Most parents booking a pamper party for the first time ask some version of the same question: what do they actually do for two hours? It is a fair question. Two hours sounds like a long time when you are picturing eight excited girls in your living room, and quite short when you are picturing everything you have seen online.
So here is the honest shape of a party, in the order it happens.
Before we knock: set up
We arrive ahead of the start time and set up ourselves. Robes come out, the spa area is laid out, products are arranged, and the room starts to look like somewhere a birthday is about to happen. Set up and pack down are part of the booking, not extras, and they do not eat into the party time. All we need from you is a clear-ish floor and a plug if we are using anything electrical.
Every party is set up around whatever room you have given us. We are not precious about it. A living room with the coffee table pushed back is the most common Little Hunnies venue in Bedfordshire, and it works beautifully.
The first ten minutes: arrivals and robes
The birthday girl usually hovers by the door from about twenty minutes before anybody arrives. When her friends come in they get a robe and a headband each, and that is the moment the party actually starts. Something happens when eight girls are suddenly all dressed the same: they stop being a group of children in a room and become a group who are doing something together.
This is also when we work out the room. Who is shy, who is loud, who has arrived not entirely sure about any of it. We have run enough of these to know that the quiet one by the sofa usually ends up first in the queue for nails, as long as nobody makes a thing of her.
Face masks and cucumber
Masks are made on the day from yogurt, cucumber and fruit, and each girl is patch tested first. That part is not skipped, even when everyone is keen to get going. It takes a minute and it is the difference between a lovely afternoon and a phone call to a parent.
The masks are the bit that gets photographed most. Eight girls lying back with cucumber on their eyes, trying very hard not to laugh and failing, is the single most requested photo of the day.
Nails, hair and make-up
These run as stations rather than one long queue, so nobody is sitting waiting for their turn with nothing to do. Nail polish and make-up are child friendly and age appropriate, and for the younger ones it is kept simple and glittery rather than anything that needs remover and a firm hand at bedtime.
For Tween Hunnies parties, ages nine to twelve, this part looks quite different. They want to do each other's hair, they have opinions about colours, and they would rather be left to it with a bit of guidance than instructed. That is exactly how we run it.
The bit in the middle where you feed them
Most families do food somewhere around the middle or the end. That is your call and your timing. Premium and Luxury packages include a drink, usually pink lemonade, with squash or water instead if you would rather. We work around whatever you have planned rather than the other way round.
Cake normally lands near the end, once the girls look their best, because that is when the photos happen.
The last twenty minutes
The end of a party is quieter than the start. Nails are drying, hair is done, and the group has settled into whatever it has settled into. We use the time for photos, for the birthday girl to be properly the centre of it for a minute, and for everything to be gathered up.
Then we pack down and take it all away. That is the part parents mention most afterwards: the party ends and there is nothing left to clear except a few paper plates.
What you are doing while all this happens
Talking to the other parents, mostly. A parent or responsible adult needs to be there throughout, and you are still the grown-up in charge of the children, but you are not running activities, refereeing, or trying to remember what comes next. We have done the running order hundreds of times.
If that sounds like the afternoon you want, the dates we have free are on the site, and you are welcome to ask about one.