Halo Salt Spa

Part of the joy of travel is you get to do things that, if you were home, you’d be inclined to go, “What kind of damned-fool idea is that?”

When you’re away, though, it sounds like it might be kinda fun.

Our friend invited us to join him in a “Salt room”, which is supposed to mimic the natural salt rooms found in some cold climate a thousand feet below ground and be good for asthma and respiratory conditions. The difference is this is a street-level storefront in NYC.

The company is called Halo Salt Spa. (http://www.haloair.com/), and the concept is pretty simple. They aerosolize salt and poof it into the air in a room with you. Rooms have what looks like salt sprayed on the wall like popcorn ceiling, although I suspect this is more a stucco prop than the real thing. The same is true of the “salt” on the floor although I admit I didn’t taste either one to make certain.

What you could tell, though, was when the ionizer was squirting salt dust into the air, because you could see, smell and taste it.

The rooms are set up for one or two people – I went alone and the other two went together. There’s a big television in the room (with a decidedly dusty/salty sheet of glass over its case – I can’t imagine that the salt in the air is good for those electronics!). You go sit on the lounger for an hour, breathing.

Yup, that’s it. We’d put our coats in a locker, which unfortunately had my glasses as well, so I had to just punch buttons on the television remote until something happened. Turned out, that was kind of a waste anyhow because there was nothing interesting on (that I could find, anyhow). I ended up watching a rerun of “American Pickers” (I think it’s on NatGeo or the History Channel) with the sound off while I listened to a book on my iPod (which I had thought to grab).

I guess as an homage to the fact that the natural caves are in northern climates, the place was chilly. There was a blanket on each of the loungers to use. 50 minutes later, they come through on an intercom and tell you that your session is over and it’s time to check out.

Does it help? Who knows? I don’t doubt that they were doing what they said, because you could both see the salt coming out of the vent and you could taste it on your lips and skin afterwards. I don’t really have any breathing problems, though, so don’t know if it made a difference there or not. It can’t hurt, though.

The other question – even more importantly – is whether it’s worth $65.00 to breathe salt for an hour (cheaper if you buy packages).

Before anyone starts with the judgmental stuff about, “. . . .more money than common sense,” I’ll point out that we didn’t pay that. Our friend got a "Groupon” (http://www.groupon.com/ - but it's only in larger cities -- sign up – it’s worthwhile) that gave a huge discount. New businesses, especially, use this service to offer a great deal to try to get you in to try them out. The sessions were supposed to be $18.00 each with the coupon, which is cheap enough that we’d try something new to see if it is worthwhile.

The bonus for us – the technician up front said that there was a problem with the ionizer in the double room during their session, so they’d comp them with two more free sessions – our friend who lives here can use them – and the cost was effectively reduced to just under $11.00 a session.

Not a bad deal at all for a new experience.