At Austin Salt Cave located on East William Cannon Drive, owner Kyle Nigro and manager Mallory Ekhlassi hope to bring more wellness options to South Austin through halotherapy sessions, sound baths, yoga classes, workshops and more.

The backstory

Austin Salt Cave first opened in Lakeway in 2016 offering halotherapy, a dry salt treatment said to help alleviate allergies, respiratory issues and some skin conditions. Nigro said the practice originated in 19th century Poland when a physician noticed salt miners did not have as many respiratory issues compared to other miners.

“They realized that breathing salt into the air, particularly pharmaceutical grade salt helps alleviate allergies, bacteria [and] pathogens,” Nigro said.

The spa, which contains over 25,000 pounds of salt, was constructed to mimic a salt mine. Austin Salt Cave relocated to the Century South business center in South Austin in 2023. They have since enhanced the business’ offerings with detox and relaxation packages, sound baths and classes including yoga, breath work and more.Ekhlassi said they are always looking for new experiences to offer at Austin Salt Cave to be a “pillar of wellness” in South Austin.

“Overall wellness, I think, is mind, body [and] spirit, right?” she said. “The gym is body and I think what we offer is mind, body [and] spirit because you're in there getting the salt, but then if you're coming to a class, you're getting exposed to different things that you might not usually try ...we're all in this rat race, hustle and bustle, and I think you step in and you're like, ‘Okay, I can relax.’”

The features

There are three forms of Himalayan pink salt in Austin Salt Cave’s halotherapy room: the refined-cut squares covering the walls, rough-cut chunks that cover the baseboards and coarse ground salt, similar to the kind that is eaten, covering the floor.Two types of dry salt therapy are at work during a session, Nigro said. Passive therapy involves being in the salt room and breathing in the salty atmosphere to get the benefits. Active therapy is at work when the salt is blown into the room through a section in the wall.

“The active therapy is taking pharmaceutical grade pure sodium—which is 99.9% sodium, has no moisture in it, it has no other particles or anything in it—we add it into a machine that grinds it into a very, very fine powder and then blows it into the room,” Nigro said. “If you look just the right way and catch it, you can actually see it looks like it's snowing in there.”

A session is about 45 minutes long and guests can sit or lay on a yoga mat. It's common for guests to walk out with a thin layer of salt on their clothes, Nigro said. Yoga, sound baths and meditation workshops also take place inside the salt cave. The space is also available to rent for parties and events.The impact

Nigro and Ekhlassi said they’re grateful for the community they have built, and they hope to continue adding and expanding to increase accessibility to wellness opportunities in Austin Salt Cave’s pocket of South Austin.

“I don't feel like there's a cap,” she said. “It's not like, ‘Okay, this is what we do, and this is it. We're just salt.’ ... Let's see how we can continue to expand and just create more of a positive impact on the community.”

• 801 E. William Cannon Drive, Ste. 110, Austin
• www.austinsaltcave.com