Chamber Spotlight: Nourish Lounge
The sweat equity these sisters put into opening Nourish Lounge allows you to sweat out your toxins.
Nourish Lounge, which opened at 321 West Broadway in South Boston in January by sisters Allison Lane and Annmarie McHale, offers far infrared sauna wrap therapy – and people are loving it.
What does far infrared sauna wrap therapy do?
Using modern-day technology, the therapy enables your body to detox, sweat, and relieve muscle tension, according to the Nourish Lounge website. “While a traditional sauna heats the air around you to jumpstart your body's perspiration, infrared saunas use infrared waves to directly heat your body from within.”
The top things this relaxing therapy does:
It eases inflammation.
It increases circulation.
It helps in muscle recovery.
It promotes collagen production, resulting in a youthful glow.
It's good for GI issues.
It assists with women’s monthly pain.
And the studio gets people who have cardiovascular issues; this therapy is actually one of the safer ways to strengthen your heart, but at a slower rate, Allison said.
“We've been known to be kind of like mini psychiatrists sometimes,” Allison said. “When you're here, you're in therapy mode and you end up talking.
“We've been noticing it's a lot more like a social hour … and just having that therapeutic conversation with someone that you sometimes just need to have.”
There are four beds in the studio. The client puts on the sweat gear and gets into the sleeping bag-like wrap. They can watch TV, do a guided meditation, or just zone out. “Most people fall asleep for the first 20 minutes,” Allison said. “And once they start to sweat, they’re like, ‘OK, I’m awake now.’”
But it’s actually a different type of sweat than if you were working out; you don’t come out salty, Allison said. “It's almost like a fresh sweat. It’s a clean sweat.”
The duo knew it was important to become a member of the South Boston Chamber of Commerce.
Allison’s husband, Andrew Lane, is from South Boston “and you don’t just lose those roots with people that you grow with,” said Allison, who grew up in Dorchester. “That's what I think this Chamber of Commerce does for these businesses.”
Allison noted how the Chamber and businesses help each other and collaborate. “You just feed each other. You're nurturing each other with your business and caring. So I think that's very important for what the Chamber does.”
Allison and Annmarie work full time; Allison is an officer in the Boston Police Department, and Annmarie works sales and marketing. But they make time to be at their studios. In South Boston, the sisters employ a team of nine local women.
Three and half years ago, Allison, a mom to twins, was not finding time for herself and was looking for an outlet. She found similar studios in Florida and New York and was wondering why Massachusetts didn’t have something like this. She convinced her sister to get on board and they opened their first studio in Milton; South Boston is their second location.
“Business has been good,” Allison said, noting they get about five new customers a week. They rely on word of mouth to let the customer base grow authentically. Their mom, Pat McHale, and cousin, Samantha Payne, help with the design and branding of the studios.
Between the two shops, Nourish Lounge has serviced almost 4,000 clients over the last two years and the ages range from young women and men athletes to people in their 70s … and everyone in between.
Allison knows it can be scary to try something new. “But you can try anything once,” she said. “I guarantee you'll be back because we have like a 96 percent return rate.”
Website: https://www.nourishloungesite.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nourishlounge/
