Client Feature: Jodie Appel

panorama of the Asheville Salt Cave

It was Friday afternoon when I met up with Jodie Appel, owner of Asheville Salt Cave in Downtown Asheville on Eagle Street. Appel is a tall woman with glowing skin and a nice manner, although she gave off the impression that she was often doing several things at once most days - she seemed cheerful and warm. When you first enter the Salt Cave business, you are greeted by a multitude of salt items - things like shot glasses made of salt rock, salt lamps, and salt bath soaks. The front of the business has the look of a spa. Appel suggested we do the interview in the cave and I was keen to see for myself what it was all about. She took me back to a dark room, colorfully lit with tiny lights. It looked like some sort of cave paradise. There were two small water fixtures on either side of the room, some comfy mats on the salted floor with pillows and blankets and comfortable looking chairs, as well. We settled in on the mats and she described the room for me:

“We are in a room filled with 20 tons of Polish salt from floor to ceiling.  It’s a completely sustainable environment, so it’s actually regrowing itself as we’re in here. On our water features you can see where the salt is growing upon itself. We also get stalactites that grow from our ceiling or from the water features, so it’s always continuously growing. This room is made up of salt that we’ve taken from three different mines in Poland and on the floor we have a mixture of Dead Sea salt and that helps recreate the same 84 trace elements that we all have in our bodies and the same elements that this particular salt contains. So things like iron, magnesium, copper...things like that.

Tell me more about where the salt comes from:

We’ve taken our salt from three different mines.  One of them is called the Wieliczka mine, which is still a mine today, but they’ve changed it now to be more of a wellness center where people live for months at a time to heal from all sorts of things like pneumonia and bronchitis, asthma and allergies, skin conditions, and digestive disorders. It’s quite a beautiful space they’ve created down there that’s been around since the 1800s. They have cathedrals made out of salt, chandeliers made of salt, and statues made of salt, it’s really magical. So we were blessed to bring a little of that magic here to Asheville to share.

How did you originally get into the salt business?

My father visited a salt cave; they were on their way down here from New Jersey and they stopped in Williamsburg. I didn’t live here at the time, I lived in Greenville, and my dad has asthma and allergies, and he had a punctured lung, at that time, from a car accident. They came across a brochure in Williamsburg and didn’t know what it was about. He went in and he just thought it was a really cool space. He’s a pharmacist, so he wasn’t really thinking anything of health benefits - truly. Then he came down here, talked it up nonstop, left and about two weeks later he called us and said, ‘You know I haven’t used my inhaler in about two weeks now.’ He was pretty much even more sold than he was before, so he was on the path of ‘how do we build this? I want to create these for me and for lots of other people to heal from.’ I was a massage therapist beforehand, so I had the holistic background, and he just felt like I would be the person that would be able to take on this endeavor. I have a brother and sister and they’re involved with the business and my parents are involved as well. It’s kind of a small, family thing we have going. We all have a certain role we play, my sister does graphic design, my brother does publicity, Mom does advertising, things like that...

When exactly did you created this business?

It was about 3 ½ years ago now that we started to look at this project, we all had something to bring to the table. I think that was what my father envisioned originally. It has been working really nicely for us.

Do you have any inspirational stories from working here?

We have a woman who had radiation burns on her body from thirty years ago.  She had some chemo treatment and she’s very big into salt; she has lots of different salts on her table and she actually bathes in salt. I only knew her very briefly, but she came here with some friends and sat in for the salt cave session. I saw that she had been back that week about two times. Later, I saw her in the grocery store and she pulled me aside and she said, ‘I wanted to tell you that in one-to-two treatments my radiation burns of thirty years are totally gone.’ She said, ‘I wish I had thought faster to take pictures, but I didn’t think this was going to happen so quickly.’ So that’s a really beautiful story; we didn’t know that it would help things like that. We get a lot of people that have allergies or asthma issues that have been telling us that they’re healing really well, better than with other medications. I have a woman that comes in for sessions to help with her lupus and it totally has changed her life, when no other therapy or doctor care has really helped. A lot of people come in and then call me the next day and tell me that some kind of creative opening has happened. So not on just a physical level, but on a creative and emotional level it can bring on a change.

Have you noticed any changes personally since being around the salt?

My main thing that I noticed is physically.  I don’t think I had bad skin, but I did have acne as a problem as an adult and I feel like my skin has been so much better since being around this environment. Before we opened this business, I started to have salt lamps in my place and eating with more salt and I noticed my energy level totally shifted. I’ve always been a very drained person, taking naps during the day, and that’s totally different now. Another huge thing is that ever since going to the first salt cave in Williamsburg, which was three years ago, I haven’t been sick since. That’s a huge thing, because I was really a person who would catch colds easily. Being around here we get people that come in with colds or flu and I have not been sick at all.

Tell me a little bit about the things you have for sale up front:

We have a lot of people that don’t live here that like to come in and experience it. They have their own issues, but can’t always make it in to see us on a regular basis because they don’t live here. I feel like that’s like their way to bring something home.  from beautiful lamp styles to bath salts to inhalers, neti pots, and even salt jewelry.

The Asheville Salt Cave has two water fixtures in its room, making it a perfectly self-sustaining room and different from any other salt cave in America. The Asheville Salt Cave offers 45 minutes for the normal session time. They also offer classes, such as yoga and guided meditation. They have movie nights and kids’ activities and also offer massage, facials, and Reiki healing. Appel says she is open to whatever else the community wants to see in the space.

To find out more about the Asheville Salt Cave, visit them at their website: ashevillesaltcave.com

They have a lovely description of the benefit of salt there that says:

“Every breath of salty air we take in is an irreplaceable, natural benefit for many of our ailments. On the basis of medical knowledge and experience, we have created our unique therapeutic salt cave, where you can find the same environment as you would in natural underground salt mines. The salt in our cave comes from mines in Poland and is over 250 million years old. It is anti-bacterial, uncontaminated by dirt, and is free of toxins and pollutants.

The secret of healing in the salt cave is simple. The air is intensely saturated with negative ions along with 84 trace elements and minerals. By breathing in these elements, the body gets in balance and begins to heal itself. Our therapeutic salt cave will leave you with a newly discovered energy accomplished without medications, through a natural healing process. Our goal is to afford people of all ages the opportunity to experience a complete, holistic health benefit.”