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Butterfly Black and Olive Green: A Pavillion of Enchantments

By Wills Morgan
Step through this door at Chantelle and Lewis - beauty for men and women in 1 Kilburn Lane
 
Wills Morgan goes to a new local beauty salon and puts himself through the ordeal of a four hands massage... it's called a "four-hander" apparently. 
 
Kensal has a new health and beauty salon. It’s placed in an area not that far from Iman’s coffee shop, just round the corner of the Harrow Road.

Perhaps you will have noticed the large olive green sign as you pass the bus stop near 1, Kilburn Lane. Or your eyes may have caught the two black butterflies framing the advertised title of the business: Chantelle and Lewis - beauty for men and women.

CHANTELLE AND LEWIS  For men and women : 1 Kilburn Lane, W10 4AE
No? You haven’t seen it? Then allow me to share my experience of a recent bright afternoon spent in the company of my New Best Friend and a small grouping of professional therapists. It all began...

...when I noticed that a new shop being assembled in 
 Miss Chantelle: she's the lady above the title. — at chantelle and lewis.
the said Kilburn Lane was not going to be yet another unit of offices for estate agents, surveyors and their ilk.

I was bold enough to venture forth into the premises and enquire of the lady who happened to be there at the time as to what kind of merchandise you lucky folks of Kensal would be getting.

As it turns out, the rewards are a mixture of the regular and the remarkable: from manicures and pedicures to the very latest in body treatments and therapies.

Additionally, it transpired that the lady I was speaking to is none other than Miss Lewis herself: she whose name appears on that sign between the butterflies. And I was standing in her second (and most recent) venture in the business of beauty. Allrighty!

By the end of our following conversation, Miss Chantelle had dared to have her shiny brand new shop fall under the scrutiny of the Source Magazine’s regular music reviewer –myself. And so it was with some energy that I collected a gang of three willing assistants to help me with compiling the review.

We thought it best that full consideration of a woman’s perspective of beauty treatment should be properly considered. This could not be done by me of course: I happen to be a bloke, and my breasts are small and rather underdeveloped for my age.

Clearly, I had to find a willing female who was prepared to suffer the torment of a full body massage without having to pay sixty quid for it... a quick visit was made and Ellen Lockett (the New Best Friend) got into her invisible armour and set off for Kilburn Lane.

Miss Lockett is at one and the same time a) a delicate flowering of womanly womanhood, and b) a lady who is as fit as she wants to be. Ellen believes in the kind of massage that hurts you. This is because she is a veteran of sporting activities and has many, many injuries to her person.

Consequently, Ellen considers it to be ‘trivial in the extreme’ to be spending money on treatments that will not keep her in the desired status designated for her: that of being ‘the fittest flowering of womanhood in town.’
 
The last thing that my NBF expected was an experience that would free her from her daily stress, making her a more calm, refreshed and relaxed client of Chantelle’s new beauty salon. And of course it was the unexpected that arrived in a treatment suite next to mine: smothering Ellen in a hydrating body mask, and easing tensions from her fragile female form.
The team poses before the victim arrives. — at chantelle and lewis.
When I asked her (all of four weeks after the event) what had happened to her in that room, she reproached me. “I can’t even remember what I did with the rest of my day after that” she said. “I think we walked home. Although I am not sure I could walk. I seemed to float all the way home.”

“I really felt good for a long time afterwards. I remember that Shadine (the girl who treated me) is now going to be the manageress of this place. She said to me that working in a place that’s closer to her own home suited her much better. She was professional, but really nice too.”

Thus spake the NBF. Meanwhile...back at the salon, there was the little matter of the Source Magazine’s music reviewer enjoying an hour’s massage with two therapists at ninety quid of his own expense.

Given that I had opted for the thrills of a ‘four-hander’ (stop sniggering at the back there!), the most important thing (apart from turning up) was to make sure I made polite and hopefully humourous conversation with the agents of my reconstruction. After all, we men are constantly being told in upmarket magazines that talking in relationships is ‘really important.’

I babbled on in perfect Grammar School English for what seemed like minutes on end. In the meantime, Chantelle (ably assisted by Miss Asha) got to work on me. I cannot tell whether anything I said had any effect on them. It had certainly no effect on me, because I cannot remember anything I said at all.

I don’t think I said anything about my bum being too big for the treatment table. At least I hope not.

Four hands were at the further extremes of my body. One pair of hands looked after my head and shoulders: the second pair tended my ankles feet and limbs. Whose hands were whose?

It didn’t matter: the joy of having these hands at my disposal is intense. It’s not just the extra pair of hands that delights: rather it is the four hands working together in a powerful, effective unison.
EXTRAS 3 — at chantelle and lewis.
Such attentions could not last: it was getting late and the boss had to close the shop. After an hour of my muscles being pressed, I was allowed to leave. I discovered that not only did I seem to resemble a large piece of putty shaped like a human being: I actually was a human-shaped piece of putty. With underdeveloped breasts and a bum that’s not too big, of course.
 
NBF emerged from her room. She and I engaged in a gentle, hypnotic language. I drifted, she floated. We went to the new pizza place on Harvist and had really great pizzas. Then we went home.
 
To sum up then: Kensal’s new beauty salon is a Pavilion of Enchantments literally not that far away from Paradise. Prices seem to be more Notting Hill than Kensal Rise, but then that reflects the atmosphere of warm and minimal sophistication... as well as the excellence of the service.

This is a summing up of the sum–up. At Chantelle and Lewis you can free your mind; undress and unwind: and give yourself a damn good pampering.
 
All you have to do is feel the need to treat yourself. And then get yourself to 1, Kilburn Lane. A harmonious state awaits you. A world that is full of bliss and beauty. A world that is butterfly black: and olive green.

CHANTELLE AND LEWIS For men and women : 1 Kilburn Lane, W10 4AE.  Star Rating: ***** 
 
Photographs by HANNAH ANKETELL/JASMINE JOURNEY; Photo Assists by STEVE STY for JASMINE JOURNEY 
 
Mon/Tue/Fri 10am to 6:30pm, Wed 10am to 7pm, Thurs 10am to 8pm and Sat 10am to 5pm.
Tel: 020 8960 6559
 
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 
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