Hi there in my sparetime i do massage therapy, i have just returned from Thailand where i had a few massages. I was given a foot massage, and my foot after being lightly scrubbed was then washed clean in a large wooden shallow bowl. I have been scouring the internet in search of one, but alas to no avail. I was wondering if someone knew where i could purchase one of those large wooden bowls from, think they are either made of coconut , mango, or bamboo . PLEASE can anyone help??
Hi Gary welcome, do you mean something like this ?
http://www.alibaba.com/product-free/104527659/Floral_Foot_Spa_Bowl.html
I am not connected with the company, just googled around 🙂
if you're looking for the bowl for personal use, ok, if you are looking for the bowl for using on other people, be very careful. Foot soak equipment needs to cope with pretty cleaning products to prevent the spread of fungal and bacterial matter. Wood is a bit too porous to be considered a safe material. Most feet are fine, maybe fragrance issues being jammed up in shoes all day, but normally pretty well OK, you just need one person with something nasty and then the next person can get it etc. Usually the nasty is something like tinea, but in America they've had issues with flesh eating bacteria being spread by foot baths, plantar warts are fairly easily spread too.
I think over the top cleaning chemicals are overkill in most cases, but anything to do with feet they're sensible, Look into the regulations for cleaning foot baths for pedicures.
Hi there in my sparetime i do massage therapy, i have just returned from Thailand where i had a few massages. I was given a foot massage, and my foot after being lightly scrubbed was then washed clean in a large wooden shallow bowl. I have been scouring the internet in search of one, but alas to no avail. I was wondering if someone knew where i could purchase one of those large wooden bowls from, think they are either made of coconut , mango, or bamboo . PLEASE can anyone help??
pinksboutique; ytsara, Amazon USA; bring one back from Thailand?
Think they are hygienic to use if you change the water and sanitise between pairs of feet pinksboutique site has good info on this.
That info on pinksboutique is severely lacking. If it is showing a tide mark (which they say is ok) it is NOT ok, that means there is material there (skin, oil, dirt, bacteria, fungal matter (tinea, nail fungus, other fungal things), etc). If it is just for your own use and your own tide mark material, no issue, if you start mixing tide mark material across different people, you are on the way to cross contamination.
There has been a big move towards waterless manicures over the last 10 years, it's now started moving towards waterless pedicures, there is are a lot of health reasons why soaking is going out of fashion.
garyworthing where are youuuuuuuuuuuu?
have your feet dropped off?
i told you not to use that wooden bowl that's been used in Asia for thousands of years without problem....including ulta fastidious Japan
wooden spoons, wooden chopping boards, butchers blocks, I just hope they don't start putting Whiskey to mature in Oak barrels or we're all done for, etc:cool:
Obviously hygeine is a very important issue, but where do we draw the line between care and being fastidious? Actually modern practice at salons in Thailand is to clean the feet with a wet cloth or scrub firmly the feet and lower legs with soap and a scrubing brush in a bowl. The feet is Thai culture is considered to be dirty and impure, and hence the cleansing ritual in treatment. Also on a very practical level if you walk around in flip flops and sandals you will have dirty feet.
As Luke is pointing out wooden utensils are used in many aspects of life. Whatever happened to natural immunity?
RP
If you walk around in flip flops and sandals you're much less likely to have many foot conditions that thrive in enclosed footwear.
Obviously experience of western commercial environments means little compared with what has been done traditionally. I see an alarming number of clients with toe nail fungus (that they usually picked up after having a pedicure in places that just rinse and spray disinfectant between clients, rather than the 10min soak in hospital grade disinfectant they are meant to follow), that makes me err on the side of caution when it comes to feet. I've seen what following instructions like those on pinksboutique does to some clients. Just because it doesn't happen to everyone that has a foot soak doesn't mean it happens to no-one. I wouldn't want to be responsible for the person that it does happen to.