These days, we have so many beauty and spa treatments available for us to do on our own at home, that we don't even have to leave our homes any more to tighten and tone our skin, get a quick microdermabrasion treatment, and even treat our skin to a soft light laser session for rejuvenation.

Those are just a few examples of products and services that were only offered as a salon or spa service before innovative companies came out with products you could use safely in your own home that gave you comparable results for a fraction of the cost and the convenience of not even leaving your home.

A beauty treatment that has been around for quite a few years but just now is starting to generate buzz for it's body sculpting capabilities is the body wrap.

Body wraps were made popular as a way to temporarily spot reduce fat and to help trim size off the circumference of typical body omplaints on women and men - their bellies, thighs, buttocks, and upper arms, and evolved into somewhat of a regular treatment for many who swear by it's detoxification abilities and their great affinity for spot reducing size as well as the appearance of that thing we all hate, cellulite.

Body wraps started off as a pampering beauty appointment for those that could afford things beyond the expensive haircut and coloring on occasion, since they usually went for anywhere from fifty to one hundred dollars per appointment. Add that up and you have quite a costly beauty habit!

Now, thanks to the innovation of a few companies offering at home body wrap treatments, we can do a body wrap on ourselves, in our own home, on our own time and in privacy and comfort. There are a few excellent kits being sold mostly online now that can really give you that smooth, toned, smaller look on your problem areas just like the in-salon treatments can do.

Body wraps done at home are a simple way to help trim a few inches off over a few days or weeks with repeated use if you are anticipating a big life event, say you're in a wedding, going on a big date, or you have a high school reunion to attend, these are the times that many people seek out body wraps so they can spot reduce their trouble areas without actually dieting or killing themselves exercising to do it.

Home body wrap systems often work by the user applying some sort of herbal botanical concoction to the area they want to treat first. These special herbal mixtures may contain any combination of tightening and toning ingredients such as seaweed, caffeine and other ingredients that tend to help reduce water retention and encourage the smoothing out of the skin.

These kits then supply you with some sort of a wrapping devices, such as thin strips of wrap material that look similar to an ace bandage, which you then use to tightly wrap the area you are treating after you have applied the (usually herbal) formula.

These techniques provide size reduction and cellulite smoothing as well and tone improvement in the affected areas by using compression as well as the ingredients in the topical cream or serum to really force the fat cells to compress together, creating a smoother, leaner look, and often even temporarily reducing the size by "training" the tissue to stay smaller and tighter for a period of time.

Often times once you can achieve the desired outcome after doing several treatments, you only have to do upkeep treatments after that to maintain the look you want. Note that body wraps both at home and at a salon are not designed for actual weight loss, they only make the body parts they are applied to appear smaller, but they usually do not cause the individual to lose weight, only size. Any weight loss should be viewed as a bonus.