This is my blog. These are my opinions. I am not some yahoo. I lived in Scandinavia. I have been taking saunas for over 25 years. I know saunas. I am not Finnish, I am half Italian and a 1/4 German, so I talk half the time and analyze 1/4 of the time.
If you own an infrared, perhaps you could recycle the cedar for a real sauna. If you are thinking of buying an infrared, don’t. Do your research. You are smarter than that.
- You avoid tanning salons, they give you cancer and turn your skin a weird color.
- You don’t smoke tobacco cigarettes, same thing.
- You don’t sweat by stuffing yourself in a microwave oven.
Imagine for a moment you are a sauna enthusiast from Finland, a country with more saunas than cars. You have grown up with sauna, a centuries old cultural tradition. Now, you read and hear about $499 microwave boxes you can assemble in your living room called “infrared saunas.” Imagine how pissed you would be. I am waving this flag for all the polite Scandinavians who may only speak up on this topic after 3 sauna rounds and a few beers. Infrared is not a sauna.
Wood sauna is preferred. Electric sauna is ok, but Infrared is NOT a sauna. Infrared is a marketing scam. Infrared makes unrealistic claims to lure consumers. Infrared is fueled by light bulbs and sold by guys that used to sell mops and knives at state fairs. Infrared hucksters hitch their wagons to weight loss, pain relief, homeo whatever therapy, detoxify, and it’s all horse shit. They have taken real benefits of a Finnish sauna and packaged them up to try to sell their high margin light bulb closets. But you know this already, you are smarter than this.
Infrared is not a sauna.
I am a Finn and have to tell you that there has been a trend of installing infrareds in Finland during the past couple years. It’s probably still pretty marginal and will likely never gain widespread >5% usage in the sauna. And while I have unfortunately not tried one in order to give a fair review, there are people who have some good things to say about it.
I have to agree that it’s not a sauna, since you aren’t throwing water, and the room temperature is not hot. You just sit in the infrared radiation that works differently from the steam. The consensus seems to be that the infrared is used more as a treatment for various conditions or in addition to the real sauna. Infrared treatments have been widely used for many years outside of the sauna room, now someone just came up with the idea of putting the elements into the sauna room, and thus create this mix-up about what the sauna is. And from what I can tell, nobody with infrared elements in their sauna would call it a replacement for a sauna. It’s just another type of relaxation method since it works much deeper in the tissues than the steam sauna. All people I know who have one, also have a normal steam sauna.
For me a sauna is any room that has a stove (wood-burning or electric) with heated stones in it, and whose temperature is >55°C (~130°F), and where water is being thrown on those stones to create steam (löyly). The average temperature is somewhere around 80°C (176 °F) in Finland. With that definition, the infrared version could not be qualified as a sauna, even if it were installed in a room that looked like one.
I don’t know how those things are marketed in the U.S. I can only imagine that consumers are being fooled, just like they are all the time.
I say wood is best. It is important to create space in your life for a sauna.
I like wood best, electric if I have to.
Infrared seems more like a tanning booth experience than a sauna (steam, heat, etc)
Ove said it well that infrared is another relaxation option.Much like a cold beer or a thorough workout except that neither of those pleasant escapes involve elctrical cooking of your internal organs. In summary, wood stove sauna at home, electrical stove suana in your hotel and infrared units for overhead maintenance garage heating.
Agreed Glenn! And thanks for posting to spread this info.
Infrared (kills me when idiot infrared dealers spell it infared. Happens all the time) rooms are NOT saunas at all. People need to understand that “sauna” is not only a Finnish word, but a very specific Finnish experience. You would never say Finnish Banya because Banyas are Russian and also a very specific experience.
The ONLY reason infrared units sell is because of their low price. That’s it. You can take that to the bank. If traditional Finnish saunas could be had for a grand and infrared units were 5 grand which would sell better? That’s what I thought. People settle for the microwave because it’s cheap (also cheaply made). A real sauna is a commitment that takes time to build with quality materials but will last 100+ years if built properly.
I recently had the opportunity to try an infrared room and was just not impressed. It was a good one too, at a high end spa. Even there, it’s uneven heating and an odd feeling about being cooked from the inside out. Not fun.
Get on a payment plan and get a real sauna if you know what’s good for you. When that payment annoys you just get in there after a long day of work. You’ll be writing checks with a smile after that.
A wood burning sauna is the way to go. As a friend of mine once said ‘Throwing water on a electric kiln is like throwing water on a toaster’