Every time I page through some travel, lifestyle or local magazine with upscale pretensions, I’ll come across one or more feature articles, and usually many ads, picturing some attractive, affluent-looking woman laying face down on a table, with a row of stones along her back. The same magazines have reviews praising spas for their “hot stone massages.” The prices quoted for the massages seem ridiculous; usually something like $100 to $150 for a half hour.
So, what’s the point of a hot stone massage? It looks like it’s just paying a c-note to have someone line some pretty pebbles along your back. Are the rocks rubbed along your back, or do they just sit there?
Oh, they’re absurdly overpriced, no doubt! And I say that as someone who LOVES hot stone massage, and regularly trades with other massage therapists for it.
Basically, there’s these stones, see. And they’re hot. (Well, warm.) You lay them on a leg, let the heat relax the muscles and feel all warm and heavy. You also do your regular massage bit, and then use the bigger stones to do some gliding strokes on the largest muscle groups.
Incredibly relaxing, yes. Worth $150/hlf hr? No freakin’ way. I charge $60 for an hour of regular massage, and an extra $10 for stones. People paying more are paying for the “spa endulgence experience”.
I warm my stones in a crock pot of warm water, but there are expensive “hot stone warmers” that therapists can buy. They’re disinfected after each use with this stuff called Odoban - it’s a hospital disinfectant. I use flat river rocks I gathered from a friend’s stream, but you can easily drop $100 or more on a set of professional rocks, assorted size.
Right now, this thread follows the one about a maid in a Dominican hotel putting a stone in the bedsheets every day. I suppose next we’ll see one about putting a stone in a man’s shoe for birth control.
