‘It lowers inhibition’: how saunas are challenging UK pubs as the place to meet
Delegates to the UK’s first ever sauna conference will file out after the final panel discussion facing a choice of where to carry on the conversations: bar or sauna?
The queue for the latter may well be longer – one reason why Britain’s sauna scene has expanded rapidly in the past few years is because aficionados feel they are surprisingly like pubs.
“The sauna provides a similar function to alcohol in a way,” said Charlie Duckworth, a director at Community Sauna Baths, which runs several London saunas. “It lowers inhibition. It makes you feel comfortable and chatty, and hopefully in a place that’s social and friendly. But not in a sexualised or intoxicating way.”
Saunas in the UK have until recently been afterthoughts in hotel spas or places where getting steamy had another, seedier connotation. But after Liz Watson and Katie Bracher created a pop-up Finnish-style sauna on Brighton beach using a converted horse box in 2018, a wave of mobile or permanent saunas have appeared, mostly at the seaside or beside lakes. There are more than 100 around the UK and Ireland, according to the British Sauna Society, with more than 30 of those appearing in the past six months.
Sauna Summit 2024 on 20 May is an attempt by the people who make up this fledging industry to share knowledge, find ways to improve their operations and work out how to solve problems, such as a reluctance by some local authorities to give permission to set up new saunas.
Summit panels will explore ways to scientifically demonstrate the apparent benefits of a sauna and discuss ways to persuade councils that beachside saunas can help revive seaside communities.
“It’s a bit of a gold rush,” said Emma O’Kelly, author of a forthcoming guide to UK saunas and a summit organiser. “People want to be near car parks and loos, and have access to running water, and there aren’t all that many places that are accessible.”
Speakers are travelling from the European powerhouses of sauna – Finland, Estonia, Norway and Denmark – to give tips on best practice. But a unique British sauna culture is emerging, according to native Finn Mika Meskanen, chair of the British Sauna Society, which is hosting the event.
“I often promote this notion outside the UK because I think the Brits are a little bit shy about it – they could be a bit more proud of what is brewing or emerging here,” Meskanen said.
“It’s an interesting mix of honouring the Finnish tradition, the Estonian tradition and other European traditions,
but also having the open-mindedness to apply that creatively.”
Some of those traditions include a reverence for löyly, the Finnish word for steam evaporating from a hot stove, enthusiasm for leaf whisking – brushing and tapping saunaed skin with twigs and leaves – and circulating steam using a towel, a German practice called Aufguss.
Nordic and Baltic visitors to venues such as at Hackney Wick are surprised by British innovations, including grief saunas – gatherings inspired by Irish wakes – yoga saunas, life drawing classes, and transgender or men’s circle saunas. These come from a lack of dogma about sauna, according to Meskanen, who compared it to the UK’s greater openness to international cuisine than countries with a strong food culture, such as Italy.
Markus Hippi, press attache at Finland’s UK embassy, said things had come a long way from the dry, uncomfortable saunas when he first arrived 14 years ago. “There is more action now,” he said. “In Finland we like to keep it basic – a nice place for relaxation and friendly banter. Whereas in London I think there is pressure to be very active and get loads done. Also saunas [here] are not as hot – 60C is very low for Finnish sauna. I think it would be more like 75C, 80C. I’ve been to saunas that had 120C.”
Finns tend to have saunas at home, he said, so people grow up having them with their parents instead of watching television, but in the past 10 years there has been a growth in new, impressive public saunas where people can meet.
There is a possibility sauna could become an important type of “third place” – a term used by sociologist Ray Oldenburg to describe spaces away from home and work where people can meet and make friends. Traditional third places such as pubs and churches are in decline, but sauna operators are making conscious efforts to build communities, by encouraging people to book sessions as part of a group.
“There is a resurgence of sauna as community spaces,” Meskanen said. “The Roman baths in ancient Britain had that social function – meeting places, places for getting healthy and doing exercise. I call them friendmaking boxes – people go in, they might not know each other, but they come out as friends.”
One major stumbling block remains: nudity.
“It’s a real anxiety about sauna,” O’Kelly said. “The number of people who’ve asked me about it, ‘oh god, we’re going to have to be naked’. But it’s not like Finland or Germany. In fact, in some of the saunas I’ve been in, people are wearing all their clothes.”