The top 10 saunas and steam rooms in Toronto
Saunas and steam rooms in Toronto offer a taste of our city's multicultural influences. Bathers can travel the world without ever getting on a plane: to Turkey for a traditional bath, to Russia for a banya, and to Korea for a relaxing jjimjilbang.
Here are my picks for the top saunas and steam rooms in and around Toronto.
This standalone spa facility inside Toronto's luxurious Shangri-La Hotel offers a traditional hammam that promises to "cleanse your body while stimulating your senses and imagination." Detoxify to the max by getting a full body scrub with eucalyptus infused black Moroccan soap while you lie back on Jerusalem gold marble.
The first of its kind in Eastern Canada, this incredibly popular 10-year-old spa offers traditional Turkish baths. Lose yourself in the dreamy ritual, which involves relaxing in a steam room filled with both cool and hot air, followed by a bath on a 108-degree marble table. It's said to "resonate deeply with mind, body, and spirit."
This Yorkville wellness centre — which also has an Adelaide location — offers individual sauna/cold plunging sessions, or you can take part in a class. Experiences can range anywhere between an upbeat party atmosphere or a quiet, meditative journey, depending on what you're looking for.
The facilities at this public sauna club in Vaughan are built around a shallow pool surrounded by park benches, vines, and other greenery. There, bathers can refresh from their time in the banya or prepare for a long sit in the spacious wood and stone sauna. Tranquility for days.
This North York traditional Korean spa — or jjimjilbang — focuses on healing through heat, with six mineral sauna rooms, each meant to provide the body with different therapeutic benefits, plus huge, comfortable lounge areas to relax in with friends.
In between bouts of cold-plunging and showering in this King West spa's restorative water circuit, bathers are invited to spend some time in the spa's infrared sauna for an escape from the outside world.
Water therapies are a huge part of the experience at this four-floor downtown day spa, which encourages visitors to "slow down, relax, and shed the mantle of the outside world" by making use of its whirlpools, steam rooms, swimming pool, and poolside lounge.
This Yorkville Spa is home to a practice they call "Steam Bed Body Therapies," a process that begins with exfoliating the entire body before laying the client down on a steam bed for a body wrap and foot/head massages. The entire experience mimics the relaxing properties of a traditional steam room, but amped up for the individual.
White walls, green tea-infused vitality pools, aromatherapy steam rooms, spacious saunas, and exclusive skin products from Clarins — this is how girls in France stay beautiful, non? You can find this spa inside Toronto's Ritz Carlton hotel, but good luck ever trying to leave.
Rest your muscles in the infrared sauna at this fancy fitness complex at Yonge and Dundas (or try their newest location at The Well). Infrared heating allows effective treatment at a lower temperature than traditional steam saunas, so they can be a good option for anyone who gets overwhelmed by a too-steamy sauna.
Fareen Karim at Othership Yorkville
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