How to choose a cryotherapy clinic in London.
What to look for, and what to walk away from.

Search for cryotherapy in London and you will find clinics, gyms, spas and beauty salons all using the same word for quite different equipment. This guide is the checklist we would give a friend: what actually matters when you are choosing where to go, and how to tell within one phone call whether a place takes it seriously. We run a whole-body cryotherapy chamber in Canary Wharf, so we are not neutral — but every point below is one you can check for yourself, anywhere.

The six-point checklist

1. An electric, nitrogen-free whole-body chamber — a room you stand in, not a cylinder you stand in up to the neck.
2. A real temperature and a sensible session — down to −90°C, three to four minutes, never more than five.
3. Someone with you for the whole session, and screening questions before your first one.
4. Everything provided — garments, ear and face protection, a gown — and no shower needed.
5. Prices you can see before you book, the same online and at the desk.
6. Recent reviews and third-party recognition, not just testimonials on the clinic’s own website.

A clinic that passes all six is one you can trust with a first session. The rest of this guide takes each point in turn.

Electric chamber or nitrogen? The biggest difference

This is the question most people never think to ask, and it matters more than anything else on the list. Two different machines are sold under the name “cryotherapy”.

An electric whole-body chamber is a sealed room cooled, in effect, by a very powerful air-conditioning unit. Dry cold air circulates evenly from floor to ceiling. You walk in, the door closes, and the whole of you — head included — is in the cold. You can move, turn and breathe normally, and the person running the session can see you and talk to you throughout.

A nitrogen cryosauna is an open-topped cylinder chilled by liquid-nitrogen vapour. Because the vapour must never be inhaled, your head stays above the rim, so the part of you with the most cold receptors is the one part that never gets cold. The gas is heavier than air and pools at the bottom, so your ankles get a different session from your shoulders. It is the cheaper machine to buy, which is why it is the one most often found in gyms and salons.

Ask one question before anything else: “Is your chamber electric or nitrogen?” If the answer is a pause, the answer is nitrogen.

At Chalet Clinic the chamber is electric and nitrogen-free. The air is dry, which is why −90°C is far more bearable than it sounds, and why you step out with dry skin rather than wet. If you want the longer version of the comparison, our piece on cryotherapy versus an ice bath covers why dry cold and wet cold feel so different.

Temperature and session length

Electric chambers run to around −90°C. You will see nitrogen machines advertised at −140°C or colder; that figure is usually the temperature of the vapour at the nozzle rather than the air against your skin, so it is not comparing like with like. What matters is a cold, dry, even environment and a session timed to it.

Three to four minutes is the standard for a whole-body session. Anyone offering you ten is not doing you a favour, and anyone offering you ninety seconds is selling you a photo opportunity. Your first session may be a little shorter while you learn how the cold feels; by your third you will know exactly where your limit sits. Our guide to your first cryotherapy session walks through those minutes one by one.

Supervision and screening

Whole-body cryotherapy has been around for more than forty years and, for someone in good health, a supervised session is a safe one. The word doing the work in that sentence is supervised. A member of the team should be with you from the moment you step in to the moment you step out — not behind a desk, not in another room. At Chalet Clinic they are.

The other half is screening. Cryotherapy is not for everyone: pregnancy, a pacemaker, a cold allergy and a handful of other conditions rule it out, and jewellery or clothing with exposed metal has to come off. A good clinic asks about all of this before your first session and briefs you before the door closes. A clinic that waves you straight in has told you everything you need to know about it.

What should be provided

You should not have to bring anything. Expect, as a minimum: shorts, socks and slippers; gloves; ear protection; a face mask; and a dressing gown for before and after. Women should be offered a sports bra. All of it should be clean and yours for the session.

Two things you should not need are a shower and a towel. Dry cold leaves you dry — there is no sweat, no water, nothing to wash off — which is the reason a session fits between two meetings. If a clinic tells you to allow time to shower afterwards, ask again whether its chamber is electric.

What a fair price looks like in London

A single whole-body session in London typically costs somewhere between £50 and £90. Most clinics offer an introductory session for new clients, usually in the £25–£40 range, and packs or memberships that bring the per-session price down for regulars. None of that is unusual. What to watch for is how the price is presented.

• Can you see the price before you book? A clinic that hides it behind a “consultation” is not confident in it.
• Is the online price the desk price? It should be.
• How long does a pack last? Ten sessions that expire in a month are not ten sessions.
• Can a membership be paused? Holidays happen.

For reference, ours: an intro session is £29, a single session £57, a pack of ten £287 and valid for four months, the Cryo Club plan £117 for four sessions every four weeks, and Cryo Unlimited £247 a month — all listed on the pricing page, the same in clinic and online, and memberships can be paused.

Reviews, awards and track record

Every clinic’s website has glowing testimonials, so look elsewhere. Google reviews are the honest ledger: read the most recent twenty, not the average, and notice whether people mention the staff by name — that is the tell of a place that is run well day to day. Third-party awards are worth more than badges a clinic awards itself, and a clinic that has been open for years has answered the question of whether it will still be there when your pack has four sessions left.

On that basis, our own: Chalet Clinic is rated 4.9 across more than 280 Google reviews, was named Cryotherapy Centre of the Year 2025by the Luxury Travel Awards and Cryotherapy Clinic of the Year 2025 for London & the South East, and is a Top Ten finalist for Wellness Facility of the Year at the London Lifestyle Awards 2026. The awards sit on our homepage; the reviews are on Google, where we cannot edit them.

Location, and whether it fits a working week

The best clinic in London is of no use if you never go, so weigh location as heavily as the chamber. A whole-body session is about fifteen minutes door to door — five to change, three or four in the cold, five to change back — which means it can live inside a lunch break or on the way home, but only if the clinic is on your way. Check the opening hours against your actual week, not your ideal one: a place that closes at six is a weekend-only place for most people who work in the City.

We are inside Canada Place Mall at Canary Wharf, on the lower ground floor, a few minutes’ walk from the Jubilee line, the DLR and the Elizabeth line, and open seven days — until 8pm Monday to Thursday. Directions and hours are on our Canary Wharf cryotherapy page.

Six questions to ask before you book

Ring the clinic. Two minutes on the phone will tell you most of what this guide covers.

1. “Is your chamber electric or nitrogen?”
2. “What temperature does it reach, and how long is a session?”
3. “Will someone be with me for the whole session?”
4. “Do you ask any health questions before the first session?”
5. “What do I need to bring?” (The right answer is “nothing”.)
6. “How much is a first session, and does a pack expire?”

If the answers are “electric”, “minus ninety, three to four minutes”, “yes”, “yes”, “nothing” and a straight number, you have found a good one. If they are ours, we would be glad to see you.