Amanda's SFI

The term "spa" comes from the Latin expression for "health by water". While water treatment or "hydrotherapy" is offered by many spas, they also offer massages, hair styling, full body treatments, facials and skin treatments and manicures and pedicures.

Today spas are an industry that is growing quickly, generating billions of dollars each year. In fact, in the year 2007, there were more than 100 million visits to various spas just in the United States. This makes this leisure trade the fourth largest in the country, and it is growing even more with all the attention it gets from commercials, movies, advertising, and TV.

If you want to makes some money in this business, you may want to purchase a day spa, start your own spa, or even start manufacturing some spa products yourself, such as body scrubs, lotions, balms for exfoliating, bath salts and so on.

There are a variety of great manuals out there today that can help you make your own spa products for sale. There are even some great recipes out there online that you can try out. Here is one that will help you make a salt scrub:

A jar of quality salt scrub could cost you $20 or you could make it at home by simply combining cup sweet almond or grape seed oil, a handful or two of sea salt and essential oils and voila, your own spa experience is at hand!

You can similarly find very effective and reasonably-priced recipes for footbaths, hand treatments, facials and even shampoo online. You will find that many people who have worked in some of the world's most famous day and destination spas post recipes on the Internet. This assures you of the reliability and efficacy of the products.

Now that you have the products that you wish to use and sell, let's review some ways of marketing them. "Spa" in itself is a powerful marketing word. The word as an adjective adds pricing and prestige value to a common product. So the moment you see a "spa tea" versus a herbal tea or a "spa manicure" product versus a simple manicure, you are bound to opt for the spa product.

When packaging your products you want to keep your cost low and at the same time have something that is pleasing to the eye. You may consider using some simple plastic or cellophane packaging with professionally printed tags and labels that you can easily customize.

Having some friends over to have a spa party is a great way to help market your products as well. You'll be able to let everyone try the products that you have made. If you're going to do this, make sure that you set up the entire room in a way that makes it feel just like going into a spa.

Set up some signs that tell about ways to fight dry skin, how lavender heals, benefits of detoxifying the skin and so on. Then turn on some really mellow music and possible have a small fountain running or even a water noise maker.

Now you have set the stage to have a wonderful "spa at home" party that you will all enjoy. You can do manicures, facials, pedicures or whatever you like to introduce your own product line and get valuable feedback from your friends.