The Gospel of Contrast Bathing In early 2020, as the pandemic was rearing its ugliest head, a Toronto couple decided to build an ice bath in their backyard. Robbie and Emily Bent set up an adjacent fire, too, and invited a few close friends into the project. Before long, the five of them started hosting dedicated sessions: dunk yourself in the frigid water, warm your bones by the flames, repeat. Word got around. Eventually, that community of five became 300, which became 1,000, which led Bent and Co. to create Othership, a 3,000-square-foot immersive spa in Toronto’s Fashion District with a 50-person sauna and a bunker of ice baths, marketed as the coldest commercial plunges in all of North America. Now, Othership has landed in NYC. Tanner Garrity recently visited to experience the sauna — the biggest one he’s seen in the city — and the 42-degree ice plunges, but more importantly to explore the growing cult of “contrast bathing,” a wellness concept that promotes this circuit of hot, cold, repeat. |