Putu is an alchemist.

Not literally, but it amazes me how she knows what to combine, what to pick from the garden, what proportions to use, and how to apply these bits and parts from nature to create such helpful, soothing and medicinal applications.

I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, as I know her history. Being a female member of Bali’s Royal Family of Karangasem, she was the recipient of generations of accumulated knowledge relating to hair and skin care, beauty preparations, healthful concoctions and the like. She cherished the times with her great grandmother in the palace learning these secret recipes.

She then traveled west to California and studied to become an esthetician and skin care specialist. After graduating and becoming licensed, she started her own spa and developed the most fiercely loyal clientele I have perhaps ever seen. Her little spa grew into the most successful one on the central coast and had a 3-month waiting list to see Putu. When we were dating, 70-year-old women (who looked like they were in their 50’s due to Putu’s treatments and care) would take me by the collar and threaten me if I should take her away from them. She worked magic on those lovely ladies.

So here we are in Bali, and Putu has been able to build her dream spa, grow her own ingredients and share both worlds of knowledge with her clients, the ancient traditional and the scientific Western. She has spent the better part of the last year training The Melati Spa’s staff and they are ready to pamper and revitalize you. The spot is not open to the public, just Floating Leaf’s retreat participants and by special appointment. Contact us to see if we can schedule you for a treatment. Spa packages are also available including a full or half day of yoga, spa therapies and massage, followed by a healthy and delicious specially prepared meal. You may inquire via email here.