Unusual Pedicure

Today as I searched the news for my daily dose of world events, I came across a story about a most unusual pedicure. Now, since I have have taken several cosmetologist classes I have learned about the proper way to conduct a pedicure. For those of you foot conscious folks out there who love pedicures...there are some facts you should be aware of.

There is a such thing as Death by Pedicure. This is caused by a disease called Microbacterium fortitium. This disease lurks in spa baths in nail salons and seriously endangers your health. California has seen over 600 cases of this disease in their nail salons and spas. 2 people in SC have been affected.

If a spa tub has not been cleaned properly with EPA Hospital Grade Barocide all feet that swim there are at risk. By cleaned properly, I mean allowing the Barocide to sit in the tub full of clean water for at least 10 minutes between customers. This helps kill germs that came off the foot of the person before you. Just a thought: How many times have you seen the spa baths in soak before you put your foot in it? What happens when this is not done is the dead skin, cuticles and nails accumulate in the drain holes of the tub and cause a deadly bacteria. You put your foot in and are susceptible to the bacteria. This can cause fungus in your nail bed or worse. Please don't ever shave before you go because then your pores are standing open ready to receive all the germs of the umpteen feet before you. Herpes is most spread not sexually but in the salon. How many times has your nail tech cut you? If they don't clean that tool they pass the germs on to the next person and so on. So, just watch where you go, make sure you get clean instruments ( watch them take it out of the blue water) and make sure they properly clean your spa bath before you engage. Now onto this new pedicure,

As I was saying before I ascended my soap box, I read about a new pedicure where a salon in VA was using fish to eat away dead skin. The fish are nicknamed Dr. Fish and they feed on dead skin cells and such. Don't worry they don't have teeth, they suck. Feel better about it? Didn't think so. This salon used to house the fish in a communal pool and let up to 8 ladies at a time subject their little footsies to the nibbling fest. They discovered 2 problems with this method. 1) Those people with excessively scaly feet got all the fish, leaving others with no attention and 2) the health department didn't deem it sanitary. I agree with that. Now, they put the ladies in a personal pool full of fish and change the water after each use. I'm still not sure just how sanitary this is but it sounds much better than the community thing.

The thought of fish nippling at my feet both frightens and intrigues me. I think I would need to witness someone actually receiving this service before trying it. I know we all want to look good and all about the feet but are we going just a little far? We vain people will pay for beauty but at what cost? Have we actually come to the day where we have to stick our feet in pool of flesh eating fish to achieve the perfect pedicure? Please weigh in on this one. Would you try it?