Elevating Wellness Through Salt Therapy WithTiffany Dodson - The Salt Suite

Can you imagine being able to improve your skin, alleviate stress, and even help your pets sleep better, all without using any harmful chemicals? Join me, in an invigorating conversation with Tiffany Dodson, the driving force behind the Salt Suite, as we uncover the wonders of salt therapy. Tiffany shares her personal journey, revealing how a transformative healing experience with her daughter led to her mission of popularizing this therapeutic treatment. Listen as she provides the inside scoop on the world of franchising and shares the highs and lows of steering a flourishing franchise.

Throughout our discussion, we delve into the abundant benefits salt therapy has to offer. Tiffany explains how this natural remedy can be a game changer for those wrestling with skin conditions like acne and eczema and enhance respiratory function.
We also take you on a virtual tour of the Salt Suite's unique space, designed especially for kids, where walls and floors are coated in salt and a sandbox waits for playtime. To top it off, we shed light on their exciting short session of salt booth therapy complemented by red light therapy, which promises anti-aging and circulation benefits. Don't miss out on our engaging dialogue about Mindful Minerals' all-natural Dead Sea products and the upcoming fun-filled events at the Salt Suite.

Plus upcoming events at the Salt Suite In Delray Beach Floria.

TheSaltSuite.com
Instagram The Salt Suite Delray

The Salt Suite Delray
3100 S. Federal Highway #3
561-316-7258

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Connected Body Podcast.

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Transcript

Laura London: 0:00

Hi everyone and welcome to the Connected Body podcast. I'm Laura London, founder of LauraLondonFitnesscom. I'm a regular mom who decided to step out of her comfort zone and get healthy and fit in my mid 40s with the family, and I have not looked back since. I'm a fitness expert, health coach, author, breaky master and self-love warrior. This podcast is for you. If you want to feel confident, powerful, connected and strong in your own body and life at any age, then the connected podcast is going to be your new home. Each week, I'll bring you a new health topic or thought leader to talk about all things health, fitness, mindset and living your best connected life. Are you ready? Let's go? Hi, everybody and welcome to another episode of the Connected Body podcast. I am super excited for today's guest. Her name is Tiffany Dodson from the Salt Suite. We are going to learn all about the benefits of salt therapy, so welcome, tiffany.

Tiffany Dodson: 1:20

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here and spending time with you, Laura.

Laura London: 1:25

Thank you All right. So, Tiffany, why don't we start with you telling us about how you got started with salt therapy and in the industry?

Tiffany Dodson: 1:36

It was gosh about 2018, 2019. At that time, my oldest daughter was 16 and she was working at a local salt cave. Frankly, I was not familiar with salt therapy prior to that. It's very common in Europe and the United States. We're learning more about it. It's becoming more common but, not as prevalent.

Tiffany Dodson: 1:58

She had been working with this lady and I learned a bit about it from her. She had been working with this lady for a little while and my daughter has allergies, as do I, and she had it was fall very bad allergies. It was turning probably getting close to a sinus infection. We told our daughter hey, you don't need to go to work today, you have your AP exams coming up. You've got all this stuff. You really need to take some time for you. And she said I have a commitment, I have to go, and out the door she went.

Tiffany Dodson: 2:29

Well, she came back and she sounded normal and my husband and I kind of shook those shoulders and said we've talked about this. What did you take? You're a smart young lady, what are you doing? And her response was I did a 15 minute session out of a 45 minute salt therapy session and we said wow, that got us really investigating salt therapy and reading a lot about the power that it has. Some of it, of course, is through testimonies of people who have used salt therapy for respiratory, skin endurance, stress, sleep, so many other things. Some of it's actually scientific. For those less familiar, there are medical and science studies about it and as we read more and more about it, my husband and I realized we were looking for another business opportunity at that time and we realized we wanted to help bring salt therapy to more people in the US.

Laura London: 3:25

Love it. I love that. It is like when I mentioned salt therapy to people, they're like I don't get it. I don't know what that is, I've never heard about it before. And then I know, just starting to share with them, they kind of like they start to become interested. So I think, like you said, it's really starting to be more people are more aware of it here in the United States. So I know you also have franchises. Yes, tell us about that.

Tiffany Dodson: 4:01

My husband and I have been in the franchising world for I count, oh my goodness, almost 25 years at this point of various experiences with various businesses. The first one where we were a franchisee owner would have dated back to 20, well, 2003. My husband and I worked for corporations, and my husband was at that time with a company called Arthur Anderson that in one day ceased to exist, leaving 65,000 people unemployed on their own.

Tiffany Dodson: 4:35

We've been talking. At that point. Our family was very young. Our oldest was born in 2001,. Our youngest daughter in 2003. We've been talking about going into business for ourselves Now. No one in our families had ever owned a business, Even though we were business majors and we had worked in the business world, even with some distributors and franchise-esque businesses.

Tiffany Dodson: 4:58

we'd never owned a business. We decided to take the path of a franchise because we felt like we'd be in our own business. We'd own our own business, yet we'd have business partners I guess you could say what turned out to be business family other franchisees to help us along that path. That's what happened in our first franchise, which is financial services. From there we fell in love with the model and we've done various things, from where we've worked at corporate offices and franchises to being franchisees to being area developers, where we had three areas with 90 units and we coached franchisees towards success. When we started looking at the Salt Suite, it was founded in 2011. We're now approaching 12 years in November, in 2023. Congratulations. It was founded by a wonderful couple here in Delray Beach. At that time they were ready to transition. They wanted to move back to the husband's home state of Vermont from Florida. They were looking at a cold relative to Delray Beach, florida. Yes, they were looking at selling the franchise. We came originally looking to buy a few territories of the concept and continuing in franchising because that business for us has been a wonderful fit for us. They said they were looking to sell the entire franchise or role.

Tiffany Dodson: 6:24

For those not perhaps familiar, listening, franchising is one of many ways to go into business. With franchising it depends upon the level of the franchisor and how many units they have. You at least have a path that's carved for you. You have an operating system as I described earlier. You have a family of other franchises out there. They're pros and cons to any operating system, but franchising is one that for my husband and I, it's fit well. We've been in a franchise system since 2003. We were very attracted to that opportunity. They were looking to sell With great timing. In November of 2019,. We purchased the franchise rights to a health and wellness business just before January of 20 and March of 20, when this little thing called COVID came about and became just a little disruption to many of us.

Laura London: 7:18

Wow, that's huge, tiffany, but you guys are doing amazing. I know you have franchises across the country.

Tiffany Dodson: 7:28

We are now at nine units. We have units in Florida, north Carolina, new Jersey and Illinois beautiful, beautiful.

Laura London: 7:36

Okay, so the benefits of salt therapy let's go there, because there's so many, so why don't you describe some of them?

Tiffany Dodson: 7:46

Well, we look at salt, and salt as anti-inflammatory. So it's getting the inflammation not only out of your respiratory tract but in other parts of the body. So to look at how we do that, we're taking pharmaceutical grade salt and we're crushing it to the size of two microns. Two microns is 30 times finer than the human hair. So, yes, it's getting in the respiratory tract, it's getting in even into the upper lungs and it's even going three layers deep in the skin.

Tiffany Dodson: 8:16

So that's how it's getting an inflammation in various parts of the body. It's able to, of course, thin mucus. So for people who have allergies, asthma, other respiratory conditions, it's thinning mucus as it's doing that and our sinus cavity. That's where we're catching germs, pollution, pollen, so it's helping rid our body of those things that we want to rid it of. In addition, it's going in and it's helping two chemical reactions in the skin. So number one it recreates our protective layer. For those with acne, eczema, psoriasis, etc. It's rebuilding that so you no longer have the signs and the itchiness of those conditions. For those like myself who want a little anti-aging help, that resurfacing layer helps smooth wrinkles and helps with the cosmetic effect of anti-aging Also. The second chemical reaction in the skin is it supports T cells. So it won't prevent you from getting sick, but it makes it less likely and when you do, because it's cleaning all this out when you do get sick.

Tiffany Dodson: 9:25

The T cells are ready to fight. So studies have shown the severity and the duration is shorter. So we look at that, we go on and we leave respiratory and we leave skin and we look at stress levels are lowered when we do salt therapy Endurance. Think about less inflammation in the body and better lung capacity, more oxygen, more power. So we've got immune support. We've got lower stress and better sleep. People with sleep apnea opening up those airways, less snoring. We even do it for our. We have pets that come in. My 12-year-old great Dane lab mix does it for inflammation and for snoring because he sleeps in the same room that I'm in, so I like it when he snores less.

Laura London: 10:09

That's so funny. That was one of my questions because I saw on the website pets and I'm like what my daughter has a Frenchie and the Frenchie's like exactly.

Tiffany Dodson: 10:20

Exactly so. The joke is, if he starts snoring, it's like buddy, it's time for another session.

Laura London: 10:25

That's so funny. Oh my gosh, that is great. I mean I don't think people really realize all the benefits that salt therapy has to offer, so I'm so glad you're sharing that with us. I know for me it helps tremendously when I've had upper respiratory infections. Oh my goodness, it's like night and day going in, absolutely.

Tiffany Dodson: 10:50

And it's antibacterial, so we even have a lot of children that will come in with respiratory and ear infections. It was going through there, steep in the skin, so we think the eardrum is not that thick. It's right there so we can get into that eardrum, help with the fluid that's trapped and if the infection is bacterial, it could be bacterial, it could be viral. But if it's bacteria is helping kill some of that bacteria naturally oh my gosh, that's fabulous.

Tiffany Dodson: 11:16

We had a testimony from a parent just about a week ago and her daughter was seeing an ENT in Miami, was headed to get tubes the daughter's about six years old and they started doing salt therapy regularly. They were coming in three or four sections per week and she came back and the ENT said I don't know what you're doing, but everything is clear. I have no need to operate.

Laura London: 11:40

Oh my gosh, that's so fabulous, tiffany.

Tiffany Dodson: 11:43

That is so fabulous.

Laura London: 11:45

Yeah, and I know describe. You have a room specifically just for children. It's so cute.

Tiffany Dodson: 11:50

Thank you. We do so our rooms typically and the children's room has this too salt on the floor, salt on the walls. So our adult room is more like a spot right, dimly lit. People sit back on a reclining chair and relax. The traditional session is 45 minutes. The children room is the exact same therapy. It's the same machine that's crushing that pharmaceutical grade salt and aerolizing it. However, in the children's room we have a beautiful mural to make it fun and bright, we have a television if a parent wants to watch something for entertainment and we have toys and books and we have a sand table where they can take the salt and play with it, and so it's very interactive.

Tiffany Dodson: 12:30

Parents often come in and play with their children and just enjoy that time. I like to say the biggest complaint that we have from children occurs when they have to leave. They don't want to go.

Laura London: 12:41

It's playtime. Oh my gosh. I brought both my grandsons with my daughter and they loved it. I mean loved it. They were covered from head to toe, walking out all white, but it was fabulous.

Tiffany Dodson: 12:53

It's a really, really fun thing to do and a beneficial thing to do with the kids, so and then for those who don't want to go to the full 45, we have some adults who are like I'm on lunch, I'm kind of busy. We offer the exact same efficacy and salt therapy and a salt booth, and that session is 15 minutes and if they want to stay a little bit longer, we can add in infrared and red light to that therapy as well.

Laura London: 13:18

That's beautiful. So that's another thing on my list, because I know that besides just the salt therapy, you offer other therapies. So, like you mentioned the salt booth I know you have it has red light therapy in it.

Tiffany Dodson: 13:33

Yes. So red light is great, especially for the skin. So for our clients who do have eczema, psoriasis, those those who want a little anti aging boost, red light goes to the mitochondria of our cells, so that's the fuel, house, the energy, and it reunites the energy of our cells, helping our cells stay younger and healthier and revivalized, so it can really help. There are many other benefits to red light, but those are the key ones that most of us focus upon. So it's a nice compliment to salt therapy. Infrared, of course, great for circulation. Infrared is not your old school sauna where we think about pouring the hot water. Right, you're just dripping sweat. Infrared is a dry heat and we want to get your core temperature to about 101. It's a biohack.

Tiffany Dodson: 14:19

So that your body thinks it has something attacking it. At that point the body begins to increase circulation and it signals to fat cells to release what it's holding because it thinks it's sick. Fat cells could be holding the germ that's making you sick, so it wants to release that, and so what some people do a mistake with infrared is they think they have to take it up to like 140 or something crazy.

Tiffany Dodson: 14:42

Looking at the sauna At that point, your body's not fooled right, your body just knows you're cooking it and it doesn't have a fever, and so it kind of ruins the biohack.

Laura London: 14:53

Wow, that's fabulous. I love the sauna and infrared sauna. Love, love, love it. We have one here at my house too. And then you have the mat, the pulse-electromagnetic. Tell us about that, because that's also one of my favorites.

Tiffany Dodson: 15:09

It is a pulse-electromagnetic field mat. We call it PEMF for short, and it has several different therapies in it. There are stones in it, so we have amethyst, tourmaline and other stones. There is a red light in it, but of course if you really want red light you would go to the booth, frankly, for that full body benefit. There is infrared heat. So the nice thing is, when it heats up it's not like a heating pad, that's just heating the surface of the skin.

Tiffany Dodson: 15:38

It's going three or four inches deep into that muscle that could be achesore from working out or turning the wrong way, potentially as we age. Other technology that it has it has magnets and as the magnets move it's encouraging circulation throughout the body.

Tiffany Dodson: 15:54

So I think we get a tight, stiff muscle. The circulation is not great there because it's just clenched up. This is pushing that blood flow into those tight, sore muscles, helping alleviate pain, helping alleviate tension. Another benefit that's been found is it can bring that blood flow with your own, of course, vitamins and oxygen in your blood around bones to help lessen chances of osteoporosis. It also has been shown in studies to lower the incidence of migraines, which is great because I'm frankly prone to get those. So it's a therapy that's a nice compliment to everything else that we're doing. It's obviously not for those that have a pacemaker metal enhancements in the body, if you've had certain surgeries that required metal and not for those who are pregnant, but for the rest of us it's a nice therapeutic compliment to what we're doing.

Laura London: 16:47

All right, everyone, come on, we're going right now. Yes, let's go. We spent all day there, so I know when you walk into the salt suite you have some like a wall full of beautiful, beautiful lotions and potions and all things salt. So tell us about that.

Tiffany Dodson: 17:06

Yes, Years ago, the salt suite selected to partner with mindful minerals. We're a distributor of theirs. A mindful mineral is owned by a couple that live here in Florida. The husband is originally from Jordan and so he grew up, as he said one time, making soap from the Dead Sea. He said, when you're a kid and you live in that area, that's what you do anyway. And so he became a chemist and this, of course, became his full time occupation and business. His wife, melissa, grew up in the cosmetic industry and she became very tired of cosmetics having chemicals in them that, while they may have had beauty benefits, they had some not so nice side effects.

Laura London: 17:49

Yes.

Tiffany Dodson: 17:50

So they make mindful minerals with Dead Sea ingredients. So it's Dead Sea mud and Dead Sea salt in each product. Some have mud, some have salt, but they have one or both of the other and in addition to that they use natural, plant-based, plant-based ingredients. Also on EWGorg, which rates cosmetics. It rates also household cleaners. It rates a one which is excellent.

Laura London: 18:16

Oh my gosh, that is fabulous.

Tiffany Dodson: 18:18

Yes, it rates a one and the products are all skincare lines that anyone in the household could use. That was their goal.

Tiffany Dodson: 18:25

So, when out they could. Mom use it, dad can use it, the teenagers can use it, and you don't have to worry about the toxicity that you find in many skin cares, starting from Dead Sea mud to some wonderful peptides that help us with our skin help with acne as well. If we have teenagers at home with that. They have some new magnesium line products for skincare. That's a big trend right now and it has a lot of healthcare benefits. Yes, all-uronic acid. We also have a little separate line that we make just for the salt suite. We have a Dead Sea scrub and coconut and key lime. We like to say the best one ever. We're just a little biased, but it's wonderful for the hands and body. Now, mindful minerals has a great one for the face, this one's more for the body and hands, and we have a scented essential oil to help with opening the respiratory tract and reducing stress. We make that ourselves as well. And then we carry some Himalayan salt products too, everything from beautiful Himalayan salt lamps to remind you to do salt therapy.

Tiffany Dodson: 19:31

I have one back there, one over there. I'm going to show you guys how I save you To even Himalayan tequila glasses.

Laura London: 19:39

Oh, that's hysterical.

Tiffany Dodson: 19:42

To Himalayan salt nightlights. Those make great gifts during holidays or for kids, so we carry that as well.

Laura London: 19:51

I love it. Oh my gosh. Yeah, and I know you have some events coming up.

Tiffany Dodson: 19:56

Yes, we have some wonderful ones coming up with you. Yes, we have two nights. Your dates are the 19th and the 26th. Yes, If I'm not mistaken, yes and so you have four sessions, total between two on each day, of sound healing, and you can describe that better than I.

Laura London: 20:18

So yeah, well, the combination of salt and sound. So you're in this beautiful. If you have not been in the salt suite, it's so beautiful with the salt surrounding you, on the floor, on the walls. You're relaxing in a reclining chair and it's this beautiful. Just when you walk in, your nervous system just goes. So the combination of the healing benefits of the salt floating through the air and I'll be playing the sound bowls which will help to reduce further your nervous system, get you in that rest and repair state and it's just a beautiful, beautiful combination.

Tiffany Dodson: 21:01

I've always found sound therapy to be almost like an internal massage. Yes, you all know what the external massage is like. It's an internal massage really.

Laura London: 21:11

Yes, Because we hear sound. Yes, but we are 70% or more water and the sound travels through us, through every cell in the body. Just think of how beautiful that is If you're coming in from traffic and your whole body is buzzing and you start to relax and your cells start to organize and be more in a beautiful pattern. That's when healing and regeneration starts to happen. This combination of salt and sound is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Tiffany Dodson: 21:46

We're very excited about it.

Laura London: 21:49

Don't you have something coming up too with the mud mask?

Tiffany Dodson: 21:53

Yes, we have on Saturday, the 21st, at 2 o'clock and 3 o'clock. Actually We've added on an extra session of it. We have Melissa Slees, who is the wife of the husband wife team of Mindful Minerals, coming in to help us with a mud and mimosa. Party is what we call it In the mud and mimosa party. It's self-applied, but Melissa will walk everyone through a self-applied facial using Dead Sea Mud and the other skincare products that I mentioned earlier all Dead Sea products that are naturally based. Then afterwards everyone will go in for a salt therapy session. You'll be getting extra skincare that day, extra pampering. Melissa is a delight. She's so knowledgeable about skincare and skin health. Of course we're serving mimosa too. That just makes it even more fun. It's a great event to come, even by yourself. It's a great event to bring a girlfriend or, for that matter, men do attend too. It's fine for guys and gals.

Laura London: 23:02

More men are getting into self-care and really their skin. I think that's a great thing. So yeah, wife and husband, why not? That would be a nice thing to do.

Tiffany Dodson: 23:13

We have quite a few men who buy our skincare line as well. There's some soaps, there's skin cleansers, and most of it is just that skin health. It's the peptides and other things that help us just keep healthy, glowing skin. It's a nice complement to the salt therapy.

Laura London: 23:28

Well then you can see Tiffany's skin. I mean, she's glowing. She's always glowing, Tiffany, where can we find more about the SaltSuite on the internet? Where can people find you?

Tiffany Dodson: 23:41

We have a website, of course, the saltsuitecom, and we have on the saltsuitecom we have general overview of the benefits of salt therapy if you want to check more out. We also have blogs. We even have a section called medical blogs if you want to read the research behind it. Beautiful, and we have a location tab. So if you're listening outside of Southeast Florida, we have four locations here, but if you're outside of Southeast Florida, wherever you may be, you can find a location nearest you.

Laura London: 24:08

I love it. I'll put all the links and where they can find you on Instagram and all that because your website really has so much information on it. So if anyone wants to dig deeper into learning more about salt therapy, it's also called halo therapy, correct? Yes?

Tiffany Dodson: 24:27

halo is Greek for salt, so halo therapy. In the industry we say halo therapy Generally, we just call it salt therapy.

Laura London: 24:34

Salt therapy, yeah, all right. Well, thank you so much for being on this episode of the Connected Body podcast. I really learned a lot, and I know everybody else did, and it was a pleasure to have you, my pleasure to be here. Thank you All right, everyone, and we'll see you on the next episode of the Connected Body podcast. Have a fit and fabulous day. Bye-bye.