The towel rule is the one piece of sauna etiquette that's universal. Finnish public saunas expect it. German textile-free saunas enforce it. Your gym's sign asks for it. Wherever you sweat, the expectation is the same: nothing but towel between you and the wood.
Why every sauna has the rule
- Hygiene. Wood is porous. Sweat soaked into a bench doesn't wipe away; it sits in the grain, and a 194°F room between sessions is a comfortable place for bacteria to wait for the next person. The towel is what keeps a shared bench genuinely shared.
- The wood itself. Sweat, skin oils, and lotion residue slowly darken and degrade timber. Saunas that enforce the rule strictly are usually the ones with beautiful benches. That is not a coincidence.
- Your own comfort. The air near the ceiling can pass 194°F, and the bench surface isn't far behind. A dry towel under you is the difference between settling in and shifting around.
How much of you should be on the towel?
All of you. The strict version of the rule, standard in German and Austrian saunas, is that no sweat touches wood at all: body and feet stay on the towel. It's a good habit to adopt everywhere, and it's why a proper sauna towel is long. At 80×160 cm, The Sauna Towel is sized so you can sit with your feet up and stay entirely on fabric.
What makes a good bench towel
Length first, as above. Then absorbency that lasts a full session without saturating, which is where the waffle weave earns its place: the pockets hold sweat and release it to the air between rounds. And 100% natural fiber, because synthetic fabric doesn't belong in a hot room. The full comparison is in our ranking of sauna towel materials.
The short version
Sit on a towel, put your feet on it too, and bring one big enough to make that easy. The bench stays clean, the wood lasts decades, and the person after you never has to think about it.
Bench sorted, head next: why wear a sauna hat?