through the streets of Little Burgundy. It was freezing! So much so that It begged me to wonder why, instead of paying, $70.00 a pop, would you just not run outside half naked and get the same experience? 
According to Spa Manager, Lucy Shih, while the spa has had the service since opening back in 2015, it is only now beginning to take off in popularity as people are seeing more and more celebrities and athletes include it as part of their athletic or beauty regime.
As for why opt for a spa instead of your balcony, naked in the winter, Shih said that there are a many number of reasons as to why hopping into a cryo tank briefly definitely outweighs the options. For one, it is significantly less dangerous!
“Going outside naked is against the law,” said Shih.
You can also get frostbite or have some kind of an accident as when this is done therapeutically you strip down to your underwear and socks but are given big woolen slippers to put your socks into and you have to keep your hands on a little ledge in front of you. I had to admit that standing there, in my underwear, in a tank that looked like a split open hot water heater, with my hands up at my neck like I was mimicking a fucking bunny, I felt completely ridiculous.
But, nothing quite prepared me for the intense motherfucking burn of the actual cryotherapy experience. Holy Shit! It burned. My cellulite felt like it was on fire from the cold. It is definitely one of those things like getting your legs waxed or botox or lazer therapy to rid yourself of varicose veins where you feel like you are a soldier enduring for the war against whatever society has told you is bad about yourself that day. The experience is really intense because you feel like you don’t want to puss out. The manager didn’t want to let me stay in initially for the entire treatment because I am a severe asthmatic but I had this feeling like fuck this, there is no way I am going to pass up my whole three minutes of this kind of stupid. This was because I knew especially that each session burned at least 700-800 calories.
Once your three minutes are up, the door pops open and it is like walking into a jello world. After three minutes you have the endorphin effect of having spent an entire day at a Nordic spa, hitting you like a wall.
According to Shih cryotherapy, which is a dry freezing session that uses dry ice was developed as an alternative to ice baths for athletes to help promote muscle repair after training. Ice baths however have to last up to 15 minutes to get the full effect and can be rather painful. Cryotherapy is only three minutes and significantly less painful. Since it was developed, a lot of people in Hollywood and the beauty industry have hopped on the cryo train as they have discovered it has some cosmetic benefits.
“This is why we are now so popular. Cryotherapy is known to help regenerate skin as well as collagen and so if you do sessions regularly it will help minimize the appearance of cellulite just like it will also help to minimize your waistline because it burns so many calories,” said Shih.
And, if you combine that with a big workout you are looking at a big burn. It’s kind of like a ‘mystery solved’ when it comes to all of those celebrity moms who look like they were never pregnant just days after giving birth.
Each session burns a lot of calories and even more if you have combined it with a workout which is what a lot of our clients do.
Shih describes the process as being “very invigorating,” whereas I would just say that it is one extremely intense three minutes that ripples on throughout the rest of the day. I think that in the end, because all of those endorphins are good for you, if you can afford this then it is something to do that is going to make you feel good. It is totally fucking weird but it is going to make you feel good.
The Persistent Pinup 