So your child has asked for a pamper party.
This sounds lovely until you realise that at some point several children are going to arrive at your house expecting an actual spa, and you are now apparently responsible for creating one! This brings you here...frantically trying to understand exactly what you have got yourself into!
The good news is that children do not need a hotel treatment room, matching robes with their names embroidered on the back or seventeen different activities lined up. They mostly want the feeling of a spa day: bowls of warm water, towels, cucumber slices, things to mix, something to do with their friends and the chance to feel extremely grown up for a couple of hours.
If you keep that in mind, the whole thing becomes much easier.
Start with the experience rather than the decorations.
It is very easy to disappear down a Pinterest hole when you start looking for kids pamper party ideas.
Suddenly you are considering balloon arches, personalised slippers, matching headbands and a table arrangement that would require a small events team to put together. But please remember that none of that is essential.
Think about what the children will actually be doing first. Once you know that, you can work out what you need around it.
For me, the basics would be somewhere for them to sit together, a couple of bowls for hand or foot soaks, towels, a table for mixing botanicals or making something, and a few little details that make it feel different from an ordinary afternoon at home.
Music helps, as does a jug of fruit water or juice in nice glasses. Cucumber slices are almost compulsory because children seem to consider them official spa equipment.
Top Tip...A few petals floating in a bowl can somehow make the whole thing look much more impressive than the effort involved!
How many children should you invite?
This depends on the age of the children and how much space you have, but pamper parties tend to work better with a smaller group.
Four to six children is a really manageable number at home because everybody can take part without spending half the afternoon waiting for a turn.
If you are inviting more, I would split the activities into little stations rather than trying to have twelve children doing the same thing around one bowl of water.
You could have a foot soak area, a botanical mixing table and a craft or quiet activity running at the same time, then let the children move between them.
This also helps if you have children who do not particularly want to sit still for an hour, as there's always one who has finished relaxing after approximately forty seconds (namely mine!!).
Give the party a loose running order.
I would have a rough plan, but I would not schedule every ten minutes.
Children have an inconvenient habit of enjoying the thing you expected to take five minutes for half an hour, while the activity you carefully prepared the night before is abandoned almost immediately.
A two-hour party might look something like this:
Arrival and drinks: Let everyone arrive, settle in and have something to eat or drink while you explain what they will be doing.
Spa time: Bring out the foot bowls, towels and cucumber slices. They can take turns doing little hand or foot soaks, brushing each other's hair or simply sitting around chatting.
Botanical making: Move to the table and let them make something themselves. This could be a muslin bath bag, a simple botanical foot soak or their own little herb mixture.
Food and cake: I would put this somewhere in the middle rather than leaving hungry children until the end.
One final activity: A craft, herb guessing game, flower crown or something they can take home works well here.
That is plenty.
Set up a simple foot spa.
You do not actually need electric foot spas. Washing-up bowls work perfectly well for this, although I would probably buy a couple of inexpensive bowls specifically for the party unless you want everyone thinking about last night's lasagne while they soak their feet.
Fill them with comfortably warm water just before you need them and add whatever age-appropriate ingredients you have decided to use. You could keep it very simple with oats in a muslin bag, a few petals floating on the water or an appropriate ready-made botanical mixture.
Put towels underneath and have more towels nearby than you think you will need as water will end up on the floor. It always does so please try not to stress about this. Keeping the bowls on a wipeable surface is one of those decisions you will congratulate yourself for later. In the summer, this is a perfect opportunity to host it outside under a beautiful tree.
Have a botanical mixing table.
This is one of my favourite parts because children love being allowed to make something themselves.
Put a selection of dried botanicals into small bowls with wooden spoons and let them look, smell and choose what they want to use. Oats, rose petals, calendula, chamomile, lemon balm and lavender all give them different textures, colours and scents to explore.
You can add little labels or ingredient cards so they know what they are looking at.
Some children will read everything carefully and make a very considered blend. Others will put six scoops of rose petals in because they are pink and the beauty of this is both are perfect!
Muslin bags are particularly useful because the children can spoon their chosen ingredients inside, tie them up and take them home to use in a bath or foot soak.
Let them create their own spa treatments.
Once children have a few ingredients in front of them, you can let them start inventing.
Ask them what they would put together for tired feet after a busy day, what they would choose if they wanted something cosy before bed or which herbs they simply like the smell of.
There does not need to be a correct recipe every time, and part of the fun is choosing - you'll be amazed how long this process actually takes.
They could even create a "Spa Menu" - let them decide what treatments they want to offer, and the names of them etc. If your children are anything like mine, they always want to be the Boss, so this will satisfy their need for control (for a while anyway!).
Cucumber slices are still allowed.
You can absolutely do the classic cucumber-over-the-eyes bit! It is cheap, harmless for most children and makes them feel as though they have reached peak spa.
You can also use cool damp flannels for children who do not want cucumber on their faces. This is worth remembering generally as nobody has to do every activity.
Some children hate having anything near their face, some dislike certain smells and somebody may not want to put their feet into a bowl that another child has used ( I know I wouldn't!!).
Make it easy for them to say no and move onto something else without turning it into a big deal. A reading, colouring or chillout corner with comfy cushions is a good bet for these situations.
Add a few non-skincare activities.
You do not have to fill the entire afternoon with things going onto skin.
A flower crown station works brilliantly with the botanical theme. Children could decorate little kraft crowns, make botanical pictures, colour their own spa signs or create menus for their imaginary treatments.
You could also put several herbs into covered pots and have them guess what they are by smell.
Another easy one is letting each child name the mixture they have made and design a little label for it. It's amazing seeing their creativity come out and this usually produces names considerably better than anything a room full of marketing people would come up with!
Think about the children who find parties a lot.
Pamper parties can actually work really well for children who find noisy, high-energy parties overwhelming, but only if we resist turning them into another highly organised sensory assault.
You do not need loud music, strong fragrance everywhere, every child doing everything at once.
Leave some space around the activities, keep the instructions simple and let children move away if they have had enough.
If you know one of the guests is particularly sensitive to smell or touch, it is worth asking their parent beforehand what they are comfortable with. Sometimes simply knowing what is going to happen makes a huge difference.
What should they eat?
You can keep this as easy as the rest of the party.
Fruit skewers, strawberries, little sandwiches, popcorn, cakes and whatever birthday food your child actually likes are fine.
There is no requirement for the food to become wellness themed simply because there are towels involved. Whilst children want to be grown ups...they don't want to eat like them!
If you want it to feel spa-like, put drinks into nice cups or jugs with fruit in them then serve the birthday cake.
What do you actually need?
You can put together a lovely spa party with surprisingly little.
I would have a few bowls, plenty of towels and flannels, wooden spoons, muslin bags, cucumber, a selection of safe botanicals, cups or glasses for drinks and something to cover the table.
Add whatever craft activity you have chosen and you are pretty much there.
If you are using anything directly on the children's skin, check allergies with parents beforehand and keep ingredients age appropriate. I would also avoid essential oils. Essential oils are concentrated substances and children do not need to be measuring drops into homemade products. The more simple it is, the better.
Little Wild Spa was made for exactly this.
This is one of the reasons I created the Little Wild Spa.
I wanted children to have something they could actually use for this kind of party without simply giving them miniature versions of adult skincare.
Inside are eight botanicals and natural ingredients to explore: rose, lemon balm, calendula, chamomile, lavender, oats, kaolin clay and Epsom salts, along with a coconut bowl, wooden spoon and muslin bag for making their own mixtures.
The part I really love is that the play does not stop at mixing things together.
The children can learn what the herbs are, how they have traditionally been used, how they can fit into simple skin and wellbeing rituals and start making their own choices based on what they feel like they need that day.
That might be something soft and comforting for the skin, a warm foot soak after a very busy afternoon or simply choosing the flower they like the smell of most.
They are still having the grown-up spa experience they asked for, but they are learning something about the plants at the same time.
If you would rather have the botanicals, activities and spa bits already gathered together instead of buying everything separately, you can have a look at Little Wild Spa here.
If your child has asked for a pamper party and you are wondering whether the whole idea is becoming a little too grown up too soon, read My Child Wants a Pamper Party. How Do I Keep It Age Appropriate? as well. That looks more closely at why children enjoy this kind of role play and how to keep it firmly in childhood without taking away the fun.
