In this day and age, we constantly look for performance and perfection. Overcoming our own limits in search of success is what makes us stronger. But all that comes with a cost: fatigue, mental exhaustion, and, of course, stress. There are endless techniques and methods that promise to eliminate stress, but only few of them help us achieve a proper ‘Zen’ state of mind. Music is one of them, and although there is no exact answer to the question “why music makes us feel so happy?”, Grolsch Romania’s experiment “Awake Your Curiosity” proved that beautiful audio stimulates the brain in a remarkable way.
Choosing a slightly different approach, British company Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics highly recommends a spa treatment to fight stress. And unlike music, which boosts your mind and soul, a massage has the power to relax your body as well as your spiritual state. Most of these are well-known facts though, about which you can read quite frequently. Now, we’re going to show you how can a spa treatment help your body and mind re-generate.
To prove this, Lush joined forces with award-winning studio Mill+ and conducted “The Lush Spa Experiment,” during which the team went to great lengths to get a realistic answer. Instead of using words to show how good one can feel during and after a massage therapy, the cosmetics brand mobilized groundbreaking visuals to describe its wonderful effects.
Using biometric data to measure an organism’s activity during a Lush Spa experience, the team managed to map out the body’s reactions in response to the environmental stimuli like touch, smell, and music. Throughout the duration of the procedure, bodily reactions like a heartbeat, breathing, sense of touch, and brainwaves were captured, analyzed, and assembled in a series of meditative visuals.
Carl Addy, Creative Director at Mill+ comments: “The data captured was fascinating. It shows a clear correlation between the treatment and the subject’s biometric response. You can actually see the moments when a sound or touch elicited a shift in brain wave which then triggers a reaction in breath and heart rate.”
The exclusive multisensory spa experience was documented by the London-based studio and nicely packed into a hypnotic video, which was showcased for the first time in its entire length at this year’s Creative Showcase. But before we take a look at the impressive video, first, let’s inspect this unique adventure more closely and follow the creatives’ techniques to capture live sensory data of the human body.
The effort comes from the company’s will to make people abandon misconceptions about massage therapy. Hannah Lammiman, a Spa Treatment Developer, says that “everyone knows a massage is good for you, but everyone thinks it is a bit of a luxury. What The Lush Spa Experiment shows is that having a treatment is really beneficial.”
The three-and-a-half-minute-long video bursts with energy and features psychedelic-like images spinning around abstract visual structures that are contoured involuntarily by the human body. The experiment is a proof that, although diametrically opposite, art and science go hand-in-hand. But only after seeing the whole movie you will notice that Lush and Mill+ succeeded to get the best out of the art-science relationship. Check it out for yourself: