Did You Feed The Fish?

There have been many health and beauty fads to come and go during the past few centuries. Bathing in mineral waters was thought to cure psychological problems. Currently, many women swear that colonics (enemas) purge the body of toxins and rejuvenate the digestive system.

During the 1800's (and maybe even before then) mothers shaped strips of linen or cotton cloth into thin, long cylindrical shapes, dipped them in melted beeswax, and inserted one end into the child's ear canal, lit the other end with a match. The resulting smoke drew out debris, earwax, and scaly skin from the ear canal. I have used this method and it WORKS.

Do you remember seeing pictures of flappers from the 1920's? They crimped their bobbed hair with heated metal rods (like our current curling irons today). Many young fashionable women scorched their hair, burned it, and generally abused it.

At a short time later, the permanent wave was in vogue. A chemical solution was used on the hair and the hair was put into crimping rods that were attached to electrical power. Some of us still get permanents....but they are tamer.

Girls tanned themselves (translation: fried) by using butter, cocoa butter, or baby oil on their skin while lying in the sun for hours at a time. This was actually VERY unhealthy, making many very susceptible to melanoma.

Let's don't even talk about bikini waxing, liposuction, botox injections, and permanent makeup!

Old medical treatments included "leeching" where leeches were actually put on the skin to draw impure blood from a sick person. Medical grade leeches and maggots are now sold as medical supplies to help debride (clean, remove dead tissues) from infected, non-healing wounds.

I learned of a new pedicure treatment the other day. As soon as I heard about it, I learned that the Texas licensing board has prohibited this treatment as being unhealthy. Imagine going in for a pedicure, soaking your feet, looking down and finding hundreds of small fish hungrily going at your toes, your heels, and the bottoms of your feet! Doctor fish...yes....they are called "doctor fish" feed on the dead, scaly calluses on your feet to make them smooth and soft. At one point, women were using a communal foot bath with hundred of doctor fish eating away at the women's "barnacles." It was said that a lady with particularly scaly feet would have a greater benefit than one with feet in pretty good shape. In a communal bath, those fish aren't stupid, they know who serves the best dinner!

Check the photo below, google "fish pedicure", read all about it. I wonder if a large bowl of goldfish at home would do the trick? Hey, in these hard economic times, a girl has to be frugal and smart about about her beauty treatments!