I am a Naturopath and part of that includes aromatherapy massage and another aspect of it is colonic hydrotherapy. In this country, colonics are now acceptable to talk about, even at the dinner table and an average cost for such a treatment is £70 and upwards. Aromatherapy massage can be had in many places from £25 up. Quite a big difference.
When I was in America for several months, obviously, I couldn’t do any colonics as the equipment is not portable but I was able to borrow a friend’s massage table and asked said friend for advice on what to charge. Start at $150 and negotiate down he said. The price was a shock, as was the idea of negotiating down. Apparently, it is common practice for clients to do that so the therapist always start higher and probably ends up at what their normal price would be. Incidentally, colonics were available for $30 and I never did understand why there was such a big discrepancy in the pricing structure. So, deciding to set my price at $130, I set about letting America know I was coming. Very soon, I had a waiting list and when I finally got there, I was turning over 6 to 8 sessions per day. There were a few differences I learned about though.
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The buzzword last year was “spa” with everybody from L’Oreal to Woolworths touting their own spa range and pretty soon the word became devalued. The origins of the word are from the Latin Sana Per Aqua literally health through water and the Romans were avid users of spas and brought them to England. Bath was a superb example of Roman spa building. The ultimate degradation of the word came in the form of current billboard posters from a major detergent manufacturer offering a shower gel that gave a “spa experience”. Having myself had a fabulous spa experience in the Maldives that included reflexology, massage and sensory delights for the eyes, nose and ears, it seemed unlikely that a £1.20 bottle of body wash was going to replicate all those sensations and so the centuries of use of the word “spa” have now been trashed down to the level of a bottle synthetic jollop touted on a billboard.
So what is the next word to lose all value and integrity? Sorry to say that this year’s buzzword seems to be “natural” so be prepared to have your products challenged in the coming months. So just what IS natural?
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We’ve all seen Dr Gillian McKeith on TV telling us that you are what you eat and she gets her patients to kick start their new lives with a colonic but do you actually know anyone who has had Colonic Hydrotherapy?
Confusingly, it has several names and may be variously known as a colonic, colon lavage, colon irrigation or a high colonic. What is important to note though is that this is so much more than an enema. You may have seen those on TV as well with people squatting on the loo over a plastic strainer. Not so with colonics which are estimated to be 40 times more effective than enemas.
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