Which oil I am using? No oil.
I am using Butter.
Why I use them and what is good about gute Butter.
Butters
Every month, I take out my magic garnment (aka apron), turn on the Spiritchaser Album from Dead can Dance and put together what is the best food for our skin: special blends.
Apparently, it is not that common - to my utter surprise.
Butters are JUST really the best for bodywork (of course, in my humble opinion)
When people ask me "What Oil I use?" (which just seems to be a very common thing to ask)
I say: I use butter.
They will ask: What?
I will say: Butter.
They will say: Butter?
And I will say: Yes. Gute Butter.
"Bei mir kommt nur Butter an die Haut!"My love confession: I love butters.
Making them, using them and seeing the effect it has on people when being applied and soaked in into the tissue - proves this love to be for the benefit of all.
WHY BUTTER AND NOT OIL?
Indeed, bodywork (massage) can be done with a lot of things / anythings / or no - things.
Bodywork is often done with oils, cremes, lotions of all sorts, with "nothing at all", with the sweat of the person, with cacao... . You name it.
I've seen all sorts of ingredients being applied: In high amounts, like the ayurvedic style where you literally bath in oil, to therapists using their favourite handlotions, or the ultra fancy special versions of big brands.
Working in renowned Spas, I have done 3 hour sessions where for almost each bodypart I was using another extra-special product.
As with everything in life you can make a whole philosophy and science out of it.
I do not want to argue with any belief system of products or how to think about cosmetics,
but I know our skin absorbs what we apply onto it.
That simple understanding and seeing so, so many different people with so, so many different skin -
I cannot argue more to check and think what we give our skin to "eat".
Why is it important what you apply?
Our skin is an organ.
We might not think of it like that. But it is.
It is a tactil organ, that reacts not only physically but is also determined by our whole sensory experience.
Is a widespread organ which envelopes us in totality - so to say.
About 18.000 square centimeters of skin we have (as an adult).
Not only does it protect us, regulates our temperature, serves as a storage for fats and water, but it is also the layer which is the outside of us, with which we interact with the world.
From all five senses
Sense of Vision, Sense of Hearing, Sense of Smelling, Sense of Tasting and Sense of Touch - the skin is the organ we could not live without.
4 Reasons I LOVE BUTTERS
# Number 1
Obviously, all the above mentioned reasoning and my own history of having had troubles with skin when I was a child,
made me want to use what I consider as really good.
Like with food. If you choose yourself what you want and cook it yourself, you know what you give to yourself.
Using butters and choosing the ingredients helps to customize to individual needs and also to the technique being worked with.
# NUMBER 2
There is a quality about oil: it is oily.
Seems obvious. It is.
For deep bodywork, what you need is GRIP.
For treatments like Ayurveda or LomiLomi where you slide... and slide... and what you really want is to slide: oil is a great thing, cause: you slide.
But when you want to go deep, you need something to support that dive: the grip.
It is like hiking high up in the mountains. Without grip on your sole of your shoes, you are inclined to slide the rocks instead of
# Number 3
You come to a massage with clean cloths.
You get undressed, you get the treatment needed and wanted and then? Guess what?
You can then leave with clean cloths again.
Why? Because butter will not leave you with an oily skin and therefore your cloth will not become soaked neither.
# NUMBER 4
This one is a bit, let´s say... Nostalgic?
My grandma Helma was a woman who cooked her whole life every day for the whole family.
What she cooked was of course a loooooot of potatoes and if there was no potatoes, there was bread (which both of those foods come with "butter").
My grandma lived the war and butter was considered in that time as something either too expensive or not accessible to buy.
So when she said she had cooked or added "gute Butter", it meant:
she did something really good.