The Foxy Bikini: Now PETA-friendly!

There’s been quite the uproar ever since Completely Bare launched its new luxury merkins, including the Foxy Bikini, a pubic wig made of real fox fur. Well, just as quickly as our video investigation went viral, animal rights activists lashed out in protest. The result? Cindy Barshop, owner of Completley Bare Spa and former Real Housewife of New York, has confirmed that she will now be making her merkins of faux fur… and that she and PETA are actually now friends!

In case you missed it…

I spoke with Cindy today, and despite the seemingly negative situation, she looks as this as a very positive thing to have happened.  ”This opened my eyes and made me more aware of a cause that people feel strongly about,” Cindy said. “I respect people’s opinions and I really admire how PETA supported their cause. There’s no reason to use real fur, I’ll use faux fur.”

Cindy is also taking this one step further: “I don’t think anything negative came from it! In fact, I’m currently speaking with the people over at PETA and we’re looking to put together a Completely Bare campaign to support animal rights.”

Well done, Cindy – we can’t wait to see the next big bikini trend! We just hope you don’t become too friendly with the animals to the point where they are requesting bikini waxes and faux fur merkins.

The Foxy Bikini and The Carnivale have also both been slightly reduced in price, now $175 for either, including the wax.

From Swarovski crystals to spray paint and now to feathers and real fox fur, there is one woman not-so-secretly behind the beauty craze of decorating one’s bikini region like a birthday party.

Cindy Barshop, the owner of completely bare high tech spa, famous for both a season on the Real Housewives of New York and her fearless reputation for adorning the hair-free nether regions of women nationwide, has released the latest trend: The Foxy Bikini (real colored fox fur) and The Carnivale Bikini (an array of festive colored feathers). Merkin Madness! More on that here.

In the exclusive video above, Spa Week investigates.

Lorna gets the Foxy Bikini

Michelle gets the Carnivale Bikini

So there you have it – Vajazzling‘s out and pubic wigs are in!

Not totally sold? I’m not here to sell you on it – just to tell you what it was like. Yes, there’s a party in my pants, and yes, you are invited. As you’ll see in the video, Cindy Barshop performed The Carnivale on me, and it was a highly customized experience. I asked for a peacock, and a peacock I got. One by one, using a special completely bare glue, she placed the feathers on my freshly waxed bikini zone in a shape to slim my appearance. It was way more flattering than I thought it would be. All these years of diet and exercise, and all I ever needed was a feather merkin!

Does it hurt? Not at all. When my Carnivale was on, I actually couldn’t feel a thing. Unless I touched it, obviously. It wasn’t uncomfortable at all until 3 days later when they started to itch and come loose. At that point, I just peeled them off, painlessly. (Now they are pinned to my office cork board.) The Foxy Bikini and The Carnivale are meant to last 3-5 days (daily showering included) as a kitschy and unique way to spice things up – either for your sex life or your personal confidence. They may not be the most practical or necessary thing in the universe, but it certainly has that sexy shock value that appeals to us (bored?) lovers of innovative beauty.

Including the wax, it’s $225 for the Foxy Bikini and $195 for The Carnivale.

*A SPA WEEK EXCLUSIVE OFFER*

Curious to try? Get a year worth of unlimited laser hair removal at completely bare, and receive a FREE Foxy Bikini or Carnivale with EVERY session! Unlimited Bikini Laser Hair Removal: $1000. Unlimited Brazilian Laser Hair Removal: $2000. Mention SPA WEEK when you call to book. Available in New York only. Call for an appointment or consultation: 1.855.366.6060.

So, I ran into ex-Real Housewife of New York, completely bare spa owner Cindy Barshop in the elevator yesterday, NBD or anything. We’ve actually been sharing the same office building since November – who knew? Well, as fate would have it, Cindy, the mastermind behind Vajeweling (Vajazzling) and Vatooing, told me about her new product that literally just launched and got picked up in TMZ and Gawker yesterday. Wait for it… wait for it… The Foxy Bikini.

It’s winter and your mons pubis is surely getting chilly, why not treat it like a real person and wrap it in a warm, pretty fox fur… pubic wig? As Cindy says, beauty follows fashion and fox is all over the runway for pre-fall, from Missoni’s sleeveless vest with beaver and fox chevroned fur trim (below, left) to Marc Jacob’s mock-croc bomber jacket with fox fur trim (below, right). Once again, Cindy is ahead of the curve and has created the newest merkin craze.

At the top, in pink, is the Foxy Bikini – made from real fox fur, only $225. It comes in a variety of colors, lasts about 3-5 days, even through showers, working out and working out (wink, wink). And the show-stopper? The multi-colored lady parts decoration below is the Carnivale Bikini, $195, to decorate your hoo-ha just in time for Mardi Gras with bright feathers in your choice of colors.

Stay tuned for more on the most glamorous merkins on earth – we are sooo not done here! (Hint hint: at completely bare filming today…)

UPDATE: Click to see how it’s all done in our exclusive MERKIN VIDEO!

Runway photos via style.com, fox and feather photos via TMZ

Thanks to fame-whoring, bling-loving, entrepreneurial British reality stars, we are seeing another resurgence of the sparkly private parts obsession born as Vajazzling, and this time it’s your turn, boys.

Almost instantly after our vajazzling video at completely bare dropped in February 2010, men became wildly jealous (unless maybe they were having sex with someone who’s vajazzled) and words like anazzling and balljazzling and penazzling were said and done in earnest.

And so the story goes…  this week, British reality show The Only Way Is Essex star Mark Wright has reached the pinnacle of fame with the launch of Pejazzles: a range of Swarovski crystal tattoos designed to be worn specifically by men. Just like Vajazzles, they are stick on and can be applied anywhere, but are suggested for just above the crotch on a waxed or shaved surface. “According to salon owners, 40% of customers requesting body bling are men,” reports the Daily Mail. These lips are one of the top sellers (I’ve personally had it – at least Pejazzlers have good taste).

We asked our Resident Straight Man (who chooses to remain anonymous) what he thinks about the trend: “No Way. Call your Congressman and get them to sign the nation’s first Penile Protection Amendment. Just say No to Pejazzling. It’s that important.”

Images courtesy of Daily Mail UK – hop on over there to read more.

Wow, what a year it’s been! We laughed, we cried, we got massaged… and here are the ultimate highlights. After analyzing our page views, stats, and your collective social media reactions, here are Spa Week Daily’s top 10 most popular blog posts, moments, contests and phenomenons from 2010.

Thank you all for reading Spa Week Daily and being part of the Spa Week community—you have no idea how much each of your comments, likes, @replies and support means to us! It makes us smile every single time, and you truly make it all worthwhile. We hope you enjoy this little trip down SWD memory lane. It was fun to write, and we can’t wait to do it all over again in 2011!

10. FACT: YOU LOVE YOUR PETS

Anything that barks, meows and shows up on Spa Week Daily turns to gold. Coming in at #10 is the domestic animal kingdom, from the growing phenom of Doggy Spas, the holistic healing of Reiki for Pets, to some Kitty on Kitty massage action. Pamper your pets right, and they’ll give you all the lovin’ in the world.

9. SPA-RRIVIDERCI! ADVENTURES IN ROME & TUSCANY

Yes, I spa’d and ate my way through Rome and Tuscany, but believe it or not, the euro massages were not the best part.  What I loved more than anything was being able to share and communicate with you all through social media along the way. WIN ITALIA was the #1 most trafficked Italy post, but collectively the entire Spa-rrividerci series takes the Panna Cotta.

8. STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER

On many Mondays, as you know, we celebrate the joy that music brings to our lives with various playlists, created in part by you. Your favorite of all the playlists? Best of the 60s: Your Flower Power Playlist. That decade of music gets some serious R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

7. CELEBRITY SPA ARREST: 50 CENT

You know we love sending real people to the spa for real, AND that we  love sending celebrities to the spa for fake. You were all pretty jazzed/grossed out about Hilary Swank’s hairy pits, but Fitty’s dramatic weightloss was your favorite draw-dropping spa arrest of the year.

6. SWAG ALERT!

Sure, we’re crowdpleasers. We give away so much stuff on a monthly basis that it’s astonishing we have anything left. You love all the free  beauty and spa giveaways on our SWAG page, making it consistently one of our top trafficked pages, so we’ll keep it coming, baby.

5. FIJI and BORA BORA and iPHONES, OH MY

Even more than swag, you loved our 10 iPhone giveaway to celebrate our new app, our collaboration with People Magazine to give away a $20,000 trip to Fiji, and our Wed Like a Celeb sweeps that sent this happy new couple to Bora Bora as part of the ultimate A-list bridal package. We also gave away luxurious spa days to 28 lucky winners our National Wellness Giveaway back in February, along with a ton of other amazing giveaways. It’s been a year of wins all around!

4. BELOW THE BELT

Not even mentioning the #1 item on this list (wait for it…), a slew of new below-the-belt preening and pampering has caught your attention in a big way this year. One might even say that 2010 is the Year of The Vagina, but the Chinese Zodiac and Tiger might get wildly offended. You loved completely bare‘s introduction of the Vatoo, the Live Spa TV segment of my Bikini/Bum Facial, and this week’s newsflash that women are steaming out their vaginas with herbs for $75 and up.

3. 12 HOTTEST SPA TREATMENT TRENDS

Botox On The Go, Reiki, Acupuncture and Instant Inch Loss treatments such as 7E all made the hottest spa treatments list for Fall 2010. When we released the list, it immediately got picked up by a ton of blogs and websites, and we were excited to hear about all the experimental spa-going that took place as a result. Massages are great, but the spa has so much more to offer. Keep it going, you spa star!

2. I GET NAKED AT THE SPA (But not everyone does…)

In an industry relatively free from drama, we were surprised to have stirred up a bit of controversy with our release of I Get Naked At The Spa, the first ever spa music video. The goal was to not only entertain people while sharing important spa etiquette rules, but also to help introduce the spa lifestyle to the next generation of consumers. With over 8,500 views, we hope we’ve made a dent!

And now… without further ado… the #1 spa craze of 2010:

1. WHEN VAJAZZLING TOOK OVER THE WORLD

Back in February when I casually emailed Bryce Gruber to see if she’d like to get her vagina bedazzled for Spa Madness, I had no idea what I was in for. Although you may think the Vajazzling trend is passe, our blog traffic speaks wildly otherwise. To this day, people all over the world are still landing on Spa Week Daily from Google searches on “vajazzle” “vajazzling spas” and “crystals on your vagina” by the jillions. From information on “First Lady” Bryce Gruber to VAJAZZLING: The Feature Film which now has nearly 1.5 million YouTube views, we couldn’t be prouder to deliver all the hottest news about the sparkliest thing to happen since the age of disco.

Now… what do you think 2011 will bring? More below the belt beauty rituals? Bigger vacations to win? Another music video? We can’t wait to find out either!