Jenni Gilbert Gone, sadly, are the long balmy days of summer – but there are positives that come out of the colder months that you can use to promote your massage business, or massage within your salon, spa or clinic. Leesa Yaldyn, manager of Firm.n.Fold*, explains.
Regular massage helps to boost the immune system, making it easier to fight off those insidious winter bugs.
Shorter, darker days can leave us feeling tired and worn out, a good massage can be both relaxing and uplifting, an inexpensive and healthy way to beat the winter blues.
Cold winter air equals rough, dry skin but massage can stabilise the collagen and help maintain elasticity. Using a good quality massage oil or balm enhances the effect and leaves client’s skin moisturised.
Heating elements added to your massage warm both the body and the soul, relaxing cold, rigid muscles and fascia, allowing clients to get the most out of their treatment.
So these four things might help you entice a few more clients to your door. But it’s cold and they have the unappealing prospect of getting nearly naked – so this is where you’ve got to have your warmth weapons lined up!
- Make sure your treatment room is at a comfortable temperature. You don’t want it too hot, because you’ve got to work in it, but you definitely want the chill taken off (remember that nearly naked client in the change room).
- Have an electric table warmer pre-heated underneath your massage table linen. Unlike super-heated electric bed blankets, table warmers offer a gentle warmth that isn’t so intense it distracts from the massage but offers pleasant comfort. Remember not everyone loves to be hot but everyone does like to be warm.
- Have heated wheat bags at the ready to seep their warmth into large muscle groups before working them.
- The extremities are always the first to suffer the cold. Chilly hands and feet detract from a good massage. Even if you don’t offer a full hot stone massage you can introduce the warming effects of stones in a simple way that will enhance your client’s experience. Place a large heated stone in each of your client’s hands and a heated toe stone between each toe is just heavenly.
Depending on the treatment, consider an oil or balm with warming properties like Pure Nature Warming Balm, far more subtle than the footy locker room type products, these won’t make your eyes water!
You’ll also find the added essential oils will aid winter congestion.
Finally, have a heated towel to wipe off excess oil at the end of the treatment and, if you’ve done your job well, you’ll have a very happy, warm, relaxed client who’ll want to come back for more!
- Firm.n.Fold has been Australia’s principal provider of massage equipment for over 30 years, with outlets on the Gold Coast, and in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane: “We’re passionate about the natural therapies industry and proud supporters of its training providers, members and associations.”
