Soak your feet and remove toxins from your body. That's the idea behind some unusual parties in the valley. Women from upscale neighborhoods are paying big money on the promise of better health.

But do these footbath parties really work?

The Healthline 3 Team launched a hidden camera investigation. It's happening in places like Anthem Country Club, Red Rock Country Club and Spanish Trails. All around the country, women are going to ion cleanse footbath parties. The claim: Soak your feet in a special bath and watch the toxins pour out of your body.

"I think autistic children should really do this."

"This is someone with cancer. This is before. They did an hour session on him, look how it cleaned up the blood."

"So this cleans what? Just everything?"

"The liver, the kidney, the bladder, the urinary tract, the prostate, the female area."

The claims are incredible. The owners of Aloha Solutions say their IonCleanse Footbath can help very sick people. But that's not all. "You're actually becoming a better person because you're not holding onto all this stuff that holds you down and makes you miserable," claims Aloha Solutions' Barbara Auer.

At $40 a pop, Barbara says the IonCleanse Footbath is helping everyone from terminal cancer patients to arthritis sufferers. We wanted to check out her claims so we set up a party. A News 3 producer and photographer attended as guests and secured the hidden camera video.

The guests were first asked to lie on the floor and use a Chi Machine. It's supposed to loosen up toxins in the body. Then the women were asked to put their feet in a basin with distilled water, salt and a box that gives off an electrical charge.

After 30 minutes, Barbara Auer and her business partner say the footbath pulls toxins out of your feet and into the water. "It was pulling something out of us, disgusting things," party host Amanda said lauging. "Don't know if it was cleaning my organs. I don't know if I felt any different afterwards."

Auer told us the water changes color as it detoxifies the body. She says orange water shows joint problems, black indicates problems with the liver, gallbladder and anger. Brown allegedly shows liver, tobacco and cellular debris. Teal means you've cleaned out old medications.

They're claims that make no sense to Dr. Constantine George.

Healthline 3 Team: All of us have toxins in our blood?

Dr. George: Yes Beth, and so there may be ways to get those toxins out of our system.

Healthline 3 Team: But soaking your feet would not be one of them? Correct?  

With conflicting reports, we knew the proof was in the water. So we took samples from our footbath party to Silver State Lab to be analyzed. Tony Francis is a scientist with a Ph.D. "We did find a high amount of iron which again is a component of rust, iron oxide. So kind of supports the theory that the electric current is just oxidizing the metal rods and not really affecting your feet."

Besides iron, Dr. Francis found no evidence of heavy metals or other toxins in the water.

Healthline 3 Team: Tony, I'm going to ask Barbara to run the machine with no feet in it. What would you expect to see?

Dr. Francis: I would expect the water to turn a color somewhere between this - (shows sample water) where it's going to change color and rust out.

But Barbara and her business partner, Bonnie Ballinger, insist our scientist is wrong. They say it's not rust in the water, but toxins pulled out of the body.

Healthline 3 Team: What would happen if we ran this with no feet in it?

Bonnie: There would be no change in the color. There would be no change.

Healthline 3 Team: It would still be clear?

Bonnie: That's correct.

So we asked the IonCleanse advocates to run the machine without any feet in the water. The water changed color. The women blamed it on bad distilled water which they'd purchased from a local grocer. "You have to understand we were working with some really sick people," said Bonnie. "And this (water) is what Barb had in the car. We were coming here out of innocence. But yes, we do sometimes get some bad water."

So we offered to go buy more distilled water, this time from a drug store near our station. For the second time the water changed colors.

Healthline 3 Team: I am getting irritated. Because we all agreed the water was not going to change colors. You told me the water only changes colors when someone is sick and needs detox -  puts their feet in it. How do you explain this?

Barbara: It's probably the water.

Healthline 3 Team: And look, there is froth all over in the water which you're telling people is mucus.

Barbara: Well it is. It represents that.

Healthline 3 Team: That's not mucus. No feet have been in there. I just want to look out for our viewers. I don't want them buying something that doesn't work.

The women say they make no medical claims and they admit they aren't scientists. They say their clients feel better after these treatments and that's enough proof for them. "These people call me all the time," explains Barbara. "There has gotta be something there. People are not stupid. If it didn't work, they wouldn't call me."

IonCleanse supporters say there are too many people being helped by this product to ignore it. Barbara has been doing ionic footbath parties in the valley for four years. She claims she sees up to fifty clients a week.

Barbara and Bonnie also sell drinking water for $43 a case. It's called Aquavibe. They say it doesn't go through your stomach and improves your health.

We tested the water, too. See what we found Friday on News 3 at 5, 6 and 11.