Subscribe 
What to Know About Soften Prahran’s New Lymphatic Drainage Ritual with By Katia
Not all lymphatic drainage treatments are trying to do the same thing, and Soften’s new By Katia ritual offers a gentler, more sensory version of the category.
Lymphatic drainage is everywhere right now, spoken about in the language of de-puffing, contour and before-and-after transformation. But like so much in wellness, the category is more layered than it first appears. Some treatments are clinical and recovery-led. Some are booked in pursuit of that temporarily more defined look. Others reach for something less visible, but perhaps more lasting: the feeling of being eased back into your own body.
That was the promise I carried with me into Soften Prahran.
I booked the signature By Katia ritual while on my period, which meant I arrived already tender, inward and a little apprehensive. Founded by Katia Solari, By Katia is a ritual-led body-care line known for its oils and dry brushing, making the collaboration feel naturally aligned with Soften’s world. I had been told it could help ease period pain, something I struggle with badly, and I wanted very much to believe that could be true. Still, there is a particular vulnerability to turning up to any treatment when your body already feels like it is speaking too loudly.
Bookable as a 90-minute session, the ritual combines lymphatic pumping with dry brushing, cupping, facial drainage and head massage. Read quickly, it can sound like a familiar list of wellness cues. In the room, it felt more nuanced than that. Some moments were gentle and rhythmic. Others were unexpectedly intense, especially on a body already carrying pain and swelling. But it never felt rough for the sake of it. The intensity seemed to have direction, as though the treatment was trying to coax something through rather than force anything out.
The whole session took place face-up, which surprised me. There was somatic rocking, directional work, body cupping, facial massage and head massage, with hot towels and By Katia cleansing oil folded through it all. At times it felt soothing. At others, sharp enough to make me catch my breath. It was not the floaty, barely-there treatment I had half imagined. It had texture, contrast and a pulse of its own.
And yet what stayed with me, and what made me a lymphatic drainage convert in the process, was not the challenge of it but the release.
Online, lymphatic drainage is often flattened into one neat idea, as though every appointment is after the same result. In reality, it can take very different forms, from more clinical approaches to sculpting-led treatments and bodywork that feels slower, more sensory and harder to define.
What I know is this: my period pain eased. Then the bloating eased too. Not all at once, and not with the sort of drama modern wellness likes to sell, but enough to feel the difference. I left less clenched, less heavy and far more comfortable in my body than when I arrived. For anyone whose cycle can turn the body into a place of friction, that felt significant.
That felt especially striking at a time when wellness has become full of harder edges: more optimisation, more endurance, more visible proof that something has “worked”. Against that backdrop, there is something deeply appealing about a treatment that does not ask you to conquer yourself. This one did not feel like a performance of self-improvement. It felt more like being met where I was, then gently moved somewhere better.
Of course, bodies are different. Cycles are different. Pain is different. What felt relieving to me may land differently for someone else. But that, too, is part of the truth here. Bodies are different, and so are the ways they respond to touch, tension and release.
At Soften Prahran, the By Katia treatment felt considered, occasionally intense and, in my case, genuinely relieving. What made it memorable was not that it transformed me, but that it softened the harder edges of a day when I needed that most.
Loved our review of Soften Prahran’s new By Katia lymphatic drainage ritual? Continue the wellness mood with our edit of the best skincare essentials, plus our guide to Melbourne’s dreamiest wellness destinations in 2026.
