Lifestyle
Get your back scratched and hair brushed at this cozy ASMR massage studio in L.A.
I’ve never felt weird about paying strangers to touch me. Massages, facials, martial arts — it’s all just bodywork to me. That is, until I booked my first professional back scratch with Julie Luther, the founder of Soft Touch ASMR Spa in Pasadena.
Something about being touched softly made me nervous. In part, 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 mindless scrolling, that kind of touch feels increasingly scarce, almost indulgent, as we grow up in the modern world.
Luther understands this tension well. She’s built a business around re-creating those cozy childhood moments that many find both deeply soothing 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 tracing with feather-tipped wands, and subtle, soothing sounds that come from these careful movements across skin and through hair.
Masseuse Julie Luther at work in Pasadena. She was drawn to ASMR-like rituals while working in New York’s cutthroat fashion industry.
Back in 2007, Luther was stressed out in New York’s cutthroat fashion industry, running on four hours of sleep between a full-time job and internship after graduating college — she found herself craving those same soothing rituals that her mother and grandmother used to help her fall asleep as a child: playing with her hair and scratching her back.
“Nothing has been as relaxing,” she said.
Luther returned to her fashion industry grind. But as she watched ASMR’s popularity grow, she saw potential for the kind of content she’d always wanted to see. When the pandemic hit in 2020, she finally had the time to act, launching Friends with ASMR. She grabbed some friends from her quarantine pod and started filming the gentle back-scratching and hair-brushing videos she always wanted to watch.
Eventually viewers started clamoring for in-person sessions, Luther, whose YouTube channel now has more than 72,000 subscribers, realized she’d scratched her way into an unexpected business opportunity.
“Research suggests that the brains of people experiencing ASMR see spikes in neural activity in the regions of the brain associated with emotion, reward, empathy and social cognition,” says Dr. Elizabeth Ko, medical director of the UCLA Health Integrative Medicine Collaborative.
The tingling sensation that gives ASMR its reputation — a pleasant, cascading feeling that flows from head to shoulders — only affects about 20% of people, according to Dr. Elizabeth Ko, medical director of the 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 experiencing ASMR see spikes in neural activity in the regions of the brain associated with emotion, reward, empathy and social cognition,” Ko said.
Scientific interest in the practice has grown substantially, with studies suggesting ASMR activities may offer temporary relief for depression and chronic pain in some individuals, according to Ko. When combined with gentle touch like back scratches or hair braiding, Ko said ASMR practices may provide additional benefits through the release of oxytocin, a hormone associated with relaxation and social bonding.
Though researchers are still exploring whether non-ASMR-sensitive individuals can benefit from these practices, Ko notes that “whether ASMR is a physiological oddity or may be a potential therapeutic tool remains to be seen.”
Julie Luther in her Pasadena massage studio.
Luther sees this play out in her practice, where she says clients broadly fall into two camps. Most come seeking to re-create comforting childhood experiences of having their hair played with or backs scratched by family members. Some turn to her because they typically find traditional massages painful — something Luther relates to from personal experience. But she also sees clients who have never experienced nurturing touch, including some who are working to rebuild their relationship with physical contact after traumatic experiences.
“They’re trying to relearn what safe touch or nurturing touch is,” Luther said.
Luther’s practice is exclusively for women and nonbinary clients, a boundary she set after a male client ignored her consent forms and asked her to tickle his feet during a session. She has enough clients that it hasn’t hurt business.
Luther works from a serene room she rents from an acupuncturist in downtown Pasadena, with views of the nearby mountains. Luther offers three tiers of service, each named for different amounts of familial comfort: The Best Friend ($75 for 20 minutes), The Sister ($150 for 50 minutes), and The Grandma ($210 for 80 minutes of “Grandma level spoiling”).
I opted for The Best Friend, partly out of journalistic efficiency but mostly from 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 felt like a safe way to dip my toe in these nurturing waters.
I stripped down to my underwear and got on a massage table and under the blanket, face down. Luther came in and spoke in a whisper to help set my intention for the session, which was just to relax.
Luther offers three tiers of service, each named for different amounts of familial comfort: The Best Friend ($75 for 20 minutes), The Sister ($150 for 50 minutes), and The Grandma ($210 for 80 minutes of “Grandma level spoiling”).
A table of tools that ASMR masseuse and content creator Julie Luther uses during her sessions.
While her YouTube channel features this kind of ASMR whispering throughout most videos, her in-person sessions are different. After the initial whispered guidance, she usually stays silent to let clients focus on their physical sensations. She started with my back using just her regular nails, which was still enough for my muscles to leap under her touch, slightly tickled, almost surprised at the sensation.
Next, Luther’s most popular tools came out: metal rings with pointy tips that extend her fingers into claws. Though my back initially kept tensing at the sharper touch, it soon relaxed into the sensation, as if my body were recalling those childhood back scratches. Next came hair brushing, the spikes of the brush echoing the earlier scratching.
I found myself wondering why I no longer maintain a ritual around brushing my hair. When I do it, it feels like a chore that I rush through, but when Luther did it, it felt like an easy moment of self-care. Finally, she had me flip over for face tracing, which she performed with feathers attached to delicate wands.
Unlike other bodywork treatments I get, there was no so-called “work” involved. No pore extractions or deep tissue pressure that left me breathing through pain. This was just nice, in the purest sense of the word. Pure pleasure, like eating ice cream or sinking into a warm bath. It scratched an itch I didn’t even know I had (pun intended).
When Luther whispered that we were done, I realized my choice of a 20 minute session was a mistake. I was zenned out on that childhood feeling of being cared for, not yet ready to surface and drive myself home.
Julie Luther uses a variety of props to perform her light-touch massages. Her most popular are metal rings with pointy tips that extend her fingers into claws.
Speaking to Luther afterward, she laughed knowingly when I admitted my initial hesitancy. The 20-minute session, it turns out, was designed precisely for nervous first-timers like me. More often than not, clients come back for longer the next time or even end up asking to extend their time right from the table.
“A lot of times they’re like, ‘Do you have room to extend the session?’ ” Luther said. “Sometimes I do.”
Next time, I’ll book the Grandma and get 80 minutes worth of niceness. For all the physical improvements that come with a good facial or a massage, sometimes touch for the sake of touch is enough. Our bodies don’t always need work to feel better, they just want to be reminded what it feels like to be cared for.
Neve Campbell in Scream 7.
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The OG Scream Queen Neve Campbell returns. Scream 7 re-centers the franchise back on Sidney Prescott. She has a new life, a family, and lots of baggage. You know the drill: Someone dressing up as the masked slasher Ghostface comes for her, her family and friends. There’s lots of stabbing and murder and so many red herrings it’s practically a smorgasbord.
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Abriana Vicioso is the host of the Flower Hour, which takes place monthly.
(Jennifer McCord / For The Times)
Each flower carries a personal history. For Abriana Vicioso, the calla lily was her parents’ wedding flower — a symbol of her mother’s beauty. “She had this big, beautiful white calla lily in her hair,” Vicioso says. “I love my parents. They’re the reason I’m here. I’ll never forget where I came from.”
The Flower Hour begins with Vicioso announcing, with a warm smile: “Today is about touching grass.” The florist-by-trade gestures behind her to hundreds of flowers contained in buckets — blue thistles, ivory anemones and calla lilies painted silver — all twisted and unfurling into the air. “Tonight is going to be so sweet and intimate,” Vicioso says, eyeing the beautiful chaos at her feet. A grin buds across her face.
Moments before the workshop, participants sit at candlelit tables exchanging horoscopes and comparing their favorite flowers. A mention of the illustrious bird-of-paradise flower elicits coos and awe from the women. Izamar Vazquez, who is from Jalisco, Mexico, reveals her fondness for roses, which make her feel connected to her Mexican roots.
Vicioso hosts her flower-themed wellness workshop near the iconic Original Los Angeles Flower Market in downtown L.A. In January, the first Flower Hour event sold out, prompting her to make it a monthly series. Vicioso describes the event as a “three-part journey” where participants are invited to drink herbal tea, smoke rose-petal-rolled cannabis joints and create a floral arrangement. “The guide is to connect with the medicine of flowers,” Vicioso says.
Rose petal joints, tea and flower arranging are all part of The Flower Hour event’s offerings.
The event is hosted at the Art Club, a membership-based co-working space. “The Flower Hour is really beautiful. Everyone gets to explore their creativity while meeting new people,” says Lindsay Williams, the co-owner of the Art Club.
The idea for Flower Hour came to Vicioso during a conversation with her mother. “We joke all the time that flowers were destined to make their way into my life,” she says. She works as a florist and models on the side, even appearing in the pages of Vogue. Vicioso grew up in a Caribbean household, where flowers and offerings were part of daily life. “In my culture and religion, a lot of my family practices — an Afro-Caribbean religion — we build altars.”
Like many cultures, flowers carry sentimental value in her religion. “I’m Caribbean, so a lot of my family practices a Yoruba religion, which comes from Africa. In the Caribbean, it’s well known as Santería.”
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After a difficult year and a breakup, Vicioso wanted to marry her love of flowers with community building. Because Vicioso uses cannabis medicinally, the workshop naturally includes a smoking component. “My family has smoked cannabis for a lot of reasons for a long time. It’s a really healing plant,” she explains.
In the workshop, even the cannabis gets the floral treatment. Vicioso presents her rose-petal-wrapped joints on a silver platter at each table. She rolled each by hand. “If you’ve never smoked a rose-petal-rolled joint, the difference with this is it’s going to have roses that have a slight tobacco effect,” she announces.
During the workshop, Vicioso stresses the importance of buying cannabis from local vendors. The cannabis provided was purchased from a Northern Californian vendor. The wellness workshop aims to reclaim the healing ritual of smoking cannabis. “This is a plant that has been commercialized,” Vicioso says. “There’s a lot of Black and Brown people who are in jail for this plant.”
The resulting workshop is what Vicioso describes as “an immersive wellness experience that is the intersection of wellness, creativity, community and an appreciation of flowers.” The workshop serves as a reminder to enjoy Earth’s innate beauty in the form of flowers — including cannabis. “It’s this gift that the universe gave us for free and that I have this deep connection with,” Vicioso says.
Conversation cards to generate discussion among participants (top, letf). The workshop serves as a “third space” for Angelenos to engage in tactile creativity and community building outside of traditional nightlife settings.
After enjoying lavender chamomile tea and smoking a joint, Vicioso introduces the flowers to the group before inviting them to pick their own. She emphasizes each flower’s personality traits, describing green dianthus as a “Dr. Seuss” plant. Then, there are calla lilies with their “main character moment.” It gets personal. “Start thinking of a flower in your life that you can discover,” she says. “If you’re feeling like you need inspiration, you can always remember that these flowers have stories.”
Vicioso infuses wisdom into her instruction on floral arrangements: There are no mistakes. Let the flowers tell you where they want to go, she urges. Intuition will be your guide — the wilder, the better.
“Hecho in Mexico” reads a sticker on a bunch of green stems. “Like me,” says Vazquez with a laugh. “They’re all doing their own thing. Like a family,” she says later, arranging stems.
The Flower Hour participants and Vicioso, center, chat as they build their own floral arrangements at the sold-out event.
Two participants — Vazquez and Rebeca Alvarado — are friends who run a floral design company together called Izza Rose. Like Vicioso, the friends have a connection to flowers through their Latin American culture. They met Vicioso in the floral industry and were overjoyed to discover her workshop.
“This is a great way to connect with other people,” says Vazquez.
Alvarado agrees, adding: “You’re getting to know people outside of going to bars. You can connect in different ways when there’s an activity.”
Vazquez uses flowers to stay connected to her Mexican heritage, adding that she prefers to support Mexican vendors. In recent months, the downtown L.A. flower market has struggled to recover from ongoing ICE raids. “Some are scared to come back,” says Vazquez.
Hand-rolled cannabis joints wrapped in rose petals are presented on a silver platter at The ArtClub (top, right). The Flower Hour aims to reclaim the healing rituals of cannabis and flowers.
Another participant, Barbara Rios, was attracted to the workshop for stress relief. “You can hang out with your friends, but it’s nice to do things with your hands,” she says. “I work a stressful job, and it’s nice to have that third space that we’re all craving.”
On this February night, the participants were predominantly women, save for one man. In the future, Vicioso hopes that more men learn to engage with flowers. “There’s a statistic about men receiving flowers for the first time at their funerals, and I think we have changed that,” she says.
To conclude the workshop, Vicioso encourages participants to build lasting friendships and incorporate flower arranging into their daily practice — even if it’s just with a small, inexpensive bouquet.
“Get some flowers together, go to the park, hang out with each other and hang out with me,” she says. Participants leave with flower arrangements in hand. In the darkness of the night air, it briefly looks as though the women carry silver calla lilies that are blooming from their palms.
An underwater view shows US’ Lilly King competing in a heat of the women’s 200m breaststroke swimming event during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Paris La Defense Arena in Nanterre, west of Paris, on July 31, 2024. (Photo by François-Xavier MARIT / AFP) (Photo by FRANCOIS-XAVIER MARIT/AFP via Getty Images)
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This week’s show was recorded in Bloomington, Indiana with host Peter Sagal, judge and scorekeeper Bill Kurtis, Not My Job guest Lilly King and panelists Alonzo Bodden, Josh Gondelman, and Faith Salie. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.
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Bill Kurtis reads three news-related limericks: Getting Cozy With Cross Country Skiing; Pickleball’s New Competition; Bees Get Freaky
Lightning Fill In The Blank
All the news we couldn’t fit anywhere else
Predictions
Our panelists predict, after American Girls, what’ll be the next toy to get an update.
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