I've never felt weird about paying strangers to touch me. Massages, facials, martial arts – it's all just body work for me. That is, until I booked my first professional back scratch with Julie Luther, the founder of ASMR soft touch spa in Pasadena.
Something about being touched gently made me nervous. Partly because that's the kind of physical interaction you expect from your closest companions. I have childhood memories of loved ones tracing patterns on my skin and playing with my hair. Between meetings and meaningless commuting, that kind of contact feels increasingly rare, almost indulgent, as we grow up in the modern world.
Luther understands this tension well. He has built a business around recreating those cozy childhood moments that many find deeply comforting and surprisingly rare in adult life. Her treatments bring ASMR, short for autonomous sensory meridian response, into the physical world through intentionally gentle touch: back scratches with metal finger extensions, face strokes with feather-tipped wands, and subtle, soothing sounds that They come from these careful movements across the skin and skin. through the hair.
Masseuse Julie Luther working in Pasadena. She was drawn to ASMR-like rituals while working in New York's cutthroat fashion industry.
In 2007, Luther was stressed out in New York's cutthroat fashion industry, sleeping four hours between a full-time job and an internship after graduating college; she found herself craving those same relaxing rituals that her mother and grandmother used to help her. falling asleep as a child: playing with her hair and scratching her back.
“Nothing has been so relaxing,” he said.
Luther returned to his fashion industry routine. But as he saw the popularity of ASMR grow, he saw potential for the type of content he had always wanted to see. When the pandemic hit in 2020, he finally had time to act and launched Friends with ASMR. He called up some friends in his quarantine group and started filming the gentle back-scratching and hair-brushing videos he's always wanted to see.
When viewers started asking for in-person sessions, Luther, whose YouTube channel now has more than 72,000 subscribers, realized he had walked his way into an unexpected business opportunity.
“Research suggests that the brains of people who experience ASMR see spikes in neural activity in brain regions associated with emotion, reward, empathy, and social cognition,” says Dr. Elizabeth Ko, medical director of UCLA Health Integrative Medicine Collaborative.
The tingling sensation for which ASMR is famous — a pleasant cascading sensation that flows from the head to the shoulders — only affects about 20% of people, according to Dr. Elizabeth Ko, medical director of UCLA Health Integrative Medicine. Collaborative. But that hasn't stopped researchers from investigating what happens in the brain during these experiences.
“Research suggests that the brains of people who experience ASMR see spikes in neural activity in brain regions associated with emotion, reward, empathy and social cognition,” Ko said.
According to Ko, scientific interest in the practice has grown substantially, with studies suggesting that ASMR activities may offer temporary relief from depression and chronic pain in some people. When combined with gentle touch like back scratching or hair braiding, Ko said ASMR practices can provide additional benefits through the release of oxytocin, a hormone associated with relaxation and social bonding.
Although researchers are still exploring whether people not sensitive to ASMR can benefit from these practices, Ko notes that “it remains to be seen whether ASMR is a physiological oddity or may be a potential therapeutic tool.”
Julie Luther at her Pasadena massage studio.
Luther sees this in his practice, where he says clients fall into two camps. Most come looking to recreate comforting childhood experiences in which family members played with their hair or scratched their back. Some turn to it because they typically find traditional massages painful, something Luther can relate to from personal experience. But she also serves clients who have never experienced affectionate touch, including some who are working to rebuild their relationship with touch after traumatic experiences.
“They're trying to relearn what safe touch or loving touch is,” Luther said.
Luther's practice is exclusively for women and non-binary clients, a boundary she established after a male client ignored her consent forms and asked her to tickle his feet during a session. He has enough customers that it hasn't hurt business.
Luther works from a quiet room he rents from an acupuncturist in downtown Pasadena, with views of the nearby mountains. Luther offers three levels of service, each with different names based on the family's comfort level: The Best Friend ($75 for 20 minutes), The Sister ($150 for 50 minutes), and The Grandma ($210 for 80 minutes of “level pampering.” grandmother's”). .
I opted for The Best Friend, partly for journalistic efficiency but above all for a touch of nerves. All packages include the same elements: back scratching, tracing patterns on arms and face, hair brushing, and finger combing, just in different durations. The shorter session seemed like a safe way to dip my toe into these nourishing waters.
I stripped down to my underwear, climbed onto a massage table and got under the blanket, face down. Luther came in and spoke in a whisper to help me set my intention for the session, which was to simply relax.
Luther offers three levels of service, each with different names based on the family's comfort level: The Best Friend ($75 for 20 minutes), The Sister ($150 for 50 minutes), and The Grandma ($210 for 80 minutes of “level pampering.” grandmother's”). .
A table of tools that ASMR masseuse and content creator Julie Luther uses during her sessions.
While his YouTube channel features this type of ASMR whispering in most videos, his in-person sessions are different. After the initial whispered guidance, he usually remains silent to allow clients to focus on their physical sensations. She started on my back using just her normal nails, which were still enough to make my muscles jump under her touch, lightly tickling, almost surprised by the sensation.
Next came Luther's most popular tools: metal rings with pointed tips that extend his fingers into claws. Although my back initially remained tense at the harsher touch, it soon relaxed at the sensation, as if my body was remembering those childhood back scratches. Next came hair brushing; the bristles of the brush echoed the previous scratching.
I wondered why I no longer maintain a ritual around brushing my hair. When I do it, it feels like a hurried task, but when Luther did it, it felt like an easy moment of self-care. Finally, he had me turn around to trace the face, which he did with feathers attached to delicate wands.
Unlike other body treatments I receive, there was no so-called “work” involved. There were no pore extractions or deep tissue pressure that left me breathing in pain. This was just nice, in the purest sense of the word. Pure pleasure, like eating ice cream or soaking in a hot bath. It scratched an itch I didn't even know I had (pun intended).
When Luther whispered that we were done, I realized that my choice of a 20-minute session had been a mistake. I was absorbed in that childlike feeling of being cared for, not yet ready to surface and drive home.
Julie Luther uses a variety of accessories to perform her light touch massages. The most popular are metal rings with pointed tips that extend their fingers into claws.
Later, speaking to Luther, she laughed knowingly when I admitted my initial hesitation. It turns out that the 20-minute session was designed precisely for nervous beginners like me. Most of the time, customers return for longer next time or even end up asking to extend their time right from the table.
“I'm often asked, 'Do you have room to extend the session?' ” said Luther. “Sometimes I do.”
Next time I'll book with grandma and get 80 minutes of friendliness. For all the physical improvements that come with a good facial or massage, sometimes touch for touch's sake is enough. Our bodies don't always need work to feel better, they just want to be reminded of what it feels like to be cared for.
