Learn best practices for starting and running a float center:
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Something in the world of floating have you stumped?

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Show Highlights

Customers who color or perm their hair might not want to let it get wet while floating. While Graham and Ashkahn are sympathetic to those issues, as far as they know, there isn’t really a great solution for them.

Listen to Just the Audio

Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

Graham: And our question today is, “is it possible to keep your hair dry during a float?” Like, I assume, for customers who want to handle their hair treatment and stuff like that. I guess the most often reason why people want dry hair is they have coloring in it, or they got it professionally permed or styled or something else that either will mess up the water or mess up their hair. And the answer’s no.

Ashkahn: And the answer’s no.

Graham: Yep, absolutely not. It does seem like having waterproof swimmer’s caps will contain the water from getting in and mixing with hair color and getting back in the tank as much. So as far as the tank is concerned, swimmer’s cap seem to help out, but for anything that won’t get your hair wet at all. And we played around with different levels of tightnesses and things that really try to bill themselves as water won’t creep in, but just the process of laying in there for an hour, an hour and a half, like moisture is pretty bound to leach through whatever system you’ve set up.

Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s a tough one. There’s many different styles of swimming caps and stuff like that out there. And they all seem to let water leak in. It’s just really hard to create that tight of a seal.

Graham: So try this, try this. What you need to do is take a garbage bag.

Ashkahn: Okay, not where I thought that was going to start.

Graham: And get some Gorilla tape. And actually create a whole seal, maybe some Elmer’s glue as well. And what you want to do is you want the bag to go across your forehead and then down and around the back of your neck. And get good contact with your skin there. And just tape. It’s not going to be fun coming out, but you know, and tape it on over your face.

Ashkahn: If you just tape the bag over your entire head, that’ll give you a real nice seal.

Graham: I did not think of that, but I like the concept.

Ashkahn: And if you pump some air in there, works as a neck pillow, double whammy.

Graham: And probably stops you from suffocating if you pump air in there too, so that’s nice.

Ashkahn: Yeah, well usually you have to poke some holes to deal with that.

Graham: What have people done when they want to keep their hair dry? We have at least one customer who comes into float with us, right before they get their hair styled. So they do a monthly hair treatment and trip to their hair stylist person. I use a barber so I get confused sometimes. But anyways, to make they’re not totally messing up their hair, that they just paid a bunch of money to get styled, they’ll go into float, often the same day as their hair treatment is going to be. So they get to ride out the past month and then go in and not worry about messing up their hair for one day. So I thought that was kind of a clever way to still have it as part of your routine, despite also having a more regimented hair care routine as well.

Ashkahn: Yeah, and I do think if you get some serious swimmer’s caps, your hair is not going to get as soaking wet as it would, just being completely loose in the float tank.

Graham: Yeah maybe, I don’t know, water just slowly gets in there and all of a sudden you just have a cap that’s keeping in water as opposed to keeping it out.

Ashkahn: Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be slightly better, but I don’t think it’s something that, if there was a reason you don’t want to get your hair wet, this wouldn’t solve that problem.

Graham: Yeah, yeah. And certainly for customers out there, this is a good answer to know for them, if they are worried about messing up a really expensive do that they got. I tell them not to. That’s when you take out the Gorilla tape.

So I think this is a pretty short episode.

Ashkahn: Yeah, let us know if someone out there has a swimmer’s cap that they actually think really manages to keep your hair dry. Let us know.

Graham: A modified like astronaut helmet or something like that they can go in with.

Ashkahn: Yeah, that sounds great.

Graham: All right, if you have any other easy questions for us, go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast, and shoot them over.

Recent Podcast Episodes

Personal background, training, education for float center owners – DSP 104

Every new float center owner brings something different to the table. A former accountant is going to have a different skill set than someone who spent the last 15 years in construction. Now, it’s likely that they’ll both find ways to succeed in very different ways, but it’s possibly that one could be better suited to running a float center than they other. 

Graham and Ashkahn get asked about their personal backgrounds that led to them starting Float On and, by extension, what the ideal background might be for running a float center.

While they have very non-traditional backgrounds themselves, they both have worked diligently through Float On’s lifetime to make sure that they learn the skills necessary to get the job done.

Causes of feeling nauseated in a float tank – DSP 103

Sometimes, very rarely, customers will get out of a float saying they felt really nauseous. Some even feel so bad that they vomit afterwards. What causes this and what can float center owners do about it? Well, sometimes it’s motion sickness, sometimes it’s the temperature in the tank, and sometimes it’s just random happenstance.

Regardless of why it occurs, how you handle it is important. Graham and Ashkahn have some good advice for post-bad float aftercare that’s worth listening to. 

Disinfecting inside float tank walls – DSP 102

How do you clean the inside of the float tank? Obviously, you wanna be careful given that you’re working so closely with your float solution. What precautions do you need to take? What sort of products do you use? 

Graham and Ashkahn share their stories of cleaning tanks, finding proper cleaners, and how to use them without affecting your water. 

Talking About Dr. Justin Feinstein’s Anxiety Study – DSP 101

Recently, Justin Feinstein and his team at LIBR have published their first landmark study on the effects of floatation-REST on patients with extreme anxiety. After years of hearing about Justin’s research, it’s exciting for the whole industry to finally get to see some tangible results.

But what can we say about these effects? What can’t we say? Graham and Ashkahn bring in Justin Feinstein himself to answer these deceptively unsimple questions and talk in depth about this research and what it means for the industry

Latest Blog Posts

No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.