Salty sanctuary promises relaxation and, for some, a kind of healing
As Laurie Martin entered the chamber, salt crunched softly beneath her feet. She heard a muted crashing of waves on a beach, and a faint smell of the sea came to her. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, a dome of stars bathed her in a twinkling twilight.
She laid back in a recliner, closed her eyes, and for the first time in recent memory, felt totally relaxed. Martin found sanctuary in the quiet recess of a salt cave.
While Europeans have long spent time in natural salt caves to relax and heal, Chicago-area residents are enjoying the benefits of a new artificial salt cave in Naperville.
Timeless Spa & Salt Cave opened Aug. 20 and is already attracting repeat business from customers who find it transports them to another time and place.
Martin, of Westmont, who suffers tense muscles attributed to fibromyalgia, says the cave carries her away from the stress of the day.
"That's the only place where my muscles have let go completely," she said. "It just calms the whole body. It feels like you've been on vacation for a couple of days, when you haven't gone anywhere."
Jody Buckle, who owns Timeless Spa, said she'd wanted to build a salt cave since hearing from friends who'd discovered them in Poland.
She hired Margaret Smiechowski, who runs a simulated salt cave in Vermont, to oversee the construction.
It took two months to build the 12-by-26-foot cave, complete with artificial stalactites. It's big enough to hold eight people at a time, though usually one or two have the space to themselves, at $20 per person for a 45-minute session.
The cave is made of 10,000 pounds of rock salt, incorporated into the walls and 5 inches thick on the floor. Fiber optic lighting, salt lamps and sculpture, and Zero Gravity lounge chairs add to the ambience.
The room is kept at a comfortable 74 degrees and 50 percent humidity.
Customers typically wear their street clothes, and doff their shoes in favor of socks.
Other simulated salt caves are open at Megi's Spa in Park Ridge and the Galos Caves Spa in northwest Chicago, which also provides kids' toys to play in the salt.
Proponents believe salt has healing qualities for respiratory congestion, skin ailments like eczema, and stress-related conditions such as inflammation.
Though federal regulators have never reviewed such claims, believers say the relaxation alone that salt caves provide is worth the price of admission.
"You just feel like you're floating," Buckle said. "The last client, I had to kick out. She didn't want to leave."
• Find Timeless Spa & Salt Cave at (630) 428-0700 or timelessdayspa.com.