Salt Rooms: The Salty Wellness Experience You Need to Try

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By JENNY SMITH MATTFELDT Published January 31, 2025

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Salt rooms, also called halotherapy, are designed to mimic the natural microclimate of a salt cave. You sit in a space lined with pink Himalayan salt while a specialized machine grinds salt into microscopic particles and disperses them into the air. As you breathe in this salty air, it's believed to help heal respiratory concerns and improve skin conditions. Thanks to its high salt concentration, the environment is naturally antibacterial, anti-allergenic, and anti-inflammatory. It's supposed to help clear mucus, reduce inflammation, and even boost your skin’s hydration levels.

Why Try It

I recently had a balloon sinuplasty, a procedure where they use a tiny balloon to widen your sinuses and reshape the cartilage, creating more space for airflow. The procedure went incredibly well, but as expected, it left my sinuses feeling pretty raw. I've had my eye on trying a salt room for a while, this felt like the perfect opportunity. My sinuses were in need of some serious healing, and I was curious to see if halotherapy could help speed up the recovery process.

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You know we had to look into the research. According to the American Lung Association, the benefits of salt therapy were first observed in 1843 by a Polish physician named Feliks Boczkowski. He noticed that salt mine workers had remarkably healthy lungs compared to other miners, who often suffered from respiratory issues. Nearly a century later, during World War II, a German doctor named Karl Hermann Spannagel made a similar discovery, his patients' respiratory health improved after spending time in salt caves while seeking shelter from bombings. These historical observations laid the foundation for what we now call halotherapy. (1)

What to Expect

Walking into the salt room was almost shocking, in the best way. You know it’s going to be made of pink Himalayan salt, but actually stepping inside feels like entering a cave in an alternate world. A soft pink-orange glow washes over every inch of the space, and as you walk to your seat, the loose salt crystals crunch beneath your feet. They turn on a little machine mounted on the wall, that grinds salt into microscopic particles and releases them into the air for you to inhale.

The walls looked like something straight off a Pinterest board, backlit bricks of pink salt, casting that dreamy, ethereal glow. I spent the whole session chatting, but this would be the perfect environment to put on a meditation or manifestation track. This is exactly what I mean when I say touch the dream, this the kind of experience I could imagine my future self doing regularly, so I'm getting comfortable with it now.

We sat in the salt cave for 45 minutes, and when you leave every inch of you is covered in the tiniest salt particles. Like most natural remedies, this isn’t something that hits you with instant, dramatic results. It’s more of a slow, subtle experience, deeply relaxing in the moment, but not necessarily mind-blowing right away. That is, until that night. I did a saline rinse on my sinuses that evening, and oh my gosh. I don't even want to tell you how much mucus it cleared out of my body.

How to Incorporate Halotherapy Into Daily Life

More scientific studies are needed to officially prove the effectiveness of halotherapy, but for now, the best evidence comes from personal experiences, and based on mine, I have to recommend it. The sheer amount of mucus it cleared from my sinuses was enough to convince me.

I don't think any of us have the time to go sit in a cave everyday but there are a some ways to bring the salt room to you. I have a couple salt lamps around the house, they make ionic salt diffusers, and my personal favorite the Osea Salt Scrub. The whole brand is incredible and if you struggle with KP (the bumps on the back of your arms and legs) its like magic for getting rid of that.

Himalayan Salt Lamp

Ionic Himalayan Salt Diffuser

Osea Salt Scrub

Beyond the health benefits, the salt room was a whole experience, kind of like sitting in a sauna or steam room. Sometimes, it’s just nice to escape reality for a bit, especially in a space that feels completely different from your everyday life. Would I go every weekend? Probably not. But the next time I get sick or my seasonal allergies flare up? I will absolutely be going back. And if you’re dealing with allergies, eczema, or respiratory issues, it might just be worth trying.

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Resources

(1) American Lung Association. (n.d.). Promising or placebo? Halo Salt Therapy: resurgence of a salt cave spa treatment. https://www.lung.org/blog/promising-placebo-salt-halotherapy