If you’re not familiar with Victoria’s Secret model Elsa Hosk, it’s guaranteed you will be soon. Elsa went from being a pro-basketball player in her homeland of Stockholm, Sweden, to one of the most sought after supermodels in the U.S. In 2015, she was offered a Victoria’s Secret Angels contract that put her alongside Alessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima, Behati Prinsloo, Candice Swanepoel, Lily Aldridge and many more. We met up with her at the launch of Victoria’s Secret’s new fragrance, Crush, and (naturally) gabbed about all things beauty.
Frequently, modeling can involve receiving some pretty out-of-this-world beauty treatments, so we just had to know what was the craziest Elsa’s ever experienced. “I haven’t really done anything truly crazy,” she said. But then she told us about her past in Sweden, and one beauty treatment she’s currently considering that isn’t exactly ordinary. “I just got an offer to do this cryotherapy treatment, where you basically freeze yourself,” she explained.
Cryotherapy involves entering a chamber with temperature levels equivalent to Antarctica’s. Chilled liquid nitrogen blasts all around you as you’re submerged in the chamber, which results in tricking your body into believing it’s freezing to death. While this all sounds admittedly bizarre, cryotherapy can reportedly give you some serious health benefits, like fighting inflammation and preventing aging. However, the FDA hasn’t approved cryotherapy because of the possibility of frost bite and asphyxiation from liquid nitrogen, but heaps of people are still giving it a try.
Elsa’s next revelation actually confirmed that she was way ahead of the cryotherapy phenomenon. “In Sweden, we carve a hole in the ice, bathe in it, and then go into a sauna,” she said. “So I was thinking this might be a good one for me, and it’s supposed to help with circulation,” she added.
It’s true, the majority of us are willing to try something a little wacky for the sake of beauty. Elsa’s tale shows that models are. in fact. just like us—minus all the photo-shoots and runways, of course.
