Setting the Best Example
Along with our framed state license and our crisp new business cards comes a staggering amount of responsibility when we enter the world of professional massage. Once the doors open to your new practice, your phone rings for your maiden mobile appointment, or your first day of work rolls around at the spa, you are no longer a newbie – you are an educated authority in the bodywork realm, someone whose opinions, thoughts, advice, and even consumer choices are respected and coveted. You are now, in your clients’ hopeful, expectant eyes, an expert in all that is health and wellness!
Realizing this, you should begin to recognize the impact of your personal choices inside your practice. One example is the choice of products we use on our clients. All too often I see bodyworkers rubbing globs of toxic, blue dye and alcohol-filled “sports creams” all over their unknowing clients, then encouraging them to buy a bottle to take home with them. The fact is that these pain relieving creams consist of 3.5-10% synthetic menthol and/or 30% synthetic methyl salicylate, as well as an assortment of toxic “inactive ingredients” which give the creams their color and consistency.
Recognizing my responsibility to protect my unknowing clients, I choose to educate them about natural, non-toxic alternatives that are safe for them and the environment. In my practice – and at home – I use natural analgesics such as therapeutic-grade Peppermint essential oil which is 34-44% natural menthol and has nothing added to it, as well as anti-inflammatory oils like therapeutic-grade Wintergreen which is 90% natural methyl salicylate. As the numbers reflect, the oils offer a significantly more effective experience – without the toxic “filler” ingredients.
As trusted health practitioners, we should do everything we can to offer our clients safe, non-toxic options for their pain and inflammation. Take time while making decisions about products in your practice – the impact of your choice can literally touch each and every one of your clients!
Thank you for your interest in my post Dianna! I am an Internationally Certified Aromatherapist in New York and my partner and I consult, teach, and train massage therapists and other health practitioners how to integrate essential oils into their practices. I absolutely agree with you that store bought oils which claim to be therapeutic grade are a far cry from what should be put on the skin, inhaled, or ingested. In the US, because essential oils are regulated under the standards of the cosmetic industry, only 5% of the actual oil is required to be in the bottle for the company to legally call it “100% Pure”. Unfortunately, those oils make up 98% of what this country experiences as an “essential oil” from health food stores. The oils I choose to work with are true therapeutic grade and, of the 2% of true therapeutic oils available in the US, the company I work with produces 98% of those. These oils can be ingested in water, taken internally in a capsule, or even used in cooking or baking as they are unadultered, undiluted pure plant oils that have been grown, harvested, and distilled with the intention of being used as medicine. Beth Israel Medical Center in NYC as well as the Cleveland Clinic, and many other US hospitals, are using these particular oils for everything from neuropathy and post-op pain, to sinusitis and migraines. I wholeheartedly believe that ample time and energy must be invested in finding the best products available for our clients and our own bodies!
In the interest of full disclosure I own Pure Pro Massage Therapy Products, a small manufacturing company in Greenfield, Massachusetts. We cater to people with sensitive skin which is why I feel uniquely qualified to comment on this article. The author is correct that most pain relieving products are indeed synthetics (mostly petroleum derived) and it is not a healthy route to pain management. That said, I would like to caution therapists from using the essential oils she mentioned : peppermint and wintergreen oils as well as Sweet Birch, White Camphor, and Cajeput (other popular oils containing salicylates and muscle relieving actives) – these MUST be diluted before they are applied to the skin. This is important for the therapists hands as well. You are exposed to these oils in much higher concentrations over time than your clients are in one treatment per week +/-. I recommend a dilution of 5 or less drops of essential oil per ounce of a carrier oil / lotion. Five drops of wintergreen diluted this way will still warm and boost circulation to the tissue but it will not burn or irritate. Many therapists purchase their oils from retail stores that unbeknownst to them are actually diluted already. These MTs will tell me how they put quantities of “pure” peppermint oil on directly without a problem. Seek out true, therapeutic essential oils so that you will get the real efficacy your clients need. There are a number of very low priced essential oil sources out there. The oils they sell are technically considered essential oil but they are produced with synthetics and are in no way therapeutic. It is great to go the most natural route but it takes a little more savvy to make it work. Well worth the effort!