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What to Wear Guide

What to Wear to Hot Yoga

Everything that feels lovely in a cool room is the wrong choice in a heated one. Less fabric, smoother fabric, and bring a towel for the mat.

By Janet H.Updated How we pick
A towel, water bottle and jump rope laid on an exercise mat
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The short answer

Less fabric, smoother fabric, darker colors, and a skidless towel for the mat. Shorts and a fitted top beat leggings and a t-shirt in a heated room, and the towel matters more than anything you wear.

What to wear

  • Shorts, or a thin smooth legging. Most regulars settle on shorts. Less fabric to soak, nothing clinging to the calf, and bare skin grips a mat better than wet fabric — shorts picks here.
  • A fitted top, a cropped top or a sports bra. Loose fabric in a heated room becomes a wet sheet. Longline or cropped so nothing rides up — tops and bras here.
  • Dark or heathered colors. Thin fabric plus sweat is the condition in which pale leggings become transparent.
  • Hair tied up and off your neck. Small thing, large effect.

What to avoid

  • Cotton. It absorbs, gets heavy and stays wet for the whole class — cotton versus synthetic.
  • Brushed or fleece-backed fabric. The soft buttery knits everybody loves are the worst possible choice here.
  • Anything loose. It sticks to you and to the mat.
  • Pale colors in thin fabric. See above.
  • Jewelry and watches. Metal in a heated room gets hot and slides on wet skin.

The picks

What to buy for a heated room

Thin and smooth rather than soft, and the mat towel that matters more than anything you wear.
  • Stock photo: a row of people in black sportswear against a plain backgroundStock photo

    Hot rooms and heavy sweat

    CRZ YOGA Naked Feeling Leggings

    Smoother and cooler than the Butterluxe, which makes it the better pick for anything that makes you sweat. Thinner too, so check them in the mirror before class.

    Check price on Amazon

    #ad · Price set by Amazon · Affiliate disclosure for the link to CRZ YOGA Naked Feeling Leggings

  • Stock photo: folded workout clothing laid flat on a pale surfaceStock photo

    Hot rooms

    CRZ YOGA Naked Feeling Biker Shorts

    The cool, light short for hot rooms. Thinner than the BALEAF, which is the point and also the reason to check them in daylight before class.

    Check price on Amazon

    #ad · Price set by Amazon · Affiliate disclosure for the link to CRZ YOGA Naked Feeling Biker Shorts

  • Stock photo: rolled white towels stacked in a woven basketStock photo

    Rescuing a slippery mat

    Manduka Yogitoes Skidless Mat Towel

    The fix for a slippery mat you otherwise like. Silicone nubs hold it to the mat, and the top grips harder the wetter it gets.

    Check price on Amazon

    #ad · Price set by Amazon · Affiliate disclosure for the link to Manduka Yogitoes Skidless Mat Towel

What to bring besides clothes

The towel is the important one, and it is a specific towel rather than a bath towel.

  • A skidless mat towel. Silicone nubs hold it to the mat, and the top grips better the wetter it gets. In a heated room this is the difference between practicing and sliding, and it matters more than anything you are wearing — the hot-yoga mat page covers the mat side.
  • A small hand towel for your face, separately.
  • More water than you think. Studios sell it; bring your own.
  • Dry clothes to change into. Everything you wore will be soaked, and putting it back on afterwards is grim.
  • A bag you do not mind getting damp — and hang the mat to dry at home rather than leaving it rolled, which is how mats start to smell.

If it is your very first class of any kind, the first-class page covers the rest of the etiquette.

Afterwards, which is half the problem

Nobody writes about this part and it is the bit that makes hot yoga annoying to fit into a week.

Change immediately. Everything you wore is soaked, and sitting in it for the drive home is both unpleasant and the fastest way to make technical fabric smell permanently. Pack dry clothes as a matter of course rather than as a nice idea.

Do not leave kit in the bag. Wet synthetic fabric in a closed bag for a few hours is how that set-in smell starts, and once it is in the fiber a normal wash does not reliably shift it. Hang everything as soon as you get in, even if it does not go in the machine until tomorrow.

Wash cool, skip the conditioner. Heat destroys the elastane in technical knits, and fabric conditioner coats the fiber and traps exactly the residue you are trying to wash out. Cool wash, normal detergent, no tumble dryer. This is the whole care routine, and it roughly doubles how long hot-yoga kit stays usable.

The mat needs the same treatment. Wipe it and hang it before it goes back in the bag — a mat rolled up wet is the other half of this problem, and the cleaning guide has the method for each material.

How we picked

Chosen on published criteria, and we say so

Most gear sites open by telling you how many hours they spent with the products. We have not used most of these, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise. Every pick here is chosen against criteria we publish — grip, cushioning, size options, what buyers report after a year of use, and whether the thing is still actually sold — and every manufacturer figure on the page is labeled as the maker's claim.

Nobody pays for a place on this page, no product was supplied free in exchange for coverage, and a specification the maker does not publish is never guessed at. See the full criteria and weighting.

FAQ

Questions people ask

What should I wear to hot yoga?

Shorts or a thin smooth legging, and a fitted or cropped top. Dark colors. Nothing cotton, nothing brushed, nothing loose.

Do I need a towel for hot yoga?

A skidless mat towel, yes — it is the single most useful thing you can bring. A separate hand towel for your face as well.

Should I wear shorts or leggings to hot yoga?

Shorts, for most people. Less fabric to soak and better grip on the mat with bare skin.

What should I not wear to hot yoga?

Cotton, brushed fabrics, loose tops, pale thin leggings, and jewelry.

Can I wear a normal towel instead of a yoga towel?

A bath towel slides around on the mat and bunches under your hands, which is worse than no towel at all. The ones that work have silicone nubs on the underside that hold them to the mat — the hot-yoga mat page covers them.

How many towels should I bring?

Two. One skidless mat towel for the mat, which is doing a grip job, and one ordinary hand towel for your face and hands, which is doing a drying job. Trying to make one towel do both is how the mat towel ends up in a heap in the corner.

Should I wear a hat or a headband?

A thin headband is genuinely useful — sweat running into your eyes in a heated room is the most common small misery of a first hot class. A hat is not: it traps heat exactly where you do not want it.

Related

Keep reading

Update log

What changed

  • First published.

Receipts

Sources

  1. 1.Manduka — hot yoga essentials
  2. 2.Manduka — Yogitoes mat towels
  3. 3.OutdoorGearLab — The Best Yoga Pants
  4. 4.NBC Select — The best yoga props and apparel

We have not used every product on this page, and we do not pretend otherwise. Thicknesses, materials, sizes and warranty terms are the manufacturer's published figures, shown as their claims. Anything about materials, skin or injury is linked to a source. Prices are set by Amazon and change constantly, so we never print one. Read the full method.