How To Do A Paraffin Bath
MassageNerd.com presents a short video to VideoJug showing you how to perform a paraffin wax treatment for the hands, feet and body. It applies heat to the body, reducing swelling in joints and muscles, and soothes pain.
Step 1: Paraffin wax treatment:
Next, we're going to teach you how to perform a paraffin wax treatment for hand, feet and for the body. The paraffin wax is a real effective way to apply heat to the body. What it does is is that it basically reduces the swelling in the joints and your muscles. It soothes pain and actually feels really good just because it is a very warm wax.
Step 2: A paraffin container:
This is a paraffin container; it's a herbal bath. It has a lid. Basically, you buy your paraffin in a solid form, so it comes in a bag, solid; it's a block. You take that block, put it in here and plug this in. A paraffin bath this size is fairly expensive, about $200, and you can buy smaller ones, but this is a salon style one; it's bigger, so you can actually fit your whole hand in here; you can fit your whole foot in there. And there's more product to use.
Step 3: Precautions:
So you take the cover off. You're going to have this heated up for probably at least three hours if it has totally cooled and become a solid mass again. There's only one temperature on here, so there's no way you that would burn your client unless you put it on sensitive areas or areas that have been burned or scarred. You want to be really careful with that type of damaged tissue.
Step 4: Apply with a paint brush:
But you can apply paraffin wax all over; you can even apply it on the face. What you can use, is you can apply the paraffin wax with a paintbrush, which you have in your salon now, and you can also apply it with some cheesecloth. I don't have an example today, but it's like a gauze. You dip that in here, and then you apply it to the body.
Step 5: Paraffin dipping:
Today, we're going to talk about paraffin dipping, which is another application, which is how you apply it to your hands and your feet. First of all, we have the paintbrush for applying; we can have her sit up and dip in just a moment. Then I'm going to put on a plastic bag. You can use Baggies; you can use Saran Wrap, or you can buy these bags which are specially made for a spa; they're called hand spa baggies. These are big enough to fit on your feet and your hands.
Step 6: Some cool mitts:
I've got one for each area. These are special mitts that I'm going to put on her feet after I've applied the paraffin and the baggies. It helps keep heat contained in the mitt, which is the whole point of the paraffin; to add moisture to the body. There's also some pretty cool mitts, too. These you can actually plug in, and they have a temperature. They have heat and massage available, so it feels really neat to have these gloves on, and it stimulates the hands. So that provides a little massage via vibration.
Step 7: Working example:
You want your client to dip and then to come back up; we're going to dip twice. One thing I do want to do before she puts her hands in the paraffin is to apply a little bit of lotion or massage cream. What this does is it basically makes it easier for the paraffin wax to come off. So since she's going to dip probably up to her wrist, we want to make sure we have that lotion on there. And we're going to take, before she moves, we'll put one of these baggies on here. You always want to make sure you're with your client during treatments like this. Never leave the paraffin wax or your client unattended. What we're going to do is put the cool vibrating massage gloves on her. Any time you have a product like this, make sure you know it's going to make a little bit of noise with the vibration, and the heat is going to be on. So make sure if your client is warm, this wouldn't be the best thing. You can still use the gloves, but don't turn it on if she is warm or if she doesn't want that extra little bit of noise. Okay, now the hand spa should be done. These are the first area that we did; it's been about 10 minutes, so they should be nice and dry and the paraffin should be ready to come off. The hands are going to feel nice and smooth and very soft. What you want to do is remove the heater and the massager. Then what we're going to do is—you don't even have to have the bag off. What you do is grab each side of the bag, and pull off in one swoop. See how nice that comes off? There's no product left on her hands; it's all in the bag. This is what the paraffin looks like after it's come off. It's just like a solid form. It's real waxy; you can manipulate it, move it around. You want to throw this away, though. You've used it on your client; throw it away. You don't want to put it back in your bath, okay?So, if you notice, your client's hands are going to feel really soft and smooth. Then what you can do after you've pulled the wax off is you can actually work on some hand massage; some gentle strokes from the wrist to the finger. You do that on all the fingers. Just pulling gently; it's described as a "milking" technique. I'll show you one of my favourite hand techniques. Basically, you open the hand up by putting your pinkies through the client's thumb and finger and stretching out the palm. All these little extra things is what makes your business successful. Try to find a trademark massage or something that you really like to do that you know all of your clients enjoy. And the hands and the feet are an area that a lot of people forget about, and they forget how good it feels to be massaged.
