What to Bring to an Infrared Sauna Session: My 6-Month Packing List
The first time I booked a session, I spent twenty minutes searching for what to bring to an infrared sauna session and came away more confused than when I started. Half the lists were written by companies selling home saunas. The other half assumed I already had a unit in my basement and a shower ten steps away.
I go to a small studio with a full spectrum booth, and I have been going for about six months now. The studio sets out a clean towel, a robe, and a pair of tiny dark goggles for the red light, all folded on the bench before you walk in. So the honest answer is that you could show up with nothing and be completely fine.
I still pack the same small bag every single time, and it is a short list. Four things. Here is what is actually in it, what the studio covers, and the one item I did not think of for my entire first month.
Quick Look: My Sauna Bag
| What the studio provides | One towel, a robe, and eye protection for the red light, set out in the booth |
| What I bring | Two towels from home, one claw clip, and two tumblers |
| Session length | 40 minutes, which is the studio’s maximum |
| Temperature I set | 137°F, which is where the booth actually sits for the session |
| Bag | A small zip gym bag, nothing technical |
| What stays in the car | My phone |
| Showering | There is no shower at my studio, so I shower at home afterward |
| Time it takes to pack | Under a minute, because the bag mostly stays packed |
What to bring to an infrared sauna session: my actual list
Four things, and I have not added anything in months.
- Two towels from home. One to sit on, one to stay dry.
- One claw clip. The single best thing on this list, and I will explain why below.
- A stainless tumbler of iced chamomile tea. This is the one that goes into the booth with me.
- A second tumbler with an electrolyte stick in it. This one waits in the car for afterward.
That is it. No sauna slippers (I just wear flip-flops there), no oils, no special sauna hat, no book. Everything else I tried either melted, got soggy, or sat in the bag untouched for weeks until I finally took it out.
Why I bring my own towels when they already give you one
I want to be upfront that this one is preference, not necessity. My studio puts a clean towel in the booth, and if you ask at the front desk they will hand you a spare without blinking. Nobody is making you pack your own.
I bring mine because my skin is sensitive and I would rather have something washed in my own detergent sitting against it for forty minutes. Is that strictly rational? Probably not. Does it make the session more comfortable for me? Yes, and that is enough of a reason.
Two of them, for the same reason the studio would hand you a second one if you asked. A forty minute session at around 137 degrees produces a genuinely surprising amount of sweat, and the towel you sat on the whole time is not going to dry anything afterward. One lives on the bench, one stays folded and dry in the bag. That dry one is what makes cooling down without a shower actually work.
They do not need to be anything special. Mine are ordinary bath towels from the linen closet. The only thing I would say is to pick a color you do not mind, because they go through the wash constantly.
The claw clip nobody mentions
For my first month I went in with my hair down and came out with it stuck to my neck, damp all the way through, and needing a full wash every time. A single claw clip fixed that completely.
Hair up and off your neck makes the heat noticeably more tolerable, and it is the difference between washing your hair every session and washing it when it actually needs it. It weighs nothing and costs almost nothing. If you take one thing from this post, take this one.
Two tumblers, and what goes in each
This part took me a while to work out. The tumbler that comes into the booth is stainless, and I sip from it through the session rather than drinking it all at the end. Stainless matters more than it sounds like it should, because a plastic bottle sitting in a 140 degree room goes lukewarm within about ten minutes.
What is in it is chamomile tea, brewed at home and poured over ice. That started because plain water got boring around minute twenty and I was drinking less than I should have. Chamomile has no caffeine, which is the part that matters. Caffeine works against you in there, both because it pulls fluid the wrong way and because your heart rate is already doing more work than usual. Anything herbal and caffeine free is really just water with a flavor, and I drink noticeably more of it.
The second tumbler stays in the car and has a sugar free electrolyte stick mixed into it. That is the one I drink afterward, during the twenty minutes I spend cooling down before I drive anywhere.
For most of the past six months I drank plain water for both, and plain water is fine. Splitting it this way is a recent change, and I wrote about how much I actually drink and why I added electrolytes in a separate post, since it turned into its own thing.
One practical note. Whatever goes into the booth with you should not be glass and should have a lid. A tumbler tipping over on a hot bench is a bad forty minutes.
What the studio already gives you
Before you overpack, check what is waiting for you. At my studio, the booth is set up before I get there with a folded towel on the bench, a robe on the hook, and a small pair of dark goggles for the red light.
The goggles matter more than they look like they do. Full spectrum booths run red and near infrared light at a brightness you should not stare into, and the studio provides eye protection for exactly that reason. Use them. They are not decoration.
Every studio is different, so this is worth a two minute check before your first visit. Some places provide everything including water, some provide a towel and nothing else. If you are booking somewhere new, their FAQ page almost always says. Face red light days are a whole different kind of prep, mostly about what is on your skin when you walk in, and I covered that in my routine for red light therapy at a tanning salon.
What I stopped bringing
My first few visits I packed like I was going to the gym for the afternoon. Here is what came back out of the bag.
- My phone. It got warm, and I did not like it. It lives in the car now.
- A book. The pages get damp and you cannot focus anyway.
- Lotion and skincare. You want clean skin going in, and anything you put on beforehand just sits on top and blocks your pores.
- Jewelry. Not so much brought as forgotten. I take it off at the car now out of habit.
- A change of clothes. I just put the comfy clothes I came in back on and drive home in them.
That last one needs an explanation, because it is the thing people ask about most. My studio is a combined tanning and wellness place rather than a dedicated sauna spa, and there is simply no shower on site. So the routine is cool down, dry off, wash my hands, drive home, and shower there. That drive and that shower look very different at 8 a.m. than at 8 p.m., and I wrote about how I finally chose between a sauna in the morning or at night.
And I do shower the moment I get home, without fail. You sweat a genuinely alarming amount in forty minutes, and no amount of toweling off makes that feel finished. The drive is the cooldown. The shower is at the other end of it. The sauna is the last thing in my morning stack. It comes after a walk with the dogs and a 30 minute Zone 2 ride on the stationary bike (here is how I figure out my Zone 2 heart rate), and I wrote out the whole morning routine separately if you want to see where it lands in the day.
If you are packing for your first session
Bring two towels, a hair clip, and water with a lid. Wear comfy clothes you do not mind sweating into on the way home, leave jewelry and lotion at home, and give yourself fifteen minutes on the other end before you have to be anywhere. That is the whole thing. If you are still deciding how long in a red light sauna your first session should run, I set 40 minutes at 137 degrees and wrote out how I got to that number.
Everything else you read about, the sauna hats and the dry brushes and the special mats, is optional at best. Six months in, my bag is smaller than it was on day one, not bigger.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you only change one thing after reading this, make it the second towel and the hair clip. Those two items cost almost nothing and they are the difference between a session you enjoy and a session you spend counting down. Everything else on my list is a nice to have.
Next up I am writing about the part I get asked about most, which is how long a session should actually be and what temperature the booth really holds once you are inside. If you have a sauna bag item you swear by that I left off this list, tell me in the comments. I am always happy to be told I am missing something obvious.
Save this for later 📌
Booked your first infrared sauna session? Save this pin so the packing list is on your phone when you grab your bag.
