How to Clean a Sauna: 5 Tips from a Legitimate Sauna Owner
If you’re like most of us sauna owners, cleaning isn’t a priority, and you only start asking how to clean a sauna once yours isn’t that fresh-smelling anymore.
But no worries! I just gave my 23-year-old indoor sauna a deep cleaning that took me several hours on two different days; it means I’m able to show you real before and after pictures in addition to giving you all the needed cleaning instructions and tips.
You don’t necessarily have to spend hours on cleaning, though, as I’ll be showing you how to clean a sauna very quickly and keep it hygienic and how to clean it more thoroughly which you should ideally do twice a year.
So, let’s start scrubbing!
How to Clean a Sauna: Quick + Thorough Instructions
As I have over 35 years of sauna experience, I’ve cleaned many saunas many times in my life. Still, I wanted to compare English and Finnish sources to see whether the cleaning instructions they give are identical or not. They weren’t.
Some tell you to just wipe surfaces, avoiding water use and washing, whereas others bring a water hose to their sauna for generous splashing.
Lucky for you, I’ll be sharing the most tried and true sauna cleaning instructions (by the Martha Organization) that have ever existed.
Quick Instructions: How to Maintain Good Sauna Hygiene Every Time You Sauna
- Shower before going to sauna.
- Use a sauna bench towel (the real and best ones are made of thick linen but you can also use several towels to stop sweat from seeping through).
- Leave the sauna heater on for a short while after saunaing so that the sauna dries well.
- When vacuum cleaning around the house, vacuum the sauna room floor as well.
That’s really all there is to it!
What NOT to Do to Clean and Maintain Your Sauna
Regarding how to clean a sauna, some English sources say you should leave the sauna door open after saunaing in order to make the sauna dry. I’m sure they say this to compensate for poor or the complete lack of ventilation that a proper sauna always has.
With outdoor saunas, you can definitely do that, but it’s a recipe for disaster with indoor saunas.
Finnish sources NEVER advice you to leave the door open since you don’t want the same sauna humidity that could lead to mold and rot to spread to your entire home!
Where do the English sources think the humidity goes? Why is it not okay to leave it in the sauna but it’s okay to let it spread to your home? It shouldn’t be since it leads to condensation.
You want that humidity out, not inside your home.
If your sauna doesn’t have proper ventilation (which is a huge problem of its own and could even lead to breathing problems and headaches), then it’s even more important to leave the sauna heater on for a while after saunaing to help with drying.
How to Clean a Sauna Thoroughly (Once or Twice a Year)
How to clean the inside of your sauna?
1. Wash the sauna when it’s cool so that the cleaner you use won’t dry on the surfaces too quickly.
2. Check the condition of your sauna rocks and replace worn stones with new ones.
3. Move freestanding furniture (= sauna stool) aside; you can also detach the benches if you feel they’re easier to clean elsewhere.
4. Use a vacuum cleaner or a broom to get dust and litter off the floor and benches. Use a broom to clean the walls and ceiling too.
5. Wet wooden surfaces with warm water to open the pores of the wood. Wash the surfaces with a mixture of water and all-purpose cleaner or sauna cleaner and with a soft brush or a scrub sponge. Rinse with cold water to close the pores of the wood.
6. As you scrub the wooden surfaces, brush along the grain of the wood. You can use a sauna brush or a soft root brush, for instance. Wet and wash the walls from top to bottom.
7. Avoid cleaners that contain chlorine as it can be absorbed into the wood and later released into the air when heating the sauna.
8. Clean the floor drain (in the bathroom).
9. Wash, rinse, and squeegee the floor.
10. After washing, air out the sauna.
11. Close the sauna door and turn the sauna heater on for a short while to dry the sauna.
Now everything’s done and you’re free to enjoy your sauna like it’s new again!
5 Sauna Cleaning Tips from a Sauna Owner of 35+ Years
1. Sauna bench towels vs. scrubbing sauna benches
Instead of having to ask how do you clean sweat out of a sauna, wouldn’t it be great if those sweat stains never formed in the first place?
Yes, that would be brilliant! And it doesn’t seem like a distant dream either, but easily a reality when using sauna bench towels. Ideally you’d fold and layer the towel(s) so thickly that the (highest) bench (= where you sit) remained completely dry after saunaing.
When you leave the sauna, you take the towels with you and wash them later.
As sweet as this sounds, there’s no escaping sweat. It’s just a matter of where you’d rather have the sweat, on the benches or in the towels?
What I mean is that the towels are no miracle cure either: they start to smell awful unless you wash them frequently, preferably after each use. And you need high temperatures too, at least 60 degrees and a long enough wash cycle. Hot water is a must for killing germs and bacteria.
Using sauna bench towels like this potentially leads to a lot of extra laundry and wasted energy. Many people have noticed this just like me, and thus don’t use bench towels in their home saunas.
What they prefer to do instead is scrubbing the sauna benches lightly and quickly with a brush after each use. They also scrub the wall, but only the spot which their back touched while saunaing. No cleaner is used with these quick washes, just water and a brush.
I have a lot of experience with both methods, and with our current saunas, I prefer washing the sauna to creating piles of bad-smelling extra laundry.
There is no correct answer here, so it all comes down to personal preference. I’ve seen Finns discussing this topic, and the result is always the same: some swear by bench towels (even disposable ones!) whereas others think it’s a huge waste in a home sauna that’s designed and built to handle washing and scrubbing.
(In my opinion, disposable sauna bench mats feel extra wasteful in home saunas and are far too thin to have the effect they’re supposed to (= fully protecting sauna benches from sweat), which is why I’m not a fan.)
If I happened to own a new, completely unused sauna, I might opt for real bench towels: by investing in a dozen high-quality towels I could preserve the newness, keep the benches really clean, and never worry about how to clean a sauna or how often.
But like said, there will still be washing in the future: the trouble you save on benches now haunts you in the laundry room!
2. Use a special sauna (bench) brush
When wondering how to clean a sauna, you don’t have to buy any new tools if you already have a soft root brush or a scrub sponge, i.e., anything with enough scrubbing power but something that won’t scratch the wooden surfaces too much.
But if you happen to come across a special sauna bench brush like I recently did, it turned out to be a really cool buy that worked even better than expected!
I bought it from a brushmaker in Mathildedal, Finland, that I had a chance to visit as a tourist. When I saw the brush was called sauna bench brush (laudeharja in Finnish), I immediately became intrigued.
The longer bristles are not only for the small gaps in between seat boards but for all possible crevasses as well.
When cleaning my indoor sauna, I expected the longer bristles to work great for any areas they’re meant for, and they did, but I was worried they might be in the way when cleaning flat surfaces.
To my pleasant surprise, the bristles are flexible enough to never be in the way, but they’re definitely not limp either, which is important as you do expect some serious scrubbing action from a sauna brush.
3. Use a toothbrush to reach small crevasses
If you can’t find a cool sauna bench brush but end up using a regular scrub brush, you can use an old toothbrush or a bottle brush to reach all areas a regular brush can’t fit into.
With my sauna, some of the gaps were almost too narrow for even a toothbrush to reach them. If that’s the case with your sauna too, consider getting a toothbrush with an extra narrow head.
4. Use a natural, clay-based cleaner
How to clean a sauna has never gotten a better answer than this amazing product I introduced earlier: Best Stone Cleaner (+ Satisfying Before & After Pics)
Not only is it excellent at removing stains but it leaves sauna benches looking lighter and therefore newer as wood tends to darken with age, and more ingrained stains also give wood a darker look.
And the best part: this is not a separate sauna product but meant for essentially every surface in your home. The instructions specify it’s appropriate to use on sauna wood too.
If you’re looking for a natural sauna cleaning solution, this non-toxic cleaner is perfect to use in a sauna where your skin touches the surfaces and where you inhale steamy air.
The sponge that the product comes with is exactly what I used to clean our sauna alongside the brush I bought. If you don’t have a sauna brush, you can get a very thorough clean with just the sponge and a toothbrush.
The results speak for themselves:
5. Focus on the highest bench and clean the underside too
Although the cleaning instructions above have you washing walls, the ceiling, etc., the dirtiest area in your sauna will always be the (highest) sauna bench where you sit the most.
When you take a look at the bench’s underside, too, you’ll potentially find it looks pretty disgusting, especially if you clean your sauna too rarely and don’t protect the benches with towels every time you sauna.
If you don’t have time or energy for extensive cleaning, and only clean one thing in your sauna, do your sauna a service and let it be the main bench!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. Do saunas need to be sanitized? If so, how do you disinfect a dry sauna?
Normal sauna temperatures are hot enough to kill germs and bacteria on sauna surfaces, so in that sense, saunas don’t need any special sanitation; this means you shouldn’t use any harsh chemicals to clean your sauna.
According to the Finnish Sauna Society, commercial saunas need to be disinfected, but home saunas don’t. Normal cleaning with normal cleaners is enough for home saunas, and using harsher chemicals isn’t recommended.
When public saunas are disinfected, chlorine and acidic products are used.
2. How to clean a sauna with vinegar?
Vinegar isn’t used in the best cleaning instructions shared above, but if you want to use it, you can.
Most sources recommend vinegar only for the glass door (and windows) of your sauna as it can damage the wooden surfaces because of its high acid content.
If you want to use it for washing the benches too, dilute it first: 1 part vinegar, 9 parts water.
Final Thoughts
Now that we’ve fully covered how to clean a sauna, let’s return to the contradiction I presented in the beginning of this article: should you just wipe sauna surfaces with a damp cloth, or have a water hose with you at all times when saunaing?
Wiping isn’t sufficient unless you always use sauna bench towels or seat covers that are protective enough. If sweat is able to seep through the seat cover material, you should clean your sauna more thoroughly once or twice a year by washing and scrubbing.
Although wiping isn’t enough in most cases, it doesn’t mean you should splash plenty of water on wooden sauna surfaces more often than once or twice a year.
This is because sauna wood stays wet and damp quite a while after saunaing, especially if you don’t leave the sauna heater on to help with drying and/or your sauna is poorly ventilated.
Wetting sauna benches too often eventually leads to mold and rot much more likely than what would be the case with sauna benches that are protected from sweat/dirt and therefore don’t require frequent washing.
Having said that, saunas typically age gracefully, meaning the benches stay in decent condition for decades even with little cleaning and maintenance.
Preventative sauna care is the best option. Even if your sauna is older, but you give it a good scrub, you can start using protective bench towels from then onward, breathing life into your sauna and prolonging its lifespan!
