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The machine Martyn is talking about is really the star of this piece. She calls it the Resculptor, and it looks like the kind of magic electricity box you see in movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein. The machine releases a mild electrical current. By applying it to the area of the body she has prepared (the treatment also involves massage, acupressure, and her own potent Firming Serum), Martyn prompts the muscles she is targeting to shorten. "The good thing about it," says Martyn, "is that once the muscle has been reminded to tighten up, it keeps doing it. It's like going to the gym, only I get to those areas—the jaw line, the upper eyelid, upper thigh—that you can't reach through exercise. And because it is so specific, the results are immediate. Plus, the area of your body where cellulite collects is probably the part of your body you like least. It gets neglected. If you stimulate your lymphatic system, which is what I am doing, you are not only draining that area of toxins but sending energy there. Your body will no longer automatically deposit its waste there; it learns that it's no longer a safe haven, and so reroutes it." The effects, in other words, are relatively long-lasting, particularly if you've had more than one treatment.

Martyn discovered her Resculptor on a quest for the perfect facial. She was a successful makeup artist and had always been fascinated by the way makeup could add contours to the face, but she felt sure that there had to be a more permanent way to create a sculpted appearance. She learned about acupressure and aromatherapy, studied Thai massage, and also sent herself back to beauty school to get her aesthetician's license. Then, in England, she discovered an early version of the Resculptor. It was the machine's electric current and its two nodules that gave Martyn the oomph her fingertips lacked. Ten years later, Martyn owns the machine's patent, and it now bears her lotus flower logo as its trademark.

She has worked with the machine's manufacturer to develop more than 100 different settings so that she can adjust the current to suit each of her clients' needs.

The body treatments, for example, demand that the machine be geared to promote lymphatic drainage. Likewise, other settings change the current's frequency. As you might imagine, Martyn needs a stronger electric current if she is working on my inner thighs than if she is refining Michelle Pfeiffer's cheekbones. But still, current setting aside, what you are getting on your body—be it your thighs, upper arms, or stomach—is an incredible luxury: an already specialized facial customized to work on, say, your behind. And yet it doesn't feel sinful or inappropriate (the way spreading Creme de la Mer on your bottom surely would), because it works. Martyn, a tiny, porcelain blonde, sets to work briskly: She is not in the business of pampering (though certainly she leaves you feeling pampered) Instead, her craft is the alchemist's art: transformation.

So, this I can tell you: I have tried body-firming creams. I've taken cellulite-decreasing pills. I have been to several Endermologie sessions and would happily pay not to climb into that humiliating white bodysuit ever again. I would rather run up and down a flight of stairs if I have to boost my circulation than have my flesh jiggled about by an aggressive machine. I know that Martyn's Resculpting Body Treatment works—not, actually, because of what she told me (it all makes perfect sense, but can you see the results in a swimsuit?) and not because she made me stand in profile in front of the mirror for a before and after examination. (Yes, excruciating as I found having to peer at l'area cellulite, my sensitive areas did look noticeably better and lesser during the after session, but then it wouldn't be the first time my eyes have deceived me about my body. No, the thing that really cheered me was this: The morning after I saw Martyn, I reached not thinking, for a pair of rather too-snug pants I had worn two days before. They wafted on.

For an appointment, please call Tracie Martyn
(212) 206-9333,