Here’s Mud in Your Eye . . . and Everywhere Else, for That Matter

Some come because they loved slopping around in mud puddles as children but their parents forbade it. Others claim that soaking in mud--or painting it on their bodies and then baking in the sun--is a wondrous, all-around folk remedy: chicken soup for the outside of the body.

Still others (particularly young women who can be seen scrubbing dirt off their faces and asking friends, “Am I beautiful yet?”) consider mud a cosmetic: mother nature’s answer to autumn-leaf skin and summer-straw hair.

Then there are the enthusiasts who come for the fun and idiocy that mud bathing can inspire. (At some spas, mud bathing is communal and but one slippery step away from mud wrestling.)

And, of course, there are people who take their mud seriously: Connoisseurs who know their Dead Sea goo from their Arizona red clay gunk. Status-conscious jet setters who point out that you need a physician’s prescription before you can get a mud bath in several European countries.

There are even mud lovers who get down and dirty--literally--for spiritual advantages. These practitioners feel that their ritual, like any intense contact with nature, is good for the soul. Just the ticket to restore peace and calm to those who’ve had too much concrete lately.

Whatever the reasons for indulging in it, Southern California’s mud season is in full swing. Or full fling, as the case may be.

There are two prime Southern California locations for full-body mud bathing, both in Riverside County and that part of the state known as the Inland Empire: Murietta Hot Springs (“The Peaceful Place”) in Murietta and Glen Ivy Hot Springs (“Club Mud”), about 30 miles to the north in Corona.

As you might suspect from the nicknames, the two spas could hardly be more different in their approaches to mud. At Club Mud, mud bathing is a party. At the Peaceful Place, it’s more like a religious experience.

Glen Ivy’s “Club Mud” offers mud baths free with general admission ($12.50 on weekends, $9.75 during the week). Most of the laughter at this place can be heard emanating from the spa’s big mud puddle, actually a concrete pool filled thigh-deep with water and outfitted with a bird-bath-like receptacle of clay at the center.

The idea here is to slip on a swimsuit, step into the pool, grab some clay, and smear it on your body or someone else’s. Writhing around like a wart hog is optional. So are creating gigantic clay noses and sculpting devil horns, which can be spotted occasionally in the spring but reportedly increase toward the end of summer. (Last year, in recognition of the artistic talent of Glen Ivy’s regulars, a clay mask competition was held on Halloween.)

After mud has been applied to the body, bathers stretch out on chaise longues for the sun-baking of the clay, which is mined from nearby Temescal Canyon to the tune of 20 to 30 tons a year. When it’s dry, the loosest clay is brushed off the body with the hands, and what remains is then soaked off in the pool and rinsed off under outdoor showers.

A cautionary note for those who still think mud bathing is glamorous: Mud stinks. That is, if it’s prepared correctly.

Flavored With Mineral Water

The odor of properly presented mud is not that of rich potting soil, which experienced gardeners consider to be as fragrant as night-blooming jasmine. No, mud that’s intended to be slathered all over the body--at least in Southern California--is flavored with mineral water full of sulfur from underground hot springs.

To most people’s way of smelling, this produces a scent as pleasant as that of curdled milk. But, according to veteran mud bathers, the smell of sulfur-laced mud is one to which noses swiftly become accustomed and usually manage to overlook.

While there is no exact count on how many people come for Glen Ivy’s mud baths (the spa also offers swimming facilities, massages and other treatments), the number of guests is increasing. Dramatically.

By general manager Mike Baim’s estimate, about 70,000 people visited Glen Ivy in 1985, up 20,000 over 1984. Baim expects this year’s attendance, however, to be about the same as last year’s, chiefly because prices were raised recently. Even so, a typical mud season (April through October) weekend, draws about 300 to 500 visitors a day, Baim said, but crowds of 800 are not unusual on holidays at this spa with no overnight accommodations.

As Dr. Carole Hurray, a San Diego-based family practitioner who was enjoying a mud bath with friends on a recent weekend at Glen Ivy, described the experience: “It’s like being a kid again. You lose all of your inhibitions.”

What did the doctor think of the reputed health benefits associated with mud?

“Just relaxing is healthy,” she said, as she lounged in the sun, allowing the mud to dry on her skin while she deftly avoided the issue. “This sure beats having a mud pack facial.”

Spas are not permitted to make health claims for their mud, but it’s not hard to find mud bathers who will describe, at length, which of their aches and pains were alleviated by certain types of clay or mud. Everything from arthritis to ear aches has been said to improve with the so-called “cure from the earth.”

Health Benefits Doubted

But, according to Dr. Arnold Klein, a Beverly Hills-based dermatologist who is an assistant professor of dermatology at UCLA and Stanford University schools of medicine, there is virtually no scientific evidence to verify anecdotal health benefits from mud.

“I don’t think there’s any benefit from bathing in the mud in Southern California,” he said by telephone.

“However, there have been some reports on benefits from mud from the Dead Sea in Israel. Researchers have suggested that some component of the mud there is beneficial for psoriasis. It was written up in the proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Psoriasis.”

Even so, Klein still doubts whether it’s the mud that does the trick.

“I honestly don’t feel there’s any benefit in mud. At the Dead Sea it’s probably not the mud so much as the fact that people go there and relax and aren’t under their usual stresses.”

(Mud from the Dead Sea has found a home in Southern California. Aida Grey’s Beverly Hills salon uses mud from the Dead Sea for facials and upper body treatments. At other salons in the area, an assortment of mud or clay facials can be found. And, for the do-it-yourself fan, Neiman-Marcus sells dry clay from the chic Two Bunch Palms Hotel and Spa in Desert Hot Springs at $30 for four ounces. Two Bunch Palms does not have full-body mud-bathing facilities--yet--but the spa is known for providing its guests with complimentary mud facials outdoors under a gazebo.)

A Reverential Attitude

At Alive Polarity’s Murietta Hot Springs, where full-body mud bathing has been offered since the turn of the century, the attitude toward the practice is almost reverential.

Murietta, which provides overnight lodging for guests, is run by a nondenominational spiritual organization (the Alive Polarity Fellowship), which espouses vegetarianism, a holistic approach to health and decidedly traditional views on such subjects as sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

(Members of the opposite sex are not permitted to share rooms unless they are married. All guests must sign agreements stating that they will not consume alcohol or drugs on the premises and will not play music loudly.)

Mud baths here ($32) are seen as just one aspect of Murietta’s mind-body-spirit tonic for visitors who may also attend exercise classes, study the benefits of forgiveness, learn to prepare gourmet vegetarian food or submit to the Alive Polarity brand of energy-balancing massage.

There is a separate facility for mud bathing on the spa’s 46 acres, the “tule root mud bath building,” last remodeled in 1929. Inside, after a “needle” shower (the liquid equivalent of sewing needles), a bather enters a private mud-bathing chamber, disrobes and steps into a deep tub full of black mud, harvested complete with tule roots at Murietta’s on-site mud farm.

(The tule root, a member of the cattail family, is believed to absorb and store the concentrated minerals of the hot springs. But just as mud is not pretty, mud sprinkled with tule roots is likewise no visual treat. Tule roots floating in a tub oozing with black soil tend to resemble dead praying mantises.)

Following a dozen or so minutes of lounging in the mud and perhaps applying it to the hair and shoulders, the bather is helped from the tub by an attendant bearing a hose to gently wash off the mud. Further dirt removal ensues in a tub of fresh mineral water, in which the bather is invited to drink a mild herbal remedy said to facilitate the cleansing and strengthening process.

Finally, bathers proceed to a room in which they’re wrapped mummy-style in wet, ice-cold, herb-scented sheets for 20 minutes or so of rest--unless they’ve been through this portion of the ritual before and refuse the cold-sheet treatment. Those who insist that freezing sheets will not promote their experience of inner peace are cheerfully offered the dry, warm-sheet version of the treatment, but this is not usually presented up front as a standard option.

“We provide the environment of peacefulness for people to heal themselves,” explained Jenefer Denber, who’s directed Murietta’s Nature Care Spa for the last 3 1/2 years and has found the demand for mud baths to be steadily increasing . . . so much so that bath-house hours are frequently extended into the evening to accommodate mud-eager guests unable to secure appointments during the normal operating times.

Murietta attracts both day-only users of its facilities and residential guests worldwide.

Sixty-four-year-old Jonathan Clement of Sylvania, Ohio, for instance, has been visiting the spa for two weeks each year for the last three years.

Rid of Aches and Pains

“I take a mud bath here every chance I can get,” he said, adding that he would probably have 10 mud baths in the course of this year’s 14-day stay. “Your skin becomes about as smooth as it ever was. And I’ve gotten rid of a lot of aches and pains. I’ve had back trouble for years and I feel it helps a lot. It rejuvenates you. I try to take a mud bath every time I play tennis. It gets the aches and pains out.”

But the real reason Clement is so fond of the mud may have nothing to do with back aches or tennis pains.

As he admitted, “I never could pass up a mud puddle when I was growing up. I think that’s the attraction.”

For many mud bathers, however, the lure of the dirt has nothing to do with childhood memories, physical ailments or cosmetic bonuses. These enthusiasts find that a soak in the mud, coupled with a mineral bath and an herbal-sheet wrap, performs a stunning balancing act on the psyche.

Tom Strathairn, who teaches classes on mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health at Murietta, claimed that the treatment not only helps him to release stress but to gain insight on issues with which he’s dealing.

“Everything’s in a little bit better perspective after a mud bath and a wrap. And I can be a better teacher and counselor,” he said, noting that the room in which people lie quietly wrapped like mummies is almost a chapel to him.

Antidote for Stress

“I do mud baths for particular reasons, primarily to slow me down and remember who I am. If I’ve just gone to Los Angeles to be in a seminar situation or a high-stress situation, I’ll be in the mud.”

Strathairn’s also found that time invested soaking in mud can mean time not spent sick in bed.

“I also take mud baths if I feel like I’m starting to get worn down, about to get a cold,” he explained. “I find if I can perspire in the hot mud, I can eliminate from my body a certain amount of toxicity that I don’t have to eliminate through a runny nose or a sore throat.”

Leave it to a seminar leader to utilize mud as a time-management device.