A total beauty concept where you can pamper yourself from head to toe in the ‘cocon’ dedicated to you. Imagine these treatment cabins as enormous zen rooms where experienced beauticians, nail stylists and hair stylists move around you like dancers from the Bolshoi ballet, bringing out the best and most beautiful in you with elegant gestures.
Text Anja Van Der Borght
Founder and business manager Thierry Canetta is no stranger to the Flemish entrepreneurial world. Canetta is the man behind the hamburger chain Ellis Gourmet Burger, among others, and also co-shareholder of Poule & Poulette. “When a professional hair brand asked me two years ago why I wouldn’t build a beauty/hair salon chain, the idea immediately appealed to me,” Canetta says. “After all, I like to make sure people have a good time; that they can eat and enjoy themselves. But my concept had to be something that would transcend all others.” With Cocon, Canetta and salon manager Jody Morcus, who helped shape the concept, have succeeded with verve. The huge space of no less than 690m2 baths in a Japanese-looking zen atmosphere in green and brown-grey tones and is divided into eight cocoons, two of which are ducocoons. One such cocoon is a very large treatment cabin in which one or two treatment tables from top brand Gharieni (in four cocoons) are flanked by a washing unit from Greiner.
“From the interior to our team members, we looked for the crème-de-la-crème in their field,” Canetta says. “Hair salon furnishing specialist PAC Interiors was responsible for the interior design under the watchful eye of fashion photographer Bob Verhelst.” Bob’s signature can also literally be found on some of the artworks against the wall flanked by artworks by Philip Aguirre y Otegui and Witold Vandenbroeck.
At Cocon, they really have thought of everything. For instance, there is a separate Business Corner where busy guests can retreat to attend a video call, print something or work on the computer. This can of course also be done a little further away at the tables overlooking the beautiful 350-square-metre courtyard garden along the impressive green marble bar. “This space may look like a restaurant, but it is only accessible to guests of the salon,” Canetta explains. “Those can order something there from Oats Day Long and Victor, two local caterers we work with. We do plan in the future to work with a Cocon-the-club card that would allow the happy few to gain access to the restaurant even when they don’t enter for a treatment.”
Out of a thousand
After monitoring our skin and gauging our expectations, Rayana asked us to take a seat on Gharieni’s heated treatment bench. We booked Maria Galland’s Rituel Mille Sublime Jeunesse, two hours of pure pampering including diagnosis and touch-ups of face and hair. Since we wanted to give our skin a hydration boost but also lift it a bit, Rayana added some products to the ritual. Everything at Cocon is tailor-made to meet the client’s needs in full. Standouts in this treatment are of course the Mille products that combine a selection of exceptional ingredients: 24-carat gold, white truffle and caviar but also the act with which Rayana starts and ends the treatment. She lifts our head – lying in a towel – and gently rocks it back and forth to loosen our neck and relax our body. A great treatment that eases our body on the one hand and conjures a beautiful glow on our face on the other.
After the facial, Petra enters the ‘cocon’ to wash and care for our hair with Kérastase products. With Discipline Maskeratine, she removes frizz from our hair. During brushing, make-up artist Cédric gives our nails a new colour with Abstract‘s gel polish products. What a time saver when two professionals work on you at the same time! By the way, you can also opt for Davines’ sustainable hair products or styling with ghd. To finish, we book a PowerNap in the touchless wellness room, a half-hour experience on a heated water mattress where we get an eye mask and headphones put on. During the half-hour, we seem to lie on some vibrating didgeridoos and enter a deep regenerative state associated with deep sleep, the most restorative part of one’s sleep cycle. In short, in just under half an hour, we do a powernap equivalent to three hours of sleep. Great and ideal for boosting your body and mind during an afternoon break, says Canetta. “Our holistic concept with wellness offers the ideal ‘Me-time’ in a way without equal. We are unique in the world.”
Cocon, Hopland 47, 2000 Antwerp, tel +32(0) 36 89 88 84, info@cocon.club, www.cocon.club
