It was during a family trip to Thailand that our former lead engineer first got the idea for a new kind of hydrotherapy.  Below is an excerpt of his story.

“During my trip to Thailand to adopt my son, my family and I took an excursion to visit a national park in southern Thailand with a beautiful waterfall. Our driver for the day was from a nearby fishing village and told us interesting stories about the surrounding area.  One story was about a method the fisherman have been using to clean and scale the fish that were delivered every day to his village. He described large barrels that were pumped full of very small bubbles and how the fish would soak in these barrels. He said that it made cleaning and scaling the fish much easier. I joked with him and told him that I design and manufacture hydrotherapy baths and I do the same thing but only for people. Although we joked about what he was describing, I was very intrigued by what he told me.

Later that same year, I read an article during a business trip to California about how the agricultural industry was experimenting with crop yields by oxygenating the water used to grow the crops. Again I was intrigued by this research and how it could have applications in a hydrotherapy bath. When I returned from California, I was determined to develop a bathing method that could naturally clean a person while providing elevated levels of dissolved oxygen to the skin.”

Over the course of the next few years, the Jason^® Hydrotherapy engineering team researched and experimented with a lot of ideas, but the breakthrough finally came with the discovery of microbubbles and their applications in the medical and Navy research fields.  The engineering team concentrated on developing a method of producing microbubbles in a jetted bath which meant creating a completely new pumping and delivery system.  At this time they were pitching the idea of a gentle form of hydrotherapy that would clean the body without soap.  Of course, management was a bit underwhelmed with this claim.  “Soap is cheap” was a common reply in those early product development meetings. 

The Jacuzzi family was notorious for high standards, and senior leadership sent the team back to the lab (actually a curtained off portion of our headquarters where the secret magic happens) with the challenge to show how this investment would significantly improve the lives of our customers.

In the months that followed they tested (in-house and with outside experts), proved and documented the unique attributes and benefits of these microbubbles. 

• The oxygen levels in the bath were 70% higher than that of regular tap water.
• The bubbles would not race to the top of the bath, but remained suspended under the water, blanketing the bather with a cloud of oxygen, and giving the water a silky texture.
• The wisps of what looked like steam coming off the top of the water were actually negative ions and the bath was producing them at “therapeutic levels”!
• The microbubbles were imploding under the water creating energy and allowing the bath to maintain (and slowing increase) its water temperature without the help of a heater.
• Oh yeah…and it DID actually clean the skin without the use of soaps.  The tiny microbubbles were so small and negatively charged that they could enter a pore, bond to dirt or impurities and lift them out.  The skin was now clean and moisturized without any chemicals.

Mission accomplished.  Management approved moving forward and MicroSilk debuted at the 2011 Kitchen and Bath Industry Show.  Since that day, we continue to research and discover the benefits of this new hydrotherapy.  Nearly every month, we receive letters, email, and thank you notes from those whom MicroSilk has helped.