What!?!? Pay good money to sit in a spa and get bitten by little fish!?!?!?

Yes.

But not in Florida. Not anymore.

That’s right. Fish pedicures, a treatment where tiny carp nibble away the calloused, dead tissue from clients’ feet, have now been banned in Florida. According to Spa-News, the special pedicures were very popular. One spa AJ’s Salon and Spa, reported having done 200 fish pedicures per week at $35 each.

Sports or Deep Tissue Massage Gift Certificates for the Man in Your Life: With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, shops are displaying all kinds of gifts, from  pink, heart-shaped candies, to red lingerie with black bows, to Valentine-themed boxes of Godiva chocolates.  One Valentine’s Day gift idea that doesn’t seem to occur to many people is a gift certificate for a massage – especially for the man in your life.  How about getting him a massage gift certificate this Valentine’s Day?  …And I don’t mean for those metrosexual …

Submitted by marcus on August 16, 2008 – 11:45pm.
Many of us can make an endless list of things we dislike about our bodies; however, there is no way of trading off the parts we don’t like. One of the most common dislikes found at the top of most lists is cellulite that has found its way onto our once firm, sleek bodies.

TIME | Thursday, Jul. 31, 2008
By CYNTHIA ROSENFELD

The American spa trainer shows her security guards and gardeners how to give massages
Eric Bergoend
Bali resident Susan Stein does one of the better things a person can do for their unskilled domestic staff: she teaches them to become something else.

Liza Kappelle
July 31, 2008 – 11:39AM
When asked who wanted to road test three luxury spas in Thailand, I could think of only one response.
Pick me! Pick me! Pick me!
That’s how I came to be staring down at a bowl of floating blossoms through a hole in a massage table at The Sarojin resort’s luxury spa in the emerging Thai tourist district of Khao Lak.
With its ethnic diversity and rich cultural history, Khao Lak’s primary forests and pristine coastline is a drawcard for …

Fit to Be Tried
By GABRIELLE BIRKNER | July 28, 2008
New York is full of unorthodox hybrids: Laundromat-cafés, Chinese-Mexican restaurants, childhood enrichment center-day spas. The city’s latest hyphenated identity is a salon-fitness center, a new joint venture from hairstylist Julien Farel and personal trainer Pete Kupprion.
In recent years, Mr. Farel, an alumnus of Frédéric Fekkai who founded his own eponymous salon eight years ago, was looking to expand his brand. An obvious answer would have been to open a satellite salon or to launch a proprietary line of hair-care products. …

CNN
July 21, 2008 — Updated 1438 GMT (2238 HKT)
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (AP) — Ready for the latest in spa pampering? Prepare to dunk your tootsies in a tank of water and let tiny carp nibble away.

Tracy Roberts tests to see if the fish will be interested in nibbling skin off of her hand as well as her toes.

Fish pedicures are creating something of a splash in the D.C. area, where a northern Virginia spa has been offering them for the past four months. John Ho, who runs …

Get steamed, soak in the buff, smooth on some volcanic mud and more

A native steam bath, the temascal dates back to the ancient Aztecs. The tradition is still in practice in Mexico today, used for both curative and religious purposes.
View related photos
var hasRelatedPhotos = ‘false’;if (hasRelatedPhotos==’true’){var vRPL = document.getElementById(“viewRelatedPhotosLink”);if (vRPL!=undefined) vRPL.style.display = “”;var vLRPG = document.getElementById(“linkRelatedPhotos”);var vLIRPG = document.getElementById(“linkImgRelatedPhotos”);if (vLRPG) {if(vLIRPG) vLIRPG.href=vLRPG.href;}}

Frans Lemmens / Getty Images

A native steam bath, the temascal dates back to the ancient Aztecs. The tradition is still in practice in Mexico today, used for …

YV&C News Desk

Denise Dobbs Launches Crew Agency to Place Massage Therapists and Yoga Instructors on Board Luxury Yachts Worldwide
By: YV&C News Desk
Jul. 11, 2008 07:45 AM
Hands Om Crew introduces an entirely new concept to the yacht crew placement market. By developing a next generation staffing agency committed to bringing the healing arts into the luxury yacht market and private homes, Hands Om Crew has sought out to fill an industry void.
Although there are several reputable crew placement agencies working with the mega yachts today, Hands Om Crew has …

Wall Street Journal
By ANDREA PETERSEN and MIRIAM JORDAN
July 10, 2008; Page D1
The next time you’re at a spa and the robe-clad guest next to you looks awfully young, it may not be the anti-aging treatments. She may actually still be in junior high.
That is because more spas are luring the kid and teen set. They are offering everything from teen packages with grown-up treatments like massages and body scrubs to kid-friendly services such as ice-cream themed pedicures (complete with a cone to eat).

A recent French study proved that when Endermologie, a combination of suction and deep massage with rollers, is performed twice a week for eight weeks ($80 to $120 per session), it can reduce the appearance of cellulite for up to six months.

The business is so big it now has a trade group: the International Medical Spa Association, which reports almost a 1,000 percent increase in growth in just five years. In 2002, there were 25 medspas nationwide: by last year, more than 2,000 such outlets dotted the country. And now, Illinois regulators are closely scrutinizing the med spa industry, as some patients tell horror stories about getting treatment with barely any medical supervision.