Ahh, the spas

ATLANTIC CITY - A few years back, a massage therapist in rural Maine - perhaps as far as you can get from the glitter of this Jersey Shore town - thought of a new way to use some shells she had found on a Florida beach.

Giving massages with the shells, she thought, might provide a lighter touch than the traditional heated stones used in some sessions. She took her idea for pampering patrons to the Showboat casino hotel, offering warm oil as a comfort for parched skin.

"We dip the shells in warm oil. It's a little like a stone massage, but it leaves you with a different feeling," said Gina Rosenberger, owner of the Vive Day Spa and Salon there, which has been featuring the massages for about a year.

The massages are just one sign that in a place whose name evokes "the Boardwalk," "casinos," "Monopoly," and maybe even "Burt Lancaster," the exotic often lurks just below the surface.

In the spa world of Atlantic City, shell therapies from York Beach, Maine, share billing with the faux architecture of ancient Rome, skin treatments from the Far East, and massage therapies from Scandinavia, the tropics and the Far East. It is a world of strange textures and aromas, places from where you can sometimes gaze at the ocean, but rarely smell it. And never hear the sounds of the slots.

The spas - most of them attached to casinos - cater to audiences of greatly varying ages, backgrounds, and interests. They are for men and women, couples and singles, high rollers, non-rollers, day trippers, and the merely curious, the pampered and the wannabe pampered.

Mostly, though, they are for women, who make up about two-thirds of the visitors to the area, according to Jeff Vasser, president of the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"We're the top 'girlfriends getaway' destination in the East," says Vasser. "Generally they're not big on gambling. They're big on relaxing at the spas and nightclubs, shopping. Walk through the Tropicana Quarter any Saturday night and you'll see a dozen bachelorette parties."

The spas offer services with names mundane - "Swedish massage," "Jacuzzi" - and out-there - "experience rooms," "Vichy showers."

Be patient. We'll explain. But let's start at the top. Literally.

The Immersion Spa at the Borgata's Water Club is on the 32d floor of that hotel, with views of both the ocean and the bay. Jacuzzis are segregated by sex but with coed "wet areas." Like many of the Shore spas, it excludes those under age 18. The area features all-day retreats with a lunch menu, and "some people drive from New York City for it," says a manager, Rachel Murphy. And, yes, this is where they have the "experience rooms," but simply as a name for the various services offered, such as Swedish massage, reflexology, and aromatic treatments.

As for the "Vichy shower," that's a shower with seven different heads, and an operator playing the streams like lights on a stage. It is offered at the Qua Spas and Baths at Caesars, where concierge Brittany Cleveland also talks up the herbal steam room, offering eucalyptus aromas to attack allergies and sinus afflictions with elegance.

There's also a couples studio, but you and yours also may want to check out the couples massages at the Spa at the Taj at Trump's Taj Mahal.

Skin care is king at bluemercury, at the Tropicana Quarter, with an array of cosmetics that can separate the luckiest slots player from her winnings, plus services including oxygen facials and a couples massage. There's even a "prenatal massage" - second or third trimester only - designed to "improve circulation, reduce foot swelling, and release lower-back tension."

Other spas featuring skin care include the Seaview, the Bellazza Salon at Bally's, and Spa Toccare at the Borgata, with a menu including four facials, nine body treatments, four hydrotherapy services, and six "supercharged" massages. For long-distance visitors, the "wild blossom scalp treatment" is touted as "perfect for jet lag and fatigue," with avocado, macadamia, and other ingredients to drive away nightmares of the tarmac.

Toccare also offers in-room massages, but if you're more interested in views of the Boardwalk while the indulgence is under way, you can try the outdoor pool at the Tropicana Health Club or the indoor/outdoor pool at Resorts. And if you want the saltwater to be more than a visual experience, the recently completed Chelsea Hotel offers what it calls "an oasis within an oasis," a heated saltwater pool. Some of its treatments also utilize saltwater, including one enticingly titled "The Go-Go Girl Glow/Scrub and Buff."

If you're tired of looking at casinos or the ocean but still crave a spa experience, the Spa at the Hilton offers a tropical garden setting and a large painted mural of swimming dolphins near the Jacuzzi.

And if the intense Casino Capital atmosphere is really too much and you want to get away from Atlantic City for waxing, facials, body treatments or massages, you can stop at the Tranquil Touch at Somers Point, where owner Kasey Caruso proudly says, "We get a lot of clients from the islands." I