I never felt weird to pay foreigners to touch me. Massages, facials, martial arts – it's just bodywork for me. That is to say until I reserve my first professional back scratch with Julie Luther, the founder of Soft Touch Asmr Spa And Passada.
Something about touch made me nervous. Partly, because this is the kind of physical interaction you expect from your closest companions. I have childhood memories of loved ones to trace patterns on my skin and to play with my hair. Between meetings and insane scrolling, this kind of contact feels increasingly rare, almost indulgent, while we grow in the modern world.
Luther understands this tension well. She built a business around the recreation of these comfortable moments of childhood that many find both deeply soothing and surprisingly rare in adulthood. His treatments bring ASMR, abbreviation of the response to the autonomous sensory meridian, in the physical world by an intentionally soft touch: back stripes with metal finger extensions, a tracing of the face with baguettes with feathers of feathers and subtle and soothing sounds that come from these meticulous movements through the skin and through the hair.
Masseuse Julie Luther at work in Pasadena. It was attracted to ASMR type rituals while working in New York's fashion industry.
In 2007, Luther was stressed in New York's fashion industry, running over four hours of sleep between a full -time job and an internship after obtaining her university diploma – she found herself to treat these same soothing rituals as her mother and grandmother helped her fall asleep as a child: play with her hair and scratch her back.
“Nothing was so relaxing,” she said.
Luther returned to her Grind fashion industry. But as she looked at the popularity of ASMR increasing, she saw a potential for the type of content she had always wanted to see. When the pandemic struck in 2020, she finally had time to act, launch Friends with ASMR. She grabbed friends from her quarantine pod and started filming soft tidy videos and hair brushes that she always wanted to look.
Finally, viewers began to claim sessions in person, Luther, whose YouTube channel now has more than 72,000 subscribers, realized that it had scratched in an unexpected commercial opportunity.
“Research suggests that the brain of people who experience ASMR see points in neural activity in the brain regions associated with emotion, reward, empathy and social cognition,” explains Dr. Elizabeth Ko, medical director of the UCLA Health Integrative Collaborative Medicine.
The feeling of tingling which gives the ASMR its reputation – a pleasant and cascade feeling flowing from the head to the shoulders – only affects 20% of people, according to Dr. Elizabeth Ko, medical director of the UCLA Health Integrative Collaborative Medicine. But that did not prevent researchers from studying what is happening in the brain during these experiences.
“Research suggests that the brain of people who experience ASMR see tips in neuronal activity in the brain regions associated with emotion, reward, empathy and social cognition,” KO said.
The scientific interest in the practice has developed considerably, with studies suggesting that ASMR activities can offer temporary relief for depression and chronic pain in some people, according to KO. When combined with a gentle touch like backrums or hair braiding, Ko said that ASMR practices can provide additional advantages thanks to the release of oxytocin, a hormone associated with relaxation and social ties.
Although researchers always explore if individuals who are not sensitive to ASMR can benefit from these practices, Ko notes that “the question of whether ASMR is a physiological quirk or can be a potential therapeutic tool remains to be seen”.
Julie Luther in her Massage Studio Pasadena.
Luther sees that playing in her practice, where she says that customers fall largely in two camps. Most come to recreate comforting childhood experiences to be played with hair or scratch with family members. Some turn to her because they generally find traditional painful massages – something Luther relates from personal experience. But it also sees customers who have never known a touch of development, including some who work to rebuild their relationship with physical contact after traumatic experiences.
“They try to relearn what the safety or development touch is,” said Luther.
Luther's practice is exclusively for women and non -binary customers, a border that she set after a male client ignored her consent forms and asked him to tickle her feet during a session. She has enough customers for it not hurting business.
Luther works from a serene room she praises an acupuncturist in downtown Pasadena, with a view of the neighboring mountains. Luther offers three levels of service, each appointed for different quantities of family comfort: the best friend ($ 75 for 20 minutes), the sister ($ 150 for 50 minutes) and the grandmother ($ 210 for 80 minutes of “grandmother mess”).
I opted for the best friend, partly out of journalistic efficiency but above all a touch of nerves. All packages include the same elements: back scraping, tracing patterns on the arms and face, brushing hair and fingers combing, just in different durations. The shorter session seemed to be a sure way of diving my toe into these nourishing waters.
I undressed on my underwear and I climbed on a massage table and under the blanket, face down. Luther entered and spoke in a murmur to help define my intention for the session, which was just to relax.
Luther offers three levels of service, each appointed for different quantities of family comfort: the best friend ($ 75 for 20 minutes), the sister ($ 150 for 50 minutes) and the grandmother ($ 210 for 80 minutes of “grandmother mess”).
A tool table that ASMR Masseuse and the content creator Julie Luther uses during her sessions.
Although his YouTube channel presents this type of whisper asmr in most videos, his sessions in person are different. After the whispered initial advice, it generally remains silent to let customers focus on their physical sensations. She started with my back, just using her ordinary nails, which was still enough for my muscles jumped under her touch, slightly tickled, almost surprised by the sensation.
Then, Luther's most popular tools have come out: metal rings with sharp advice that extend her fingers in the claws. Although my back keeps stretching to the cleaner touch, it quickly relaxed in the sensation, as if my body remembered these background stripes. Then comes the brushing of the hair, the tips of the brush echo the previous scratch.
I found myself asking myself why I no longer maintain a ritual around brushing my hair. When I do it, it looks like a chore that I rush, but when Luther did, it looked like an easy moment of autoos. Finally, she made me switch to the tracing of the face, which she interpreted with feathers attached to delicate baguettes.
Unlike other bodywork treatments that I receive, there was no so-called “work” involved. No extra pore extraction or a deep tissue pressure that let me breathe through the pain. It was just pleasant, in the purest sense of the term. Pure pleasure, like eating ice cream or pouring in a hot bath. He scratched a itch that I didn't even know that I had (word game).
When Luther whispered that we had finished, I realized that my choice of a 20 -minute session was a mistake. I was Zenned on this childhood feeling of being treated, not yet ready to surface and go home.
Julie Luther uses a variety of accessories to perform her light massages. Its most popular are metal rings with sharp advice that extend your fingers in claws.
Addressing Luther afterwards, she laughing knowingly when I admitted my initial hesitation. It turns out that the 20 -minute session was designed precisely for nervous beginners like me. More often than not, customers come back longer next time or even end up asking to prolong their time from the table.
“Often, they are like:” Do you have room to prolong the session? ” Said Luther. “Sometimes I do it.”
Next time, I will reserve the grandmother and I will have 80 minutes of kindness. For all the physical improvements that come with a good face or a massage, it is sometimes enough to touch. Our body does not always need work to feel better, they just want to remember what it is to be treated.
