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| In school we are only allowed to use lotion & I am interested on getting some feedback on what others prefer to use & what brands? I am wanting to try something diferent than lotion but not sure what. Any input would be helpful. Thanks! :D |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
    
| I am not a massage therapist but most of the massages I have had use oils. The Hellerworker I go to uses a combo of beeswax and coconut oil but that is much stickier and the work is different. Love the smell, though. At home I have used lotions but by far my favourite so far are massage bars from Lush. They work really well and don't feel so greasy. They also aren't messy, which is great since I often end up working on DH's sore feet and legs in the living room  I wish they came in unscented or in much milder scents, though. |
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| Funny this comes up today because i've been researching/reading online about creams/oils/lotions and sort of agonizing over what to buy. i live in hawaii so shipping for this stuff costs almost as much as the product itself. It really depends on what kind of work you do, and what your personal tastes are as far as your lubricant. I worked at a couple different spas where they provided the lubricant, and a choice of them at that, so i've had the opportunity to work with lots of different stuff. My specialty is structural work (like hellerwork tourist described) and for that i can use no lube, or just plain 100% coco butter. I've come to realize that for relaxation/spa work i can work with just about any form of lubricant, though some are better for certain styles of massage. Right now my current favorite is the 50/50 massage lotion from Epicuren, but I think you have to be a business in order to have an account with them. It has amazing glide, so it's great for swedish, but it also seems to have a lot of water in it (or something) because it soaks in or evaporates or something so by the time I'm ready to do deep work, on the same person, i'm not sliding all over the place. it's great I just used some Biotone Dual Purpose cream this morning and found it a little too slippery for deep tissue work, but still okay. I love the smell of Biotone Nutri-Naturals cream. Still slippery, but nice. A little goes a long way. Straight up oil is fine. It works well for most styles, just for deep tissue use very little, swedish a lot. On certain people's skin it has this strange drag quality, where your hands will stick then slide then stick then slide and it makes for a fairly bumpy ride. This is only maybe 10% of the people (men w/lots of hair, dry skinned feet, etc) and maybe different kinds of oils are better or worse, not sure. I really like to use oil when I do hot stone massage. It just seems to work better. Of course, natural, organic oil (which is the best to use for your client's skin) will stain your sheets and make them smell. What I'm considering buying now is the Therapro Deep Tissue Lotion, it's a good bargain but i haven't worked with it yet. Anyone who has I'd love to hear what it's like. All in all, I like to have a variety of lubes to work with. For a general swedish massage I like oil, or a slippery lotion. For swedish + Deep tissue, cream or lotion is nice. For hardcore deep tissue/structural coco butter is the only way to fly. Plus, it's always okay to just wipe it off your client. If I'm working with oil to do swedish + deep tissue, i'll do the swedish with lots of oil, then wipe some off when I move into the deep tissue part of the session. Experiment with lots of stuff. At Massage Warehouse (online) they have little student packs that have samplers of different types of lubricants. Biotone may have some too. Try everything, I really think it's a matter of personal preference. Best, |
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| Try the massage oil from BathLab.com. You can choose your own scent and color. It's great stuff. |
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| This product is a mix between a lotion and an oil:
Grip Therapeutic Massage Oil
Well worth investigating.
Edited by Dynamo321 2006-05-04 9:55 AM
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 5098
Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | Oh goody, here we go with more commercials. I like Dessert Essence's new lotion. It has Royal Jelly and Honey in it. It smells good enough to eat. It's in a pink tube. Very nice. Although, I still say Better Botanicals has the BEST...Kokum Butter is Divine!! |
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| Every time I read this subject line I just want to say "yes, please"  |
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| I am super picky about the kind that I like to use and is used on me. I have recently been using pure soya oil. The company I buy from (www.resolutionspa.com) has the plain stuff as well as blends with organic essential oils. I find soya oil to be somewhere in between jojoba and avocado oil. I am just weary of lotions- they have so much filler in them. With oil there is more purity and it really penetrates well into the skin. |
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| Ah Tourist, once more we're on the same wavelength.... I LOVE LUSH! Try dropping them a line through their UK web site as they often incorporate customer ideas into their ranges. In fact, they sometimes run competitions to design a new ballistic or whatever.
Fee
tourist - 2005-12-30 11:57 PM
I am not a massage therapist but most of the massages I have had use oils. The Hellerworker I go to uses a combo of beeswax and coconut oil but that is much stickier and the work is different. Love the smell, though. At home I have used lotions but by far my favourite so far are massage bars from Lush. They work really well and don't feel so greasy. They also aren't messy, which is great since I often end up working on DH's sore feet and legs in the living room I wish they came in unscented or in much milder scents, though.
Edited by Orbilia 2006-05-05 5:52 AM
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| Good idea, Fee. I have begun a practice of emailing companies whose product I especially like as a part of expressing gratitude in my life. Sometimes they send me free stuff, which is a nice bonus |
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| That's great. I bet the guys who mail you stuff are those that get your repeat business as a result too.
I now have a Lush shop in my home town, about 5 minutes from my office. If I spend over x, they often give me "samples" to try. Have you ever been in one of the shops or are you limited to on-line? Once sniffed, you can find a Lush shop anywhere simply by closing your eyes and inhaling the breeze :-)
Fee
Edited by Orbilia 2006-05-05 11:26 AM
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| I actually do have a Lush in town but I am a suburbanite and rarely get all the way downtown. When we go to Whistler mountain in the summer I usually spend a good amount of time and $$ at Lush and the Body Shop. I love the smell although I know many who find it overwhelming. We have a double jaccuzzi in the place we rent there and I love to use the bath bombs except the ones with flowers in them are a huge pain to clean up! I wait until they are dry then climb in with the broom and dust pan.   |
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| Wow, Whistler mountain, I am envious!
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| It is getting so expensive we can only go in the summer or in the late fall before it starts to snow, but yeah - it is a pretty nice place  |
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| Try using a plug-hole sieve, Tourist. That way you can just use a push-on shower thingie to rinse down with and then just tip the petals out into the bucket. Alternatively, if you'd prefer the petals weren't in the tub at all, you can pop the ballistic into a stocking and knot the end.
Fee
Edited by Orbilia 2006-05-08 5:18 AM
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| Great ideas Fee. I think it has a pop-up plug so the sieves don't work in those, but the stocking idea is brilliant Funny how we call them bath bombs but you folks call them ballistics. |
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| We call them bath bombs too. I think it's a Lush thing to call them ballistics. Maybe they chose that term to make theirs stand out from all the chemically-enhanced, fizz-deficient, low-smell, disappointments out there?
The stocking idea is what Lush recommend. I think you'll find their UK site more user-friendly than the US one (I never got an answer to my question to the US one for e.g. - I wanted to know why their ordering system permitted non-US visitors when the payment module didn't - GAH!).
For general information.... for you US folk, ordering from LUSH UK and paying the postage is actually cheaper than ordering from the US site as US manufacturing costs are considerably more expensive (LUSH use 3rd party supply in the US and manufacture themselves in the UK).
Fee |
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| ohh..ok, thanks for the ideas.. |
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Lotion, Cream or oils?
