The SaunaRay is a human-sized wooden box with a ceramic heater in it.  The heater gives off heat that is a little warmer than the room you’re sitting in right now, but nowhere near the heat of a conventional steam-sauna.  It’s a little like sitting in a box made up of dry, mid-July weather.

But if you listened the saleswoman, you’d think that the SaunaRay has so many magical properties that it’s one step away from being the wondrous wardrobe you’d take on your way to Narnia.  You’d also think that Mitchell and I are incredibly dangerous and sneaky people  from a far-off land (more on that later).

According to their website, sitting in the SaunaRay will purge your body of the toxins that accumulate in the body, especially lead and mercury. It does this by the special, “Medical Grade” ceramic heater which “emits heat in the far infrared wavelengths between 4.0 “ 20 microns” (though their brochure says that it emits the far IR at 4-14 microns).  After purging these toxins, a person can supposedly expect to have “total relief” of numerous health conditions, such as fibromyalgia, psoriasis, and asthma! I’ve lived with asthma all my life, and I had no idea that it was the toxins in my blood this whole time!  If only they had invented the human-sized wooden box earlier!

I’ll just take a moment to point out a bit about their “Far Infrared” claim.  Firstly, they claim that their heaters emit far IR at 4-14 (or 20) microns.  However, the far IR begins to emit at 25 microns, and 4-14 is not far-IR, but rather in the range of near, to mid IR.  Not a big deal, I’ll admit, but still: if you’re going to make the effort to sound sciencey, you could at least take the 2 minutes that I did to google “Far IR” and get it right.  “Near IR” sounds just as sciencey.  Add to that, the human body emits IR at around 7-10 microns, so sitting in this little box is not all that different from what your own body does anyway, especially on a hot day.

This product is just another over-priced detox-scam.  Repackaged with some new bit of language and sciencey-sounding words, the company gets to sell a wooden box equipped with a $95 heater that is more likely to be seen in a college dorm room than being taken seriously by any scientist or consumer watchdog.

Ethyl Mercury and formaldehyde (two buzz-words from the website) do not accumulate in the body, especially not in the low-dosages that we are exposed to on a regular basis.  The best way to stay healthy is to eat healthy, stay active, sleep regularly, and avoid pumping terrible chemicals into your body, such as by cigarettes and drug abuse.  It does not take a medical degree or a naturopathic ‘education’ to know this, nor does it take a colon cleanse, some bitter fruit-drinks, or a wooden box to achieve.

One final note of interest.  If you poke around the SaunaRay website, you may notice repeated references to low-quality Chinese knockoffs, some that may even catch fire!  Well, I’m guessing this company might have a bit of a paranoid streak to them.  As Mitchell and I were taking pictures, the saleswoman quite forcefully demanded to know who we were “with”.  Our response was a predictable, “Buh???”, but she pressed on:
Saleswoman: “Why are you taking pictures of our products?”
Me: “Ummmm….Was I not supposed to?”
Saleswoman: “We sometimes get Chinese spies photographing our equipment for their own uses”
Me: “Buh???”
Saleswoman “I’m just really curious as to why you’re taking pictures”
Me: “Ma’am, I’m not a spy……I’m a music teacher from Niagara!”

I mean, I suppose it’s a reasonable assumption for the woman to make.  Just look at that picture:  Surely, I just scream “I am a Chinese spy.  Don’t mess with me.”  With my fair skin and red-hair, maybe she thought I was a spy from the rarely-discussed all-Irish sub-population of China in the Guiness O’ Zhang region.

Deadly, dangerous, sneaky Steve.