'Primal need': Kelowna's Scratchy Girl offers sensory touch therapy

A mix of essential oils and various scented sprays infuse the air as a soft pink light illuminates the walls of Ananda Cait Carver’s sensory scratch therapy room in Kelowna. The soft glow, the miniature fireplace, the massage table draped with a pink fluffy blanket and the quiet, low music set the tone for the studio: This is a room for relaxation. Scratchy Girl provides a unique service catering to those who are seeking physical human connection and endorphin release through light scratches across the body. “Our first primal need is connection, and touch can heal the world through that. Our main intention is to help people feel connected and safe in this space,” Carver says. Carver says people don’t always have access to physical touch from others, which she calls a basic human need. She hopes to bridge the gap and help her community feel connected again. “We are here to help people feel safe in order to process emotion and feel connection, because touch is something that we don't have in society, especially platonic touch. We see touch as something that is either romantic or something that's super intimate, but it doesn't have to be that way, and there's so many people starving of touch.” Carver uses her long, press on nails to create a light touch sensation to tingle the skin on nearly any part of the body excluding intimate areas. The scratching isn’t enough to break the skin, but almost like a gentle, pin-pointed tickling. She scratches the head, neck, chest and shoulders during a partial scratch therapy session, but she can also do the whole body or just the scalp and feet, whatever gives here client the most relaxation.  The sessions trigger the release of endorphins into the bloodstream, Carver says. “You just start to kind of feel like you're floating, and your nervous system starts to rebalance,” she says. READ MORE: 'Bright and happy': Vernon artist finds beauty in the mundane https://infotel.ca/newsitem/bright-and-happy-vernon-artist-finds-beauty-in-the-mundane/it107338 Between each client, Carver changes her nails to keep it sanitary. Her fake, press on style, coffin shaped nails can be easily removed to ensure proper hygiene is met. She has over 800 nail sets at her disposal. She uses the coffin shape so she can get the pointy corners on the nails, as well as a flatter surface on top for a different scratch technique. Some of her clients don’t like the feeling of the pads on the finger, and prefer the crisp, scratchy sensation. She does her best to break barriers and create a space where physical touch isn’t overwhelming and creates an atmosphere her clients can feel secure in. With the mood of the room, as well as conversation if the client wants to chat, she caters to whatever is best suited for that craved connection.  “I personally have a way of making people feel safe... it might take a few tries to really build a relationship with somebody to make them feel safe, but that's the feedback that I get most of the time, is that they feel safe here, and that's why they keep coming back,” Carver says. The sessions can also provide a feeling of nostalgia for her clients. It can remind them of their mothers doing the same to them when they were young. Carver has been in Kelowna offering her therapeutic touch services for three months at her office at #205 - 2622 Pandosy St. in Kelowna, and she says business is booming. In her first month, Carver says she had 47 clients come in for scratch sessions and the numbers keep growing. “It is a niche demographic, but the people that love it are obsessed with it,” Carver says. Carver attended the Sentient Healing Centre in Toronto and achieved a certificate in Somatic Sensory Healing. She also earned a certification from from Inner Well Springs academy as a Somatic Mind-Body Healing Practitioner, and she is also a Reiki master.  For more information about Scratchy Girl's services go here https://scratchygirl.com/main . To contact a reporter for this story, email Bailey Zimmer mailto:bzimmer@infonews.ca  or call 250-808-0143 or email the editor mailto:news@infonews.ca . You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom mailto:tips@infonews.ca  and be entered to win a monthly prize draw. We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. SUBSCRIBE to our awesome newsletter here https://infotel.ca/newsletter . Find our Journalism Ethics policy here. http://infotel.ca/newsitem/code-of-ethics/it106782