We so enjoyed our girls trip to Big Sur (read more about that here) that we put another girls getaway on the calendar. This time to the hot spring town of Calistoga in Napa County, California.

We didn’t notice it checking in. We didn’t notice it at the mineral water pool the night before. We didn’t notice it in our room. It wasn’t until we were led to our mud bath room that it hit us – this was a couple’s resort. Despite booking the “Girlfriends Spa Special”, everything here was catered to couples. The spa partnered us up for our treatments: Maya and Laura, Sarah and me.

The two person joint mud bath was set up in an “L” so that each person had their own space, but that it also made it hard to not engage in some form of footsy during the bath. Our attendant told us to put our clothes and shoes in a mesh basket and that she would be back in a bit once we had immersed ourselves in the mud bath. She also explained the correct way to enter the mud:

How to Correctly Enter a Mud Bath

1. Strip

There are no swimsuits in the mud bath, this is an au natural experience, so you better be comfortable being naked in front of others. In my case, this was my coworker Sarah.

2. Shimmy on top of the mud

The bottom of the tub is a hot plate which means you can’t climb in like you would a normal tub. Rather, you carefully shimmy on top of the mud, fully displaying your nakedness to your mud bath partner.

3. Bury yourself

They generally recommend scooping mud over your privates first. I was so caught up in the experience I didn’t realize my hoo-ha was one of the last things I covered up, first wiggling my legs in, then my belly, and then realizing I should probably cover up the less modest parts of my body.

4. Wiggle in further

The further down your body is, the hotter the mud. Once you’ve scooped a decent amount of mud on yourself, wiggle down to your preferred temperature, keeping your hands and feet out as regulators.

5. Relax

Once you’ve settled into to the mud, which has an uncanny resemblance to manure in both consistency and scent, lay your head back on your foam boogie board headrest and try to relax. You are allotted 10 minutes in the mud. This seemed short to us at first, but by the time 8 minutes rolled around we were wondering when she was going to come back in and get us.

At the end of our 10 minutes, Maria came back in and explained to us how to correctly exit the mud:

How to Correctly Exit a Mud Bath

1. Sit up straight

You likely won’t be able to wiggle yourself up out of the mud the same way you went in, so the best way to get out is to sit up straight, torso out first.

2. Squeegee off the mud

The peat mossy mud adheres itself to your skin in large clumps. To avoid slopping out of the bath with half the mud in the tub, make your hand a squeegee and wipe.

3. Step out, one leg at a time

This was probably the most awkward part of the whole ordeal due to the “L” shape of the mud baths.

Once out of the mud it was time for us to shower, which was in the same room as the baths. We each had our own rain shower head, with a bench in between, the shower curtains wrapping around the entire set up creating one couples shower. We followed the shower with 10-20 minutes in a hot tub (also in the same room). In all our post-mud bath glowing glory, Sarah served me water in a dixie cup over minimal jets and bubbles. We hydrated and then proceeded to our couples massage and facial.

Golden Haven Hot Springs | Couples Mud Baths

At the end of the day, I felt like Sarah and I took our relationship to the next level, albeit a friendship. There’s nothing quite like bonding over a cold dixie cup of water naked in a 104 degree Jacuzzi, couple or not.