Why I don’t use lotion in Massage Therapy
Picture this… you are lying on the massage table, your head is comfortably ensconced in the face cradle, the masseur knocks on the door to ask if you are ready, and suddenly… his bare hands touch your skin and there is… What?!… NO LOTION?!
Has this ever happened to you? If so, perhaps you were scheduled for a session with me (or if you were lucky enough, my former teacher, the great Jonathan Primack). Neither of us uses oil. In fact, I have one large bottle of lotion that I bought almost 4 years ago, and it’s well over half full. And here is the reason I don’t use lotion in massage therapy…
Lotion is not the Potion you think it is.
As a massage therapist I’ve experienced first hand the power of our hands to heal. I feel grateful that I have the opportunity to touch people, to transform their bodies from tension and stress to relaxation and freedom. I see myself as a sort of guide whose hands will spark a conversation with your body, a therapeutic conversation leading to a place of ease and grace.
In a session, I use my hands to search out and engage with the places where my clients are feeling tension, and the direct touch between my hands and your skin is what creates the space for healing. Because my work is based on real-time, in the moment feedback, lotion actually gets in the way of that contact, it acts like a buffer. It makes it harder for me to feel the tension, almost in the way that music in an elevator can distract you from your thoughts. Without lotion, there is a clarity of touch that is the beginning of undiluted contact. Mother Theresa once said, “We need silence to be able to touch souls.” That silence to me is the quiet contact between healing hands and an ensouled body, a client who is open to feeling more relaxed, becoming more connected, and ultimately, healed.
I typically pinpoint a specific area of the body to work on, and getting as much feedback about my impact is key to helping me communicate with your body: How is that area responding? Is the texture changing or is it moving differently? At what depth is the tension? Is it restricting the skin, bone, or nearby tissue?
These questions will only continue to expand, but if I’m using lotion, the amount of information my hands is receiving is severely limited. And my ability to seek out answers to these questions is also restricted. In some cases that’s not a problem, but in others, when the client is really depending on me for relief, lotion can be a deal breaker.
But please know – that if requested – I will happily apply lotion and as much as you like 🙂 I actually have one client whose favorite part of the massage is having lotion applied, and I am more than willing to oblige.
Indeed, lotion might not be the potion you think it is 🙂 But believe me when I say that my hands are!
It’s all about You.
In my bodywork, I focus on creating lasting change for my clients. While I love the opportunity to send my clients into a deeply relaxed, blissful state, it’s far more valuable to me that the release and expansion that they feel is the result of a shift in restricted patterns. Because when this shift occurs, their experience is linked to a lasting transformation in their bodies, not just a temporary euphoria that disappears the moment they hit the next stoplight.
Oh and one last benefit I’d love to mention before signing off: With my regular clients who come to me anywhere from 1-4 times a month, I see a marked improvement in skin elasticity and skin texture after only a few months. In some cases, this improvement is quite dramatic and I can’t help but think that in part this is a healthy adaptation of the regulation of oils, sweat, and moisture that happens with skin to skin contact.
I’m curious – when was the last time you had (or gave) a massage with no lotion? Were you pleasantly surprised or was it just business as usual? Let me know how it worked out!
Finally, in this day and age with the endless onslaught of digital news, the constant rush of social media and all of our ubiquitous cellphones, I find it refreshing to have good old fashioned human touch. Healing touch has been around since human beings have walked this earth and there is something so primal, so natural and so enlivening about being touched and healed with our hands. It seems to me that we have enough distraction in our lives, let’s let lotion sit and our hands move. This way, we can take a deep breath and allow healing hands to move our bodies and expand our souls.
Thank you!!
Phillip.