Small Business
Relaxation Tanks Are Stressful Business
With corrosive salt water and spaced-out patrons, what could go wrong?
From left, Tracy Pafel and Jennie Herb of Blue Lotus Float Co. at their unfinished office space in Owings Mills, Md., on Nov. 27, 2017.
Photographer: Ariel Zambelich for Bloomberg
Jennie Herb and Tracy Pafel are not relaxed. Their new business, Blue Lotus Float Co., is more than 12 months behind schedule, slowed by a series of flummoxed landlords and contractors who don’t understand what the heck a “float company” is.
Were their business up and running, however, the cure for their stress would be within easy reach. Floating is a kind of recreational physical therapy in which customers spend 90 minutes suspended in a tank of salt water heated to skin temperature, housed in a room with no lights and no noise—in other words, no stimulation.