Before I begin this post, I want to warn you that I have pictures of the foot detox bath that I had this past weekend. If you can’t handle icky stuff, then you might want to skip this post altogether. The pictures aren’t HORRIBLY gross (no blood and guts), but it is a bit nasty.

The salon where I get my pedicures has recently started offering these foot detox bath sessions. I was curious because every time I was there the foot bath tubs would be set up, but nobody was actually getting one done. I talked to the girls there and they absolutely believe that it works. I like to try new things, especially ones that won’t hurt me, and so I made an appointment.

I had done a bit of quick research this past week to see what others were saying about it. The overwhelming reaction was that the whole foot detox thing is a bunch of malarkey. The claims of the water changing colors due to the toxins being leeched from your body was actually credited to chemical reactions happening in the bath between the electronic array (the green thing in the bath), the salt that is added, and the particular minerals found in the water.

Perhaps I was a bit skeptical when I walked in, but I went along with everything that I was told. I had to wrap what was essentially a heat pad around my waist to help warm up my insides and thus helping the toxins to be released easier. I didn’t mind this part because my back had been bothering me all week due to the amount of stress that I’ve been under at work. In fact, the heating pad was my favorite part of the whole experience.

As you can see from this picture the water was already beginning to turn an orange-brown color. I think that this was just about 5 minutes into the whole thing. I watched this part carefully and I could see that the color was coming directly from the array, which the girl told me would happen.

This picture was about halfway through the session. The sessions are 30 minutes long. As I was sitting there the salon had another client who was in the middle of getting a pedicure. Now, I LOVE pedicures because you get to put your feet into that bubbly warm water and then you get a foot massage when they are putting lotion on your feet and legs. Then there’s the obvious result from a pedicure… pretty toes!

It just felt weird sitting in there with my feet in water… and there was no bubbling or massaging or anything. When it was all done the girl did a good job of rinsing off my feet and drying them… but no pretty toes 😦  As I was putting my shoes back on I felt a big let-down. I guess that I didn’t feel like I had actually received a service of any kind because you couldn’t actually see any results and I didn’t feel any different.

This is what my water looked like when I was done. According to the propaganda that I was given, this color means that there were a lot of toxins removed from my liver. Okay… I guess.

I don’t know. Maybe there’s something to it, but after reading the literature out loud to Jay (and getting a good laugh at how they spin words to make it seem like a heating pad is the latest and greatest in technology) I just don’t think that this is a service that I will take part in again. They say that it takes multiple sessions to really detoxify your system. Again, perhaps it’s the skeptical part of me, but at $45 per session with the recommendation being two sessions a week for five weeks, and then maintenance sessions once a month, I think that this is just an easy way to make some money.

I could easily be falling into the people who scoffed at Galileo when he claimed that in fact the Earth actually rotated around the Sun instead of the other way around. “Come on, Galileo, are you going to tell me that WE are moving around the Sun and it’s just sitting there in one place? Do you think that I’m an idiot?! I can SEE the sun moving through the sky! Tell me another one!”

I suppose that if I had seen some actual results, or feel like I had some actual results, then maybe I wouldn’t think that it was a complete farce. To be fair, I might have sabotaged the results without realizing it. You see, I did a 5K walk two hours before I went for the detox bath. I did this 5K walk on non-exercised legs as I hadn’t had a chance to get out and actually start walking. So Sunday and today I am definitely feeling it. My muscles all ache and yesterday when I got done from doing the first shift in the kitchen at our church festival I had absolutely NO energy to do anything. In fact, I took a nap and then just sat around watching TV for most of the evening.

Would I recommend this to somebody? Maybe. If money is tight, but they are trying to get healthier, I would tell them to skip it and instead just try flushing their system by drinking lots of water and eating cleanly. I won’t be paying for another session because I have a foot bath, Epsom salts, and a heating pad here at home. As I was leaving I made an appointment for a pedicure next month. I’m already seeing images of glittery blue toes… 🙂