For $2,700 in-season you can book a week at Florida's Palm-Aire Spa, the exclusive Pompano Beach hideaway for the lumpy and weary. Or, for a modest $29.95, you can pretend you are there with this 45-minute rejuvenate-yourself-at-home tape. But don't expect to be pampered. Actress Barbara Gouwens introduces exercise, diet, beauty and relaxation techniques adapted from the spa that will either inspire or exhaust. Pause buttons are also in for a vigorous workout, for when Gouwens demonstrates a calisthenics routine, she does not do the 10 repetitions with you. Nor does she prepare the day's menus (averaging 814 calories) at your side. Stop and refer to the minimanual that comes with the tape for recipes and beauty-treatment ingredients. (You won't, for example, be able to "massage each part of your body till it glows," if you do not have four cups of kosher salt, two ounces of baby oil and a loofah sponge at hand.) Don't be put off by the first day's Lilliputian menu, which begins with two egg whites and a half ounce of shredded Jarlsberg cheese frothed into a 75-calorie omelet. Cheese blintzes and chocolate mocha mousse await you later in the week. And don't be embarrassed by the relaxation exercise that calls for "squinting your eyes, pursing your lips and pushing your tongue to the roof of your mouth," no one is watching. Gouwens is a gracious guide who radiates good health and sometimes promises more than she delivers. "Beauty tips that will make you feel like a movie star," are superficial and sprint across the screen before you can call yourself Elizabeth Taylor. If a week of starving, stretching and saturating yourself in the fine points of pedicures, manicures and facials seems all too withering, remember this: On the eighth day you can rest. (Simon & Schuster Video)
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