What will these little fish eat, if not feet?
October 3rd, 2008 by cdunaganIt was a fun story while it lasted, this idea of allowing a swarm of tiny fish to chew dead skin off your feet. Now, the Washington Department of Licensing has ruled that the practice is unsanitary and cannot be allowed under Washington regulations.
Earlier this year, a nail salon in Northern Virginia began offering customers a chance to have their feet nibbled by toothless carp — $35 for a 15-minute dip in a tank.
As USA Today reported: “State regulations make no provision for regulating fish pedicures. But the county health department — which does regulate pools — required the salon to switch from a shallow, tiled communal pool that served as many as eight people to individual tanks in which the water is changed for each customer.”
A couple of weeks ago, Peridot Nail Salon in Kent began to offer the service and quickly filled up its calendar with people who wanted to have fish nibble at their feet. The cost was set at $30 for 15 minutes or $50 for 30 minutes. The salon used individual tanks of water.
Brian Beckley of the Kent Reporter stuck his feet in the tank of fish as he covered the story. “The fish do not bite,” he wrote. “It is an odd sensation as they move from foot to foot and between the toes, ticklish, but easily tolerable and almost pleasant once you get used to it.”
Because the practice has now been outlawed in this state, the video of Beckley and another customer offering their feet to these seemingly hungry fish should become a classic.
So what are the concerns of state authorities? According to a press release from the Washington Department of Licensing:
State law requires all tools and implements used in a pedicure to be sanitized, disinfected, or disposed of after each service to protect salon customers from the possibility of disease and infections. Since the salon cannot directly sanitize the fish, these rules do not allow for fish pedicures in Washington.
“We are greatly concerned about the safety of salon customers who choose to put their feet in a tank of live fish to eat away dead skin,” said Liz Luce, Director of the Department of Licensing. “These fish are being used as tools, and we do not believe you can properly sanitize a live fish and guarantee it doesn’t spread diseases, germs, or other infections.”
Salon owner Tuyet “Tweety” Bui said she believed she was following the health rules, according to a story in today’s Kent Reporter. But after Bui received a letter from the Department of Licensing, she quit offering the service. The fish, which cost $3,000 to import, have been retired and will become someone’s pets.
Tags: Fish pedicure, Peridot Nail Salon
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:21 am
Do you think our founding fathers believed our government should concern itself with citizens who choose to have their feet nibbled on by fish?
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:38 am
I’m not so sure of my American History. Did they even have pedicures when our founding fathers were wearing out their feet?
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Yes. The freedom to have our feet nibbled on by little fish was one of the reasons we sailed for the new world.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:28 pm
The founding fathers of the day didn’t bathe but once a month or so…the little fish might have died from the experience.
Why would fish be more liable to spread disease than live leeches used on live bodies in medicine today?
“… Indications for treatment with medicinal leeches:
- cardiovascular diseases, including essential hypertension and ischemia disease, phlebogene diseases of the lower extremities;
- chronic bronchitis, pneumonia, bronchial asthma;
- gastrointestinal tract diseases (hepatitis, cholecystitis, pancreatitis, stomach ulcer);
- ENT diseases;
- paradontosis and other teeth diseases;
- urological diseases;
- male sterility;
- skin diseases (neurodermatitis, psoriasis, eczema, herpes);
- gynaecological disorders (commissural processes in the small pelvis, female sterility, chronic adnexitis, parametritis, endometriosis, fibromastopathy);
- systemic diseases (rheumatic arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, scleroderma);
- osteochondrosis and radiculitis;
- eyes diseases, including glaucoma;
- infantile cerebral paralysis (ICP) and other diseases….”
http://www.leeches.biz/leech-hirudotherapy.htm
Does Kitsap County have doctor leech therapy?
As I see it…Sharon O’Hara
October 4th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Fascinating…
These fish are used for psoriasis and other skin disease…taking off the dead layers of skin… hard to believe.
Psoriasis can be disfiguring and painful and usually hits the kids…not a joke.
I once knew a woman who had psoriasis on her scalp.
It would occasionally creep down her face. She told me she didn’t go out of her house when it flared…that people stared and worried that it was contagious. She said she felt ostracized.
She didn’t say it was painful..it looked painful.
Interesting concept…I wonder what our U.S./KC dermatologists have to say?
Would they or have they suggested patients use of the fish at home?
What would they be leery about…if anything?
Curious…because I know people with many of the diseases the fish are supposed to help.
“…Doctor Fishes
SIR,_Dr Warwick and Dr Warwick (Nov 4 p 1093) are sceptial about the “doktor fish of Kangul”. The species of fish have been identified. There are two types, both being members of the Cyprinidac family adapted to warm miliue 12 – namely, “strikers” (Cyprinion macrostomus macrostomus) with a terminal mouth and with a terminal mouth and “lickers” (Garra rufa obtusa) with a ventral mouth. (The “jabber” is an immature striker, losing its lateral spots during maturation.) Both fish are omnivorous, a well-known feature of Cyprinidae. The orientation of inadeguate amounts of phytoplankton and zooplanktons caused by high water temperatures. The fish prefer aflected to healthy skin simply because it is easy to nibble at this surface . Some biochemical properties of fish in relation to the high temperature of water have also been investigated.
The presence of a high level of selenium (1.3 ppm) in water, topical application of which element is beneficial in some skin dieases, is an importand factor. The fish may, by softening the psoriatic plague, clear away the scale and expose the lession to water and sunlight.
Wide interest in the “doctor fish” has made people with neurological, rheumatic and skin diseases other than psoriasis visit this hotspring to immerse themselves in its pools. We are grateful for the mention of the doctor fish of Kangal (Sivas), Turkey.
Deparment of Internal Medicine.
Faculty of Medicine.
Cumhuriyet University.
Sivas, Turkey
Deparment of Biology. LEVENT ÜNDAR
Faculty of Sciense and Art. M.ALI AKPINAR
Cumhuriyet University ATILLA YANIKOGLU”
Sharon O’Hara
October 6th, 2008 at 7:34 am
The point of my comment is summed up in the following quote (I believe by Edward Abbey):
A government’s level of corruption is directly proportional to the number of laws it has on the books.