Being Good To Your Hair: Bella Vita in Gurgaon

The paste from 6 leaves of neem, the whites from 3 eggs, the juice of amla, the teardrops of 7 unicorns, and what else? We’ve read about every magic potion that your hair needs, particularly when the weather turns wet and particularly if you live in Gurgaon, dealing with the tough love your tresses get from its hard water.

The only problem is, we forget to soak the methi seeds and we drank up the beer. So what happens to that magical hair pack you swore you’d get packing on the weekend?

After scouring all of Gurgaon’s phases, we have come upon the charms of Anju Anand’s Bella Vita. Nothing of a Madonna, Anju runs a spa and salon in Sector 54 with modern facilities, and some traditional herbal secrets.

Unlike other Gurgaon salons that exclaim wildly over the malnourished state of our hair and go on to suggest synthetic treatments, Anju insists you try to let your hair detox at least once with her proprietary Protein Pack. Made at home, it includes all the good stuff we’re supposed to regularly use, like Bhringarag, lime seeds, methi seeds, amla, camphor, mustard powder, aloe vera, banana, honey, neem, and a base of egg or curd, depending on your hair type; although it’s probably their ‘secret ingredient’ which makes it smell as good as it does.

Even if we got all of this together at home, we’d still need the rather rigourous head massage with pure oils of almond, olive or coconut, which gets circulation going, as well as makes our scalp open to the idea of soaking in all this goodness.

And what does one do when massaged and with the pack applied? The extremely polite boys {Dev and Darshrath are the best!} will offer to massage shoulders, arms and hands so you practically feel like you’re levitating, before you get a quick steam {either hot towel or under the machine} and are taken for a hair wash.

Bella Vita does a full range of salon services, and even though their staff are lovely and friendly, you’ll be hard pressed to catch them chit-chatting loudly to each other, oblivious to the fact that your delicate face or fingers are in their hands. In a refreshing change, they’ll hardly ever point out every tiny thing that they feel is wrong with your appearance, unless they have a fair suggestion to make. This little trait, combined with a usually cool playlist, and their ghar ki chai, coffee, nimbu paani, or sometimes snacks, are guaranteed to make you feel pretty good about yourself by the time it’s time to pack up and leave.

Prices: INR 1300 for the Herbal Hair treatment, including oil massage, protein pack, hair wash and dry.