Ban on Feet-Nibbling Fish Leaves Nail Salons on the Hook

online.wsj ^ | MARCH 23, 2009 | PHILIP SHISHKIN

[JoeProBono]

There's more than one way to skin a foot. In his beauty salon wedged between a pizza parlor and a taco shop in a strip mall here, John Ho is letting small fish eat dead skin off his customers' feet. "Feels like a bunch of ants running across your feet," said Bill Piatt, a Marine gunnery sergeant from nearby Fort Belvoir, after dipping his feet in a Plexiglas tank for 15 minutes of a fish-assisted pedicure. His wife, Leah, reclining on an adjacent chair, said the nibbling tickled -- "a very odd feeling."

[JoeProBono]

[JoeProBono]

[evets]

Banned for pedicures, but still approved for facials...

[JoeProBono]

"Banned for pedicures, but still approved for facials..."

And circumcisions

[a fool in paradise]

Maybe I can offer this service if I used maggots:

[NavVet]

In San Francisco, they do something similar with Gerbils.

[a fool in paradise]

On "Good Morning America" in July, Diane Sawyer placed her feet in a tank supplied by Mr. Ho and compared the fish nibbles to "tiny little delicate kisses."

And meanwhile the frog said that the boiling hot pot was like a soothing jacuzzi!

No wonder the Pravda Media are championing Obama's plan to shred the Constitution by 1,000 cuts. They don't see the forest for the trees.

Hey lady, those fish aren't KISSING your feet, they are EATING them.

There is no harm of them eating you up but they aren't doing it out of "love".

[KarlInOhio]

How about the pit bull manicure and pedicure?

[a fool in paradise]

Does it start with a sunflower seed enema?

[VA_Gentleman]

You owe me a new computer screen. I just spewed water all over mine after reading that. Ha!

[a fool in paradise]

Actually I knew someone who’d dog did that...

[Frogtacos]

just ewwwwwww

[OpeEdMunkey]

Meanwhile in Massachusetts the Democratic controlled legislature is going after salons for contributing to the obesity of the fish.

[al baby]

[earlJam]

The issue: cosmetology regulations generally mandate that tools need to be discarded or sanitized after each use. But epidermis-eating fish are too expensive to throw away. "And there's no way to sanitize them unless you bake them for 20 minutes at 350 degrees," says Lynda Elliott, an official with the New Hampshire Board of Barbering, Cosmetology and Esthetics. The board outlawed fish pedicures in November.

I hear this is also the best way to sanitize state capitals of over-zealous regulators.

[antidemoncrat]

That thought brings tears to my eyes.