Cleaning Your Yoga Mat

Whether you practice daily, once a week or once a year, it’s important to clean your yoga mat!

How often you clean it, your cleaning method and how you store it really depends on your mat and personal preferences.

Personally, my mat is a sacred space. Once I roll out my mat, I instantly settle into a different state of mind. I want to be completely focused on my breath and movement so things like a dirty mat, a gross smell or yesterday’s makeup on my mat can be a distraction. It’s kind of like wanting to take a nice warm bubble bath, but your tub is dirty. It just takes away from the experience. But with a little prep and good habits, you can maintain a clean, sanitary mat that’s just waiting to be rolled out for your next practice.

How often should I clean my mat?

Your cleaning schedule should be determined by a few factors:

How often you use your mat, the type of yoga you practice, the material your mat is made of and how you store it.

Depending on the material of your mat, yoga mats can be a breeding ground for bacteria and fungus. How? Well, practically every part of our body touches the mat when we practice. Our feet, our hands, our torso and limbs and sometimes even our faces….all in the same class. Unless you are walking out of the shower and right on to your mat, you bring dead skin, dirt, bacteria and any kind of fungus that is potentially on your feet all to your yoga mat. Add to that sweat, makeup and sometimes even tears and you might as well dive right into that dirty bath water.

If you practice hot, sweaty yoga, I recommend cleaning your mat after every practice and letting it completely dry before putting it away. I know this isn’t always possible, especially if you practice in a studio so you can always roll it up (perhaps with your towel on top) and take it home to immediately clean it. The longer your mat stays wet and rolled up, the more gross and harder to clean it will be.

Some people practice hot yoga with a towel on their mat. While this does absorb most of the sweat, it still doesn’t keep your mat completely clean. So it’s best to still clean your mat AND wash your towel in hot water.

If you do a non-sweaty yoga practice, for example a yin or restorative class, you can get away with only cleaning your mat every two or three times you use it.  It’s personal preference really. I usually take into consideration how dirty my feet were or how much my face is going to touch the mat.

Whenever I feel lazy and don’t want to clean my mat I think about that episode of friends when Chandler tried to tell Joey that soap is self-cleaning. What’s the last thing you did on your mat and what’s the first thing you will do in your next practice? Chances are it involves putting your face somewhere your feet have been.

How To Clean Your Mat

You can clean your mat a number of ways.

One way is the classic and reliable soap and hot water. Simply lay your mat out, use a cloth or clean sponge and give it a good and thorough wipe down.

You could even fill up your bathtub and give it a good scrub.

Be sure to let it completely dry before rolling it up and putting it away.

Some companies make towelettes so you can wipe your mat down after each use. This is a great idea only I tend to forget my wipes at home or in the car and they dry up fairly quick.

When Covid first came to the US, I cleaned my mat with a Clorox wipe before I left the yoga studio. Then I washed both sides once I got home and let it completely dry before placing a towel on it and rolling it back up.

Some studios even have a UV light machine that you run your mat through and it sanitizes it. I’ve only seen these a few times. I imagine they are quite expensive.

Some mats are machine washable. I’ve tried this with a couple of my mats that are supposed to be machine washable and found they took so long to dry that they still weren’t dry in time for the next day’s practice. So IF your mat is machine washable…that’s great. But read the care instructions and maybe have a backup mat just in case.

The easy and most popular way to clean your mat is to use a mat cleaner. Most studios have mat cleaner available for students to use after class. Just spray it on your mat, wait a few moments and wipe it with a damp cloth. Preferably not the same cloth you wiped your sweat with.

You can purchase mat spray cleaner online and sometimes at your local yoga studio.

OR make your own:

4 parts distilled or filtered water

1 part Witchhazel

5-10 drops tea tree (depending on how much cleaner you are making)

5 drops other oils of choice

You other choice for oils may include additional oils that are antifungal or antibacterial for example: peppermint, lemongrass or eucalyptus.

I like to add oils that contain properties I’d like to feel in my practice. This means I tend to use lavendar, patchouli and sometimes orange or lemon.

Just be sure to start soft on the more fragrant oils. Especially if you practice in a studio or other enclosed space where other people would potentially smell your mat.

A little note from my friend Kalila:

“One thing to consider... Witch hazel is an emulsifier for the oils. If you want the oil evenly distributed, you might want to start with the witch hazel, add the oil and mix it together before adding the water and mixing again.” - Thank you Kalila!!

Always make sure your mat is completely dry before rolling it up and putting it away. You can dry your mat with a towel, but it will still be damp so I recommend draping it over a shower rod or bathtub until it’s dry. You can also hang it over a bathtub or shower rod or even use a hanger with soft clamps and hang it in your shower or outside.

However you decide to clean your mat, remember….you are practicing yoga for self-care, healing and other health benefits so be sure your cleanliness, cleaners and mat care measure up!

Check out the full video here: