Have you tested dome saunas for emf and voc’s? How does the Clearlight dome and Sunlighten Solo stack up against each other? Any other portable saunas you’d recommend for people with chemical sensitivities?
Video Transcript (AI Generated)
Alright, today’s question is for Diane.
It says, “Thank you Matt for digging for a portable sauna solution.
I appreciate your integrity regarding what you will endorse.
Have you tested the dome sauna that Clearlite offers?”
Short answer is no, but I did test the sunlight and dome sauna yesterday that I’ve got in the other room.
Clearlite One should follow, but I don’t have it yet.
I do not have it here.
So how long that takes, I’m really not exactly sure.
Besides the EMF/ELF issue, I’d be interested to know if their ceramic heaters are sprayed with anything.
That would be a problem for those with MCS.
And so, I’m a little confused by that.
Clearlite dome saunas, to my knowledge, don’t have ceramic heaters in there.
So I’m not sure if you’re talking about different brand sauna.
I have had ceramic heater saunas like the Radiant sauna from Amazon.
Not the Radiant Health sauna, that’s a carbon sauna.
But the one from Amazon, in one of my other reviews from last year, they definitely sprayed some felt and some type of a glue on the heat shield.
That would be a no-no for anyone with, well actually, not even just for MCS, but it would be a no-no for anyone.
I didn’t even use the sauna because it smelled like formaldehyde, was off-gassing some type of a glue as soon as I turned it on and it started to heat up.
Usually for anyone with chemical sensitivities, what I recommend is to do something that I call a burn-off.
Whenever you buy a new sauna, it doesn’t matter what brand it is, it doesn’t matter who makes it, where it came from, if it’s used new, whatever.
I recommend that you set the sauna up, open a window, set it at max temperature, max time, just walk away from it.
Shut the door and go ahead and heat it and let it go through its cycle, open the door, come in with a damp cloth, wipe it down.
This is for people with multiple chemical sensitivities that have to be really careful.
So another thing that people will do is if they buy a brand new sauna and they’re super chemically sensitive or like sensitive to all kinds of weird stuff, even packaging materials, the best thing that they can do is receive the sauna on the pallet shipment, take everything out of the boxes, take all the individual sauna pieces and just lean them up against the wall in the garage and a lot of people will leave them there for one to two weeks.
Just let them air out.
They open the garage on a daily basis, let the pieces air out before they actually bring them inside.
Now for non-chemically sensitive people, this is extreme.
For myself, I do not do this.
I’m not chemically sensitive at all, but I have worked with a ton of people that are.
So, you know, it just depends on where you’re at and how much precautions you have to take for yourself because, you know, people that don’t have chemical sensitivities or haven’t worked with people that have, you know, think that stuff is nuts, but it’s really not nuts.
If you do the wrong thing and it sets you back a couple of weeks or you feel like crap, you know, it’s not worth it.
It’s worth every precaution if that’s an issue for you.
So, you know, my goal is just to help you share my experiences based on those that have had it really bad so that you can, you know, do the best that you can and not have any issues.
Back to the burn off.
So, do an initial phase, wipe everything down, you’ve got the window open, set a fan up, and then what I would do is do another, what I call burn off, which is the number two.
You turn it on, you leave the door open this time, right?
So you’ve wiped it down, everything’s clean.
You’ve got a fan in the room, shut the door so that you’re circulating the air outside, right?
And so all we’re trying to do is heat everything up, burn everything off, and I don’t mean burn literally because the surface temperature of most carbon saunas, some ceramics are higher, but is low, right?
It’s not going to like start burning things literally.
But basically, I mean, get things hot, get the juices flowing, get any kind of dust, especially if it’s a used sauna or new.
Some of the new saunas have been sitting in packaging for a while or they get banged around in the back of a truck when they’re on a pallet.
It doesn’t damage them or anything, but the trucks can be very dirty.
They just inherently have dust and stuff on them.
And so I recommend, you know, this is what I do for myself most of the time, unless the sauna is exceptionally clean.
Almost every sauna that I have put together has some type of dust on it or something that needs to be vacuumed out.
Part of that’s my fault from like walking on it with shoes and stuff during the assembly, or I’ll forget to clean something because I’m trying to hold cameras or I’ve got to set up lights or I’ve got to move the tripod to film it for you guys.
So I make more of a mess than the average person probably would.
But anyway, burn offs help people, airing things out before you bring them in the house helps people.
I have not tested the clear light dome.
The sunlight dome definitely has some type of a fabric smell to it because it is like a canvas material.
I can’t say whether or not that would be a good fit for you.
I don’t know anything about the VOCs or something like that.
All I know is it’s a little bit different because your head sticks out.
So if that makes a difference for you, some people say that it does.
Other people say that it doesn’t because it’s right here and you still breathe it or it still comes in contact with your skin.
So, you know, it’s hard for me to say if you got skin allergies associated with that.
I don’t know.
I would probably…
The Radiant Health sauna is by far one of the wooden saunas that has the least amount of smell.
It’s got a clean VOC report.
The owner is definitely geared toward working with people.
He’s an ex-firefighter that had all types of problems.
So he’s very into helping people with chemical sensitivities, detox stuff safely, all that kind of stuff.
I’m not saying that that’s going to be the absolute zero VOC maximum that you can get for somebody that has really bad MCS.
But I’m just saying out of all the saunas that I’ve tested, it’s one that is very, very, very clean and I would recommend you take a look at.
But it looks like you’re only looking for portables.
So let’s see if I can get this Therisage to send you…
Oh, thank you.
That’s nice.
For everybody else, Diane says, “I will also try to see if I can get a Therisage to send you for testing.
I have no special connection with them, but it’s worth a try.”
Well, thank you very much.
I’ve got some other videos that have…
Some have come out and some have not.
I tested a steam sauna from Amazon, a little portable sauna tent that you might like to see.
No EMF from that, but god-awful smell.
It’s basically like a PVC liner enclosure, kind of like a shower curtain.
You know how bad they smell?
Same idea.
There’s either rubber or plastic or something in there.
Probably not a good fit for what you’re looking for, so I would stay away from something like that.
The reason that I bought it is because YouTube commenters and blog commenters kept asking.
They said, “Hey, have you tried a portable steam sauna from Amazon?
You keep talking about EMF stuff and we can’t find a low EMF portable sauna, so what about if we try the steam?”
Well, it’s like pick your poison almost from what I’ve seen so far.
There’s no EMF from the steam sauna, but it smells like you’re getting suffocated in a shower curtain.
I don’t know.
It’s not for me, I can tell you that.
What else?
Yeah, I don’t have…
I mean, I’m still working on it, but I don’t…
Oh, relax sauna.
I’ve also got a relax sauna in the other room.
Much, much, much less of a smell to that one, but there is still some quilted canvas material.
You have to look at what’s in it.
I don’t know if that would be a good fit for you.
Didn’t test so well on EMFs.
It’s got 50, 60 milligauss magnetic field at the feet.
The only thing that I like about that is that it’s down low, away from the rest of the body, but it does have body voltage of 3 to 5 volts, which is 3 to 5,000 millivolts.
I’ve got saunas in the other room on the other side of the house that have less than 200 millivolts, so that’s a huge difference.
Not sure if that’ll be helpful.
Again, let me know what you guys think about these treadmill videos.
Should I stop doing them?
Is it a distraction?
Am I rambling?
Because my breathing is different, my ability to talk and answer questions and things has changed.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
We’ll see you in tomorrow’s video.
Have a great day.