Getting a foot spa usually means dunking your feet on a tub and having it massaged with some exfoliating chemicals. Not at London’s Aqua Sheko, though. Billed as the city’s first “fish therapy” spa, treatment consists of dipping your feet in an aquarium and having fish eat the dead cells out of them.
Don’t worry. They steered clear off piranhas and baby sharks for this beauty treatment. Instead, they’re using tubs filled with schools of Garra Rufa, also known as doctor fish, a species well-known for their habits of feeding on dead skin (especially those with psoriasis, a perennial favorite).
Aqua Sheko’s interior was designed by 7Gods, who used a dark décor to help highlight the hordes of fish swimming in lines upon lines of tanks and floor-mounted tubs. In fact, the design theme makes it look more like a night club than a beauty spa, with black class cladding the furniture, cold lights, geometric wall patterns and a generally somber mood.
Treatment consists of having your feet washed thoroughly before being submerged in a Garra Rufa tank. Over the next 30 minutes, you sit there and let the little flesh-eaters, which are imported from hot springs in Turkey, suck the ugly out of your heels, soles and toes, all while you sip on some warm oriental tea.
We’re not sure how much more relaxing it is to have scaly fish nibbling at your feet than more traditional forms of foot spas, but we have to admit: it does sound fun. Just like the time I decided to have a lion nibble at stray flesh hanging from my ears. Which would be never.
[Aqua Sheko via Design Milk]