The Best Robe for a Sauna, and What Fabric Actually Works

Most people walk into a sauna wearing the wrong robe. Usually it is the thick white terry bathrobe from a hotel, which is a wonderful thing to wear after a bath and a genuinely bad thing to wear in a hot room.

Here is what a sauna robe actually needs to do, and how to pick one.

What a sauna robe is for

It is not for sitting in. Almost nobody wears a robe on the bench, and in many places you are asked not to.

A sauna robe is for everything around the sauna:

• Walking from the changing room to the heat
• Cooling down between rounds without getting cold
• The walk to the cold plunge and back
• Sitting in the relaxation room afterwards
• The ride home when you cannot face real clothes yet

So it needs to warm you slightly when you are cooling down, and never add heat when you are already hot. That is a narrower job than a bathrobe does, and it needs a different fabric.

Why the hotel bathrobe fails

Thick terry towelling is designed to absorb a lot of water quickly and hold it. That is exactly what you want after a shower.

In a sauna circuit it works against you three ways:

• It is too warm. You put it on to cool down and it keeps your core temperature up.
• It stays wet. You will do three or four rounds. By round two the robe is damp and heavy and it never dries.
• It gets heavy. Soaked terry is genuinely uncomfortable to wear.

A sauna robe should be the opposite: light, loose and quick to dry.

The fabric question

Cotton. Light woven cotton, not thick terry, is the classic answer. It breathes, it is cool against skin, it washes at high temperature, and it is cheap to replace. The downside is that it takes longer to dry than synthetic fabric. In a sauna that is rarely a problem because the air is dry.

Bamboo lyocell. Softer than cotton, noticeably cool on contact, and it drapes rather than holds a shape. Worth knowing that bamboo lyocell is a regenerated fibre, made by dissolving bamboo pulp and spinning it. It is not raw bamboo and it is not a natural fibre in the strict sense. What it is, is very comfortable in heat.

Linen. Excellent in heat, dries fast, and gets better with washing. Creases badly, which some people mind and some do not.

Polyester and microfibre. Marketed heavily for spa and gym use because they dry fast and pack small. They also trap heat against your skin and hold smell after repeated heat cycles. Synthetic fibre holds bacteria in a way natural fibre does not, and a sauna is the worst possible environment for that. Avoid if you can.

What to look for when buying

• Loose cut. You will put it on over damp skin. Anything fitted will fight you.
• Light weight. If it feels substantial in the shop, it is too warm for a sauna.
• Wrap or open front. Faster to get on and off, and you can open it to cool down without taking it off.
• Short or three quarter sleeve. Long sleeves soak up water from your arms.
• Washable hot. You are wearing it over sweat. It needs a 60 degree wash.
• No metal. Zips, studs and buckles heat up. Ties only.

Robe, wrap or cardigan?

The word “robe” is doing a lot of work here, and the shape matters less than people think.

A wrap cardigan in light cotton or bamboo lyocell does the same job as a sauna robe and looks like clothing, so it works on the walk to the car, in a cafe afterwards, and as a beach cover up. If you are buying one thing, buy this.

A proper robe with a belt is better if you use a members club or a spa where you are moving between many rooms and want full cover.

A towel wrap is the cheapest option and works fine. It just falls off.

A note on sauna etiquette

Whatever robe you buy, bring a separate towel to sit on. This is required in most public saunas in Europe and simply good manners everywhere else. Do not use your robe for this.

If you are unsure what to wear inside the sauna itself rather than around it, we covered that in what to wear in a sauna.

What we make

Our spa and sauna wear is the wrap cardigan version: cotton and bamboo lyocell, cut loose, no metal, sewn by hand in small runs in Bali.

We built it for the climate we live in, where a thick robe is unthinkable eleven months of the year. That turns out to be the same set of requirements a sauna has.

It is not a technical garment and we make no performance claims for it. It is light natural fabric cut generously, which is all a sauna robe has ever needed to be.

If you are curious why we avoid synthetics across everything we make, including swimwear, we explained the reasoning in why we use the fabric most brands avoid.