Allergic Contact Dermatitis

A Concern for Spa and Esthetics professionals

What is it?

Dermatitis is an itchy skin condition that can result from exposure to irritants. An irritant can be anything from water, soaps, detergents, or even friction. Irritant contact dermatitis can occur in anyone. Allergic contact dermatitis (ACD), on the other hand, is a condition that occurs in a percentage of the population who has a reaction to a substance (an allergen) that would be harmless to a person who is not allergic to that substance.

What does it look like?

Itching, redness, swelling and blisters can be local, as in someone who has a reaction on their wrist from the nickel in their watch, or it may be generalized, such as from the use of cosmetic skin preparations or topical medications.

Who gets it?

As with most allergies, the first contact with an allergen doesn’t usually provoke a reaction. An allergic response can often come as a complete surprise to someone who has not been prone to sensitivities. Among health care workers, an issue of increasing relevance is latex allergy, and for hairstylists, estheticians and spa professionals, ACD is becoming an important concern, most likely as a result of exposure to products used in their trade. Allergic contact dermatitis is a major occupational disease, and in serious cases, may result in an inability to work.

What causes it?

As with health care workers, and the cumulative exposure to latex gloves causing ACD, those who work in the health and beauty industry have cumulative exposure to products they use in treatments on their clients. Research points to chemical fragrances, colours and preservatives as potentially causing numerous skin irritations.

How is it treated?

While treatment with topical corticosteroids and in some instances systemic corticosteroids can reduce symptoms and prevent complications, the only real solution is avoidance of the allergen. In the case of those allergic to chemical fragrances and preservatives in cosmetics, education on ingredients and compounds is essential to avoiding flare-ups. Frustratingly, since a fragrance may contain thousands of individual chemicals, and manufacturers are not required to list each one, avoidance can be challenging. The list of chemical preservatives used is long, and may include: Formaldehyde, and compounds releasing formaldehyde (2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1,3-diol, diazolidinyl urea, DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, quaternium 15) and Parabens (methyl-, ethyl-, propyl- and butylparaben).

While consumers facing allergic reactions are encouraged to read product labels and avoid products that contain the allergens they are sensitive to, it is even more crucial for professionals in the industry. Not only are they protecting their clients, but they are protecting their own skin, not to mention their careers.

About Moor Spa

Moor Spa skin, body and wellness products contain no synthetic preservatives, no artificial fragrances, no artificial colours, no petroleum derivatives, are not tested on animals, and are made in Canada. Distributed by L'Moor.

I learned a new word the other day: puffery.

The official definition of that word is as follows:

"term frequently used to denote the exaggerations reasonably to be expected of a seller as to the degree of quality of his product, the truth or falsity of which cannot be precisely determined."

In other words, baloney.

And it's what companies are feeding you - the spa therapists, owners and estheticians, as they try to market their products to you.

Coming up this week is Toronto's spring spa show, Esthetique Spa International, and I think it is incumbent on all of us, as we walk the trade show floor, to keep the word "puffery" front and centre in our minds.

Here is a link to an excellent article in the Harvard Business Review Research Blog:

The Power and Perils of Puffery

When measuring the marketing claims of the various exhibitors you meet, and the speakers you hear, you might consider asking some of the following questions:

• Does the marketer make claims about a single aspect of the product, while avoiding talking about the less charming points? (i.e. indicating "no parabens", but failing to mention using formaldehyde releasers as preservatives)


• Does the marketer use vague language in their promotional strategy? (i.e. "voted the best" without indicating who voted)


• Does the product have a third-party endorsement label? If so, is it a recognizable and accredited organization?


• Does the exhibitor answer your questions fully, without verbal tapdancing? To answer this question, you have to trust your instincts.

Never has the term "buyer beware" been more relevant. Expect the exhibitors to respect your intelligence, and when visiting shows or entertaining vendors in your business, do your research, and don't forget to ask critical questions.

Moor Spa, Canadian manufacturer of 100% Natural Source Skincare, Bodycare and Wellness products, is committed to bringing integrity and fairness to the spa and wellness industry. Ask us your questions, and if we don't know the answer, we'll find out for you.

Body Treatments, the key to increasing spa revenue

Body Wraps are the quintessential spa treatment, a photo of which you’ll find in almost every spa’s marketing materials. Why, then, do many spa owners and managers tell us that they are unsatisfied with the quantity of these services they perform, and that they would like to do more?

Body wraps truly offer great benefits, to all concerned, so it's simply a matter of identifying the benefits, and communicating them to spa therapists and clients, as well as employing some consistent strategies to keep your schedule full.

Benefits to the Spa

• Greater revenue per service hour. The benchmark for service dollars is generally the revenue generated by one hour of massage, so if a massage provides $80 of revenue per hour, you can usually expect that the same hour of a body wrap brings $100-120. A few extra dollars in product cost can increase service revenue by up to $40!


• Massage therapists who perform this service can often offer an insurance receipt, as it falls under the “hydrotherapy” area of their scope of practice. The ability to obtain a receipt can be a draw for many clients.


• Many body wraps, such as Moor Spa’s Moor Gel and Seaweed Gel, don’t need a wet room to perform the service, which opens the door for many more spas to provide the service without costly construction in the spa.

Benefits to the therapist

• A body wrap is much less physically demanding for the massage therapist who performs it, which can extend his or her career lifespan. It also offers the therapist variety and prevents career stagnation.


• A body wrap often helps the client recover from muscle pain and soreness more quickly, which adds to the therapist’s fulfillment.

Benefits to the client

• Body wraps have an added therapeutic value, above and beyond a simple massage. Body wraps work to increase blood circulation, nourish the body’s systems, eliminate toxins and provide an anti-inflammatory effect which can relieve pain from conditions like arthritis.


• As a high-touch service, clients derive tremendous pleasure from a full body wrap, which can include exfoliation, cocooning with product (Moor Spa Body Mask, Moor Spa Seaweed Gel, White Gold Wellness Chalk), and a light, finishing massage.

How to market these services

The key to “selling” any service is knowledge! The person in the best position to sell any spa experience is your Spa Receptionist or concierge, your client’s point of first contact with your business. We often recommend things that we know, understand and enjoy, so shouldn’t your staff know firsthand how delicious a body wrap can be? It’s vital that your receptionist be part of the ongoing training of your staff, and she must not only know your menu but also have experienced all your services. In our experience, we often find when we visit spas that the receptionist has never had a body scrub, a wrap or any body treatment other than perhaps a massage. How can she express passion for a service that she either doesn’t know or hasn’t fallen in love with?

Here is a cost effective list of things you can do to market body services without breaking your advertising/marketing budget.

• Make ongoing training mandatory for all staff including receptionists, stylists, and estheticians – both full and part time. If you haven’t had training in a while, schedule another session. Suggest that non-technical staff be a model for the hands-on portion of training. Make sure as many of your staff as possible experience the treatments. For the staff performing the services, competence and confidence come with lots of practice, and in experiencing it themselves.


• As each guest arrives, offer them a tour of the spa section of your business. You will be surprised with the number of regular clients who do not know the full range of services you offer.


• Make it part of the booking process to mention at least one body service to every guest as a suggested service.


• Have your staff with open time slots offer small complimentary treatments (such as a neck and shoulder massage with Moor Spa Tension Balm) to waiting guests. Your clients will feel special, their wait time will fly by, and the time spent will offer your staff the opportunity to learn about the purchase motivation of your guests. Your client will also experience a portion of the pampering effect they will feel if they choose a full treatment.


• Educate your staff by teaching them to use words designed to convey the spa experience. Explain the health benefits of spa treatments in understandable terms. They should also talk about the benefits the client will receive by having the treatment, i.e. improve the texture, firm, tighten and tone the skin, relieve dry and itchy skin.

Work to build caring and respectful relationships with clients. Make them want to spend their free time with you – then they’ll be more likely to try the treatments you suggest.

Fall Renewal

After a busy summer filled with camping, barbecues, beaches, parties, boating and just all-around busy-ness, it can be a little startling to look in the mirror and see the damage that we’ve wrought on our skin.

A little flaky, perhaps dry, irritated, or inflamed? Maybe oily and prone to break-outs?

Whatever the issue we’re “faced” with, it’s entirely possible to bring healing and repair to environmentally damaged skin, following these steps:

• Firstly, consider seeing a qualified esthetician with a special interest in holistic skin care, and who understands quality natural source ingredients, for a professional facial. She can help you choose the most appropriate products, and answer questions you may have about your specific skin concerns.
  
  
  
• Be gentle in cleansing. Don’t overstrip with harsh chemical cleansers, even if you’re attempting to clear up breakouts. Let your skin regain its own balance by offering gentle cleansing, such as with Moor Spa’s Cleansing Milk. With chamomile, to soothe and reduce redness, and arnica to heal and improve elasticity of the skin.
  
  
  
• Exfoliate to reveal new undamaged skin below the dead surface skin cells. Be thorough, but gentle. Stay away from harsh facial scrubs such as that use pumice or shell to exfoliate. For sensitive skin, Moor Spa Facial Polish with natural jojoba wax beads can be used several times per week, without damaging sensitive skin. As part of a skin-brightening regimen, use a glycolic acid exfoliant like the Moor Spa 15% Glycolic Lotion, which is highly effective, yet still naturally derived from sugar cane. For dry, aging skin, the potent Moor Spa Pumpkin Peel with Pumpkin, Papaya and Pineapple enzymes renews the texture of skin, leaving it smooth and supple.
  
  
  
• Intensely replenish with a serum targeted to your skin’s specific needs. Serums offer a concentrated dose of nutrients, penetrate the skin easily, and enhance your moisturizer to renew, repair, brighten, or hydrate. Moor Spa’s series of water-based serums are suitable for any skin type.
  
  
  
• Assist your skin’s natural capacity to repair itself with good hydration. Avoid products with petroleum derived ingredients such as mineral oil and petrolatum which suffocate the skin and impair cellular respiration. Natural humectants such as shea butter and avocado, and anti-oxidants such as Alpha-Lipoic Acid, Hyaluronic Acid and Vitamin C give your skin all the ingredients it needs to heal, produce collagen, and regulate the production of sebum.
  

Moving into the hustle and bustle of fall, take the time to look after your skin, not only with quality skin care products, but also with good nutrition, exercise, and plenty of fresh water to drink. The dry, cold months of winter lie ahead, so give yourself the tools you need to stay healthy, inside and out.

Psoriasis and Mud

We had a wonderful question presented to us last night about how Psoriasis can be treated using mud. Here is some research that talks about this very question. This research is originally written in Italian, so pardon the grammar!

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[Psoriasis and mud bath therapy: clinical-experimental study]
[Article in Italian]
Costantino M, Lampa E.
Clin Ter. 2005 Jul-Aug;156(4):145-9. Italian.
Seconda Universita degli Studi di Napoli, Crisceb (Centro di Ricerche Interdipartimentali, Scienze Computazionali e Biotecnologiche), Scuola di Specializzazione in Idrologia Medica, Napoli, Italia. maria.costantino@unina2.it

OBJECTIVE: The psoriasis is chronic disease characterized from an acceleration of the kinetic of the cells of epidermis. To front of the empirical evidence of the benefits of the thermal therapy in the psoriasis, the experimentals-clinics studies is insufficient. The aim of research it has been that of quantify the benefits of the mud-bath therapy with mineral water in the psoriasis. PATIENT AND METHODS: The study has been channel on a champion of 30 subjects of which 19 of male sex and 11 of female sex with middle equal age to 56 years +/- 5.3 affected from psoriasis. The subjects of the examined champion have been divided to random in 2 groups: A and B. The group A has been treated with drugs used for psoriasis for 12 days; the B group has been treated, always for 12 consecutive days, with mud-bath therapy (FBT) with mineral water obtained from the mineral sources (chlorinate-sulphureous-bicarbonate) of the Spa of Stabia in Castellammare (NA). To the beginning and at the end of the advised treatments has been valued the prurient symptomatology and the PASI (Psoriasis and Severity Index). RESULTS: The data highlight an significant reduction is of the prurient symptomatology and of the PASI in both the groups considered. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this first step of investigations seems to highlight that the FBT (mud-bath therapy ) treatment, to the same way of the drugs anti-psoriasis, results useful in the ameliorate the quality of life of these patients.

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In plain English? What this study seems to be saying is that mineral rich mud baths are effective at reducing the itching associated with Psoriasis, as well as reducing the severity of other symptoms (without indicating specifically what those symptoms are). Of note is that mud baths are AS EFFECTIVE as Psoriasis drugs in treatment, in this small study. The mud used in this study is from a different source than the Austrian Tiefenmoor used by Moor Spa, but ours is also characterized by a high mineral content.

The recommendation for Psoriasis is to take mud baths every other day, and use Moor Spa Skin Balm, with Goldenseal, topically.

Thanks for the great question, hope this helps!

What are you doing to build your business?

I got a really nice email from a client who we met with last week. We had a relatively brief meeting, with a little bit of product knowledge, some hands on training, and a short discussion on ways she could market her online store to current and new clients.

Here is an excerpt from her email:

"Thank you for the information that you sent since we saw each other. I have placed an ad on Kijiji , and I have updated my Facebook ad, I have also called another esthetician to give me a hand on the next 3 Thursdays, and will put her to work on collecting our e-mail list."

- Sylvie Lapointe

Esthetique Facial Angle, Ottawa

That's what she's done in the last week, based on our discussion. Bear in mind she is an esthetician with MANY years of experience, a full clientele, offering services about 50 hours per week. It's fair to say she doesn't have a lot of spare time.

When building a business, it's about the small things. Sylvie knows that these few tasks aren't going to revolutionize her business overnight, but she doesn't plan to be working all those hours for a lot longer. She has a plan, and she's working it.

What's YOUR plan? What things, big and small, are you doing to achieve your goals?

Diabetic Foot Care for Professionals

Every client questionnaire in a spa contains the question “Are you diabetic?”

If the answer is yes, the question then becomes: What will you, the esthetician or spa therapist, do with the information?

We all know a professionally performed pedicure has tremendous benefits for everyone, but this is especially true for people with diabetes.

Some special benefits of a pedicure for a person with diabetes:

• Improved circulation as a result of gentle stimulation and massage. Many of the complications of diabetes result from poor circulation.


• Prevention of ingrown toenails, which in turn prevents infection. An untreated foot infection in a person with diabetes can be life threatening


• Another set of eyes, yours, getting a close up look at the feet, which may detect foot problems (i.e. blisters, cracking) that can be treated before they become serious

There may, however, be a lack of knowledge in the industry about how, specifically, to care for the diabetic foot. For a person with diabetes, an improperly performed pedicure can result in serious complications – even as bad as gangrene and amputation. Proper precautions are a must.
While people with diabetes are generally more prone to having foot problems, a lot depends on the general health status of the individual. In other words, how in control of their condition they are. Do they control it with diet, exercise or medication, or a combination of all three? Well-controlled diabetes generally equals reduced risk of complications.

A diabetic person is more likely to have problems if:

• They have had diabetes for more than 10 years, and they are in poor control of their blood sugar


• They have other health conditions as a result of diabetes (eye, kidney or heart problems)

When offering a pedicure to a person with diabetes, here are some important steps:

• Be absolutely vigilant about disinfection and sterilization procedures of all equipment. For people with diabetes, bacteria may pose a much more significant risk.


• Examine feet carefully, watching for calluses, blisters and abrasions. Skin may not be producing as much natural lubrication, resulting in dryness, itching and cracking, which then increases susceptibility to infection.


• Evaluate blood circulation by assessing temperature, tone and colour of the foot. When the foot is on the floor, does it turn bluish or deep red? These are signs of poor circulation, and may indicate a need to refer the client to their doctor or podiatrist.


• Make sure the water for soaking the feet is not too hot, and don’t soak for excessive amounts of time. Soaking the feet in Moor Spa’s Herbal Bath with Pine is a good way to improve circulation, as well as combat fungus.


• Dry feet thoroughly and carefully, especially between toes. Avoid putting lotion or cream between toes, because moist areas are more prone to infection.


• Trim toenails straight across, and be very gentle with cuticles. Additionally, you may wish to consider not using metal implements.


• Avoid foot care products with chemicals as the soles of the feet are some of the most absorbent parts of the body. Foot Cream from Moor Spa is specially formulated with Moor extract, Sweet Almond, Avocado and Tea Tree, to be highly penetrating, without chemicals, especially after soaking.

If you have doubts about the health status of a potential client, it may be wise to refer them to their doctor or a podiatrist. Because diabetes is often a silent disease, an individual may have undiagnosed diabetes for years.

Help keep your diabetic clients safe and healthy with keen observation and strong technical skills and you can be a wonderful asset to their health care team.