Your Sauna Hat Guide
Your detailed manual on how to wear & care for your natural wool sauna hat
- Important preface -
The Halo sauna hat has been meticulously engineered to be your last sauna hat. To ensure this stays true, follow the care instructions below, and your Halo will take care of you for years to come.
Important tips for a long lasting sauna hat
Here are our do's and don'ts for preserving the life of your sauna hat
Do's
We build in our signature hanging loop for a funtional purpose. Hang your hat preferably where it can get some air to ensure the moisture can wick off the felt and be good as new for the next round.
Everything we do at Halo has been done with intention. When you unbox your Halo, you will notice a cylinder that is keeping the hats shape during shipping. Keep this for maintaining the hats shape after it's dried to ensure the felt isn't creased. If your Halo is consistently crushed, overtime the felt will become weak and won't look as good as the day you received it.
Use cold water + a small amount of gentle wool detergent. Nothing synthetic. Nothing hot. See below for the full guide to washing your Halo
Avoid damp gym bags. Give the wool room to breathe. This will prevent moisture and bacteria build up in the fibres. Meaning less washes needed and a longer life for your hat. Trapped moisture = shape distortion + potential odour.
A short steam exposure can help reset shape if shrinking occurs - light steam only, no direct heat.
Don'ts
While it can be tempting to dunk your head under and cool your Halo down further to give you longer sessions, this can be extremely damaging to your hat. The chlorine in ice baths, salt/magnesium pools, and spas with break down the felt and dye in the hat, and as a consequence make the colour bleed from the fabric and loosen the thread of the natural wool. While the hat was designed to function while dry, If you feel it necessary to wet your hat, use normal tap water or filtered water and hang to dry after your session.
These break down natural fibers and colour of the wool. This is the fastest way felt hats degrade and bleed colour.
While essential oils in the sauna are a great way to elevate your sauna experience, we recommend keep this strictly to Löyly practices as essential oils may stain your Halos natural wool felt.
Lending your Halo hat to others could result in having to buy a new one, since it's likely they won't give it back.
Direct heat warps and tightens the felt, this can shrink the hats size making it difficult to wear and reshape again.
Always press - never twist. Wool fibres break under torque. If soaking wet, simply hang by it's top loop until slightly damp and then reshape in its final stage of drying.
The Halo Wash Process
Here are our tips for washing your Halo to ensure any dirt/sweat over time is removed without damaging the fabric or construction.
1. Cold Wash Only
To prepare for your wash, fill your laundry sink with cold water. Do not use any other water temperature other than cold or very mildly warm water as anything too hot could damage the dye of the wool and potentially cause the colour to bleed. Do not use a washing machine, hand wash only.
2. Wool Detergent Only
To ensure we get an efficient wash that leaves no damaged to your Halo, it's best we use a wool specific detergent as this will extract dirt while maintaining the tight weave of the natural wool felt. Add only a teaspoon of detergent to the prepared cold water, a little here goes a long way. Stay tuned for our Halo wool wash launching soon.
3. Hand Wash Only
Fully submerge your sauna hat into your prepared water and detergent and use only your hand and the fabric of the hat together to move the water and detergent through the fibers of the hat. Being gentle here is the key. ensure the top loop tag is also given some attention. Rise with cold tap water to ensure all detergent is removed before proceeding to step 4.
4. Hang To Dry
Once completed step 3. tip the hat upside down to ensure any water that entered through the top loop hole has been drained. Then, use the top loop to hang the hat up in the shade/mild sun and let it air dry. Do not use a drying machine at all, this will shrink your hat. Once it has dried, your refreshed sauna hat is ready to be worn once again.
Follow the video above - The signature Halo hang tag is a key feature to the functionality and style of our sauna hats. For those who want a streamlined subtile look that can be worn from the sauna to the beach, simply conceal your halo hang tag between the two layers of natural wool felt. When your Halo has done it's job and needs some time to dry, pull your hang tag back through the hole and hook it up before your next round.
Shrunken Halo Fix
If the above instructions were not followed and you have found yourself with a shrunken hat, its not all over. Follow the below instructions as you could possibly reverse some of the damage.
1. Steam & Stretch Over a Form
Prepare a “head form”: Find something roughly the size of your head or a little bigger: a round bowl, a small pot, a ball, or a tightly rolled towel. Ideally it should be slightly bigger than the current size of the hat so it gently stretches it.
2. Create Gentle Steam:
Create gentle steam: Boil a kettle or pot of water, turn it off, and let the steam rise under the hat. Hold the hat about 20-30 cm above the steam. never directly in the steam or touching the water (to avoid soaking or burning).
3. Soften the Felt
Soften the felt: Slowly rotate the hat above the steam for 20-30 seconds at a time, focusing on the band area that feels tight. The felt should feel warm and slightly more pliable, not wet.
4. Stretch Onto the Form
Stretch onto the form: Once warm, place the hat onto your prepared “head form” and gently press it down so the felt stretches. Use your hands to gently pull outwards on the tight areas. small even pressure rather than hard tugs.
5. Let it Dry Completely
Let it dry completely: Leave the hat on the form to cool and dry fully (ideally overnight) before trying it on. Repeat this process 1–2 more times if needed, gentle repetition is better than forcing it once.
Discover our story
From hand sewing our first hat in an abandoned house to a national wellness movement, learn more about our mission to turn you into a sauna pro.
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