Spas have become banquets for the body. Skin treatments read like a menu in an upscale vegetarian restaurant. Customers can be rubbed, scrubbed, de-fuzzed, emolliated and exfoliated with a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables.

Pumpkin and pomegranate, papaya and pineapple, peach, apricot, blueberry and strawberry, avocado, cucumber and carrot, honey , egg and coffee, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and clove are some of the hundreds of foods, herbs and spices now touted to tone and enhance the body from scalp to sole.

The skin care industry is looking to combine the back-to-basics approach with all the scientific advancements available today, says Randy Shreck, vice president and general manager at Spa Radiance in San Francisco, who says its the marriage of knowledge and nature thats revolutionizing skin care.

So much is known now, in our industry, about how to break down the molecular structure of ingredients to make the most effective products. And a lot of these products are still bases on nutrients derived from botanical extracts, oils and food, he says.

Spa Radiance in San Francisco has concentrated several of its skin care options on food-based creams that are all-organic and handmade, Shreck says.

We have three lines that we use extensively, from Eminence, a handmade organic line from Hungary. They smell so good you want to eat them. In some of these, the food is actually visible. A carrot vitamin mask is flecked with tiny bits of carrot. A quince apple mask showcases bits of apple.

Spa Radiances new coffee scrub buffs the entire body with a mixture of finely ground coffee and coarse sugar granules, followed by a 30-minute head-to-toe massage infused with Australian shea butter(known for its hydrating properties) and essential oils.

Of all the treatments at Spa Radiance, a caviar facial, using products by Paris-based Biologique Recherch, with extracts of Tsar Nicolai caviar plus microdermabrasion, is the most decadent and radical.

The full treatment costs $750 for three hours; the Mini-Luxe, 75 minutes of caviar-inspired pampering, is $400. Yet even the shorter version features more courses than a meal at the French Laundry. Among the treatments 14 steps are a cleansing with an oxygenated milk potion to brighten the skin, and a microdermabrasion, in which a tiny diamond-tipped vacuum exfoliates the skin, sucking up cells while tingling your face under its swirly movements.

You get an instant lift with the Biologique Recherch remodeling machine that works two sponges, each as large as half a tennis ball, attached to a device that jolts the skin with intense little electrical currents. It buzzes on the skin, and feels like a dry cats tongue licking you over a layer of sawdust actually a lot more pleasant than it sounds.

The extract of caviar is spread on toward the end, mixed with collagen in a mask imbedded in the thinnest of paper. The paper is molded to your face; your skin absorbs and accepts the nutrients by association.

The moment of truth comes toward the end, when the aesthetician holds up a mirror. Facial skin feels and looks tauter, smoother, younger, glowing.

While women are still our biggest customers for this treatment, were seeing some men come in for the caviar facial as well, Shreck says. People are starting to see skin cars as a necessity. The taboos are gone.