Clearlight is the founder-owned, doctor-designed infrared-sauna brand that licenses its engineering to Jacuzzi rather than being owned by it.

Clearlight follows Sunlighten as the round’s licensing node — a founder-owned, doctor-designed infrared-sauna brand whose engineering is credible enough that a famous hot-tub name licenses it, rather than owning it. Its answer to a round about who owns the wellness gear and where it is made is a nuanced one: an independent, founder-owned brand that makes Jacuzzi-branded saunas under licence and builds its own in China.

Its identity is doctor-designed; Jacuzzi licenses it. The doctor-founder origin, the founder ownership and the Jacuzzi licensing are the story here. Designed by a doctor. Doctor-designed; Jacuzzi licenses it.

(Honest notes, so the founding, the ownership, the making and the health claims are framed accurately, and one common error corrected. Clearlight sells premium infrared saunas as its heroes — the full-spectrum Sanctuary, including an outdoor model, the far-infrared Premier cabins and the Curve, with its True Wave heaters and a halotherapy add-on; we report its language as the brand’s own. On origin: Clearlight, whose legal entity is Sauna Works, Inc., was founded in 1997 by Dr. Raleigh Duncan, a chiropractor and early infrared advocate, together with Andy Kaps, adopting the Clearlight Infrared Saunas brand name in 2003, and is based in Berkeley, California. On ownership, corrected: Clearlight is not owned by Jacuzzi, contrary to a widely repeated claim that it was acquired in 2019; instead, since 2017, it holds an exclusive licensing partnership under which it manufactures Jacuzzi-branded infrared saunas, while Clearlight and Sauna Works remain independently and privately founder-owned. On where it is made: Clearlight builds its saunas in China to its own specifications, marketing them as California-designed and doctor-designed, so we do not imply US manufacture. On health, carefully: Clearlight markets detox, pain, weight-loss, heart-health and immune benefits and emphasises ultra-low electromagnetic-field heaters, but the FDA-cleared infrared indications are narrow and the detox and weight-loss claims are wellness marketing, not established medicine, so we attribute every benefit to the brand or emerging research, treat the low-EMF claim as the brand’s, and note that regulators have warned other infrared sellers, not Clearlight, over unproven claims. Its designs and the Clearlight name are IP we describe but do not reproduce; there is no official brand hex; these tones are an unofficial interpretation.)

Clearlight lives in a spa terracotta. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Clearlight’s identity is doctor-designed, founder-owned and licensed-out — a spa terracotta, an ink, a pale clay, a deep clay, and a paper. The palette leans spa terracotta and pale clay: a warm, earthy register that nods to a calm, clinical-adjacent spa rather than a loud logo colour. It signals doctor-designed; Jacuzzi licenses it — doctor-designed, founder-owned and licensed-out. The honest caveat: with no official brand hex, these values are a warm, unofficial interpretation, not first-party colours.

The lesson is a warm terracotta signals a calm, spa identity. Clearlight’s world is the doctor-designed infrared cabin. For designers, it is a reminder that a warm terracotta and a soft clay can carry a calm, premium wellness brand — an earthy tone held as an accent, not a product shot. Because a mid hue can fail as small text, keep type dark and let the colour live in the accents, palette and band. The takeaways: credit the 1997 founding by Dr. Raleigh Duncan; correct the ownership, noting the Jacuzzi licensing rather than acquisition; describe the making as China; and attribute the health and low-EMF claims.

The register is a spa sans — doctor-designed, founder-owned, licensed-out.

Clearlight’s identity carries a doctor-designed, founder-owned, licensed-out spirit — an independent brand whose engineering a giant licenses. A spa sans captures the mood: clean, calm and credible, the register of a doctor-designed product. Set in a spa-terracotta palette, the spa sans feels calm and credible — exactly the personality Clearlight carries. It behaves like a made, considered thing rather than a loud logo, mirroring a steam-arc and a thermal-band. (Clearlight’s real products and the name are things we describe but do not reproduce, and the exact typeface is not ours to use.) Because it is not ours to use, the honest description is “a spa-sans brand,” shown here in a stand-in. The type behaves like the brand: doctor-designed, founder-owned and licensed-out.

Clearlight stands for doctor-designed; Jacuzzi licenses it.

Clearlight sits sixth in the round as its licensing node. A spa-terracotta palette, a spa sans and a doctor-founder origin make one thing — doctor-designed; Jacuzzi licenses it — the whole identity: doctor-designed, founder-owned and licensed-out. The doctor-founder origin is the pitch, the founder ownership is the frame, and the Jacuzzi licensing is the twist. The point is an independent brand whose engineering a giant licenses, in a round about who owns the wellness gear and where it is made.

Put to work, the identity is the brand told straight, the ownership corrected and the health claims attributed. A brand in this spirit would credit the 1997 founding by Dr. Raleigh Duncan, correct the ownership by noting the Jacuzzi licensing rather than acquisition, describe the making as China, and attribute the health and low-EMF claims. A reader in this spirit would keep the facts right: Clearlight sells the Sanctuary, Premier and Curve saunas, with True Wave heaters, as its heroes; its legal entity is Sauna Works, Inc., founded in 1997 by Dr. Raleigh Duncan and Andy Kaps, HQ Berkeley, California; it is not owned by Jacuzzi but licenses its engineering to build Jacuzzi-branded saunas, remaining founder-owned; it builds in China; and its detox, pain and heart-health benefits are the brand’s claims and emerging research, its low-EMF a brand claim. Clearlight sits after Sunlighten and before Harvia. The honest editorial moves are to credit the founder, to correct the ownership, to describe the making, and to attribute the claims.

For designers and brand-builders, Clearlight carries the wellness node: correct a licensing-versus-ownership myth — and attribute the health and EMF claims. The lessons: a brand can rest on a credible founder, here a chiropractor who designed for chronic-pain patients; a founding is credited to 1997 and Dr. Raleigh Duncan; an ownership myth is corrected, Clearlight licensing to Jacuzzi rather than being owned by it, and remaining founder-owned; a manufacturing base is described honestly as China; and health and low-EMF benefits are attributed to the brand or emerging research, with regulators noted as having warned other sellers, not Clearlight. It is also a reminder to stay precise: Clearlight is the founder-owned, doctor-designed infrared brand that licenses to Jacuzzi, made in China — with the palette here an unofficial interpretation. The hook is that credibility: founded in 1997 by a chiropractor, Dr. Raleigh Duncan, to help chronic-pain and fibromyalgia patients, doctor-designed Clearlight became credible enough that Jacuzzi, after about two and a half years of due diligence, licensed it to build Jacuzzi-branded infrared saunas — the hot-tub giant putting its name on Clearlight’s engineering rather than buying the company. Read that way, Clearlight is less a single sauna than doctor-designed; Jacuzzi licenses it: doctor-designed, founder-owned, licensed-out. The lesson for a brand is that correcting the ownership and attributing the claims reinforce each other, and crediting the founder keeps the story earned. Clearlight made doctor-designed-Jacuzzi-licenses-it the identity — proof that a corrected ownership account can anchor a node.

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