Business Women Awards 2022
Achievement Honoree Harmony Oschefski, The Bodhi Spa LLC
THE BODHI SPA LLC co-owner Harmony Oschefski built her business around family memories full of free-spirited living and simple, sustainable habits with hydrotherapy built right in.
As it turns out, these water-wellness practices are now resonating with clients looking for health and relaxation in Newport, Providence and soon in Boston.
Oschefski’s parents, who had Rhode Island ties, first introduced Oschefski to the water therapy that would eventually become the core of her business, which she runs with her sister, Cedar Hwang.
Oschefski worked for a time as a sales manager for a pharmaceutical company. But at 25, she decided to make a dramatic change. She left her job and traveled for several years, sailing with Hwang, a competitive sailor.
At one point, after visiting countries such as Australia where reusable grocery bags were common, she used her contact in the manufacturing and grocery store sectors to launch a project designed to increase the popularity of reusable bags in Canada.
“Being as young as I was, it just kind of fizzled out, I guess,” she said of the initiative.
Another business idea wasn’t far behind.
It was on a trip to Hawaii visiting what Oschefski calls a “hole-in-the-wall spa,” with a delivery method much like her sauna-cold water experience, that got her entrepreneurial wheels turning. Bodhi Spa opened in Newport in 2015 with six employees.
Though an ancient method from European hydrotherapy spas, many people have never experienced the sauna/cold-water plunge combination, Oschefski says. It’s proved to be a unique, successful business offering what she and Hwang have branded the Water Journey.
It involves a recommended series of steps that include a soak in a Dead Sea salt pool, steam room, cold plunges, Epsom salt pool and showers in between. Oschefski said benefits include reduction of muscle swelling, improved cardiovascular function and a flood of neurotransmitters, which provides the euphoric feeling.
Now with 59 staff members, Bodhi Spa opened its Providence location in the fall of 2020 in a former cigar bar on Federal Hill. Oschefski and Hwang are seeking a 10,000-square-foot spa location in Boston.
The business continues to grow. But the joy of providing the steam heat-cold plunge experience of her youth to others never fades.
“Once, a little old lady came into our spa and took part in our Water Journey. She’d never done anything like that before. She said as she was leaving, ‘I feel like I am floating on a magic carpet,’ ” Oschefski said.
