After a good sauna, it’s always nice to cool down naturally, by relaxing and letting the breeze gently take the heat away from your body. Of course, since the sauna is best enjoyed with as little clothing as possible, if you’re enjoying the sauna during the day, you probably want a good sunscreen.
Many sunscreens available in the U.S. may be the equivalent of modern-day snake oil, plying customers with claims of broad-spectrum protection but not providing it, while exposing people to potentially hazardous chemicals that can penetrate the skin into the body. When only 8 percent of sunscreens rate high for safety and efficacy, it’s clear that consumers concerned about protecting themselves and their families are left with few good options.
The risk of Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, may be increased while wearing sunscreen, for some people.
High SPF products may be more harmful, suppressing sunburns, while allowing other skin damage to occur.
Sunscreen may inhibit the production of Vitamin D.
Vitamin A in sunscreen may speed the development of cancer.
Free radical damage from UV rays may be worse with sunscreen than it is on bare skin alone.
Hormone disruptors or Nanomaterials are present in most US sunscreen formulations.
European sunscreens are better than US sunscreens, because
The US FDA has lagged approving new compounds, and has spent 33 years developing a sunscreen safety policy.
The Environmental Working Group is a US Non-profit dedicated to educating the public about hidden toxic chemicals and working to change government policy that allow, promote or subsidize the use of these toxins.
In my review of this morning’s Sauna news, I happened upon a review of The Sauna Cookbook: Food for Body and Soul posted on The Culinary Cellar blog. This cookbook, written by Tuula Kaitilia and Edey Saarinen has 130 recipes with color photos and measurements in English and Metric Units.
So what does the sauna have to do with a cookbook , you ask? It is known that sauna bathing depletes the body of fluids and electrolytes, thus making it necessary to replenish them with a refreshing drink and salty snack. The sauna and the ensuing drink and treats together provide food for the body and soul, hence the title of the cookbook. The Finns will cook food inside the sauna as it heats up. Some of the popular items include sausages and fish. Sausages are wrapped in foil and placed directly on the sauna rocks. Others like to have sandwiches or salted salmon ready to eat inside their homes after relaxing in the sauna. The cookbook has chapters on all the traditional sauna foods, along with wonderful bread recipes, desserts, beverages, sauces and condiments, and even Christmas foods. Before all the recipes, the first chapter explains the culture of the sauna itself in Finnish life, which is fascinating. It has been a ritual in Finland for thousands of years, and is an integral part of entertaining and family life. People will build their sauna before they even build the home alongside it.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the sauna used for cooking. At Therme Erding near Munich, they have their “Bakery Sauna” where the sauna stove is used as an oven to bake bread while you’re enjoying the heat.
A site that showed up on my radar a few weeks ago is Hotsprung, subtitled “Hot Water and How to Get Into It.”
Most interesting is the post on the Dogo Onsen in Japan. According to Hotsprung, it was the inspiration for the bath house in the excellent movie Spirited Away(which probably deserves its own post here).
Hotsprung also has a very informative post on the Onsen, a style of Japanese Bath, plus some first-hand reviews of several spas in the Seattle and Vancouver area.
For those of you who are enthusiastic about both saunas and philately, Finnland Post has just issued the stamp set for you. Rather than rewrite it, we’ll let their press release do the talking.
“When I chose the pictures for the Sauna booklet, I aimed for Finnishness and the authentic sauna atmosphere,” says the designer of the booklet, Päivi Vainionpää. “The first stamp shows a moment before a sauna. The sun is going down, there’s a fresh birch whisk in the bucket on the jetty, and soft towels await the bathers,” as she describes the scene. The second stamp shows the bathers actually in the sauna, and the third stamp depicts an idyllic shoreline sauna in its natural setting. The fourth and fifth stamps show sauna atmosphere inside and out: a sauna whisk bathes in the sunlight on a log wall, and inside the sauna the sunshine lights up the bathing place through a window.
The Sauna stamps include microscopic scent capsules. When the stamps are rubbed, the capsules burst and spread a pleasing aroma of birch leaves.
Checking their website, the stamps were supposed to have been released on May 6. As of today, we can’t find a link to buy these on their online stamp shop. It looks like the booklet will cost € 4.00 (approx. US$ 5.35)
In our quest to find new and interesting sauna tidbits to share with you, we spend a lot of time combing the web looking for information.
This weekend, we stumbled upon Sauna Times, a blog run by Glenn, a “Joe American” living in Minnesota. We find the similarities between his site and ours uncanny, right down to the choice of the background images. He seems to be quite a personable fellow. So much so that with this post, Sauna times now has a place in our links page.
What really caught our attention on his site though, was his post “Hotel Sauna: How to Take One.” A laminated copy now resides in our briefcase for our next stay at a hotel with a sauna.
We have noticed that most hotel (and health club) saunas, especially here in the USA, tend to be overly dry from disuse. This becomes part of the problem: If the sauna is dry and hot, it irritates your respiratory system. Most forbid you from throwing water on the rocks, so the only solution is to turn the temperature down. You end up sitting in a warm room, which really doesn’t do much for you.
Sauna Times has a simple solution for all of this: As soon as you check in, turn on the sauna full blast. Give it 20 minutes or so to heat, then:
Flush the hotel sauna. Generously douse with fresh water:
the bench area where you’ll be sitting.
the hotel sauna rocks with water (they should bark back, if not, the sauna is lame, call housekeeping if you’re especially irritated).
anywhere else you feel the urge.
Why? underused hotel saunas can build up dust and stagnation, this ‘cleansing’ will get your hotel sauna fresh and ready to rock.
After this, reset the timer again, and give the sauna another 30 minutes to recover from this washing, and you’re ready to begin the sauna process, which Glenn distills succinctly: “It’s like the instructions on a box of laundry detergent: sauna, rinse, chill, repeat.”
Nokia Löyly showing the conditions the new Nokia 5800 Sauna Edition is enduring from AllAboutSybian.com
For those of us addicted both to our sauna and our smartphone, Nokia today announced the release of their 5800 Sauna Edition today. AllAboutSybian.com broke the story earlier today. They interviewed Dr. Huhtikuun Ensimmäinen of Nokia’s Consumer Innovations Unit who said:
So, here we have the 5800 Sauna Edition, heat resistant up to 120 degrees celsius and able to work without problems in a typical sauna humidity. We have included a thermometer/hygrometer application so you can follow the progress of your sauna, but the real innovation here is our work on the casing. The Sauna Edition’s casing is coated with a special organically-derived plastic which allows radio signals to move unimpeded but blocks 99.99% of all humidity from entering.
Dr. Ensimmäinen expects the device to be popular in the Nordic regions, central Europe, and Russia. They believe a niche product like this would have a market to sauna enthusiasts worldwide, including us in North America.
AllAboutSybian.com found that the specialized thermo-hygrometer application bundled with the phone, Nokia Löyly reported accurate temperatures, and since most saunas are dimly lit, “a backlit phone-based meter app clearly offer a potential advantage over traditional sauna meters.” They also report that “there are tentative proposals to make a Bluetooth-compatible sauna stove which will adjust its temperature automatically according to your personalised settings on the 5800 SE”
They recorded their full interview with Dr. Ensimmäinen, including a [NSFW] demo of the phone being used in a sauna by young women. It is available here. Enjoy.
Mihael Cankar, a Finn living in Helsinki, has been maintaining his Finnish Sauna site since 1994. He has achieved his mission of bringing information about sauna culture to the internet.
He covers all of the important topics for the potential sauna-goer: How to Use the Sauna, Health Issues, building and maintaining Your Own Sauna, and the History and Traditions of the sauna. He rounds out his own content with judicious links to content by others, including Dr. Weil and a first-time sauna goer.
Pay his site a visit, and you’ll never wonder what Avantouinti means again.
Plans for Kalle Hoffman's current sauna, rendered in beautiful ASCII from his sauna building FAQ
For those of you looking to build your own sauna, a good reference point is Kalle Hoffman’s Sauna Page and Sauna Building FAQ. Kalle is a Finnish software developer living in the San Francisco area. His pages recount lessons learned while building a few of his own saunas.
Better yet is his FAQ, which is more a digest of interesting e-mail correspondence he’s had dating back to 1995. It’s a cross between a bully pulpit and a show and tell, but very informative. Most interesting are his collection of ASCII sauna plans that he’s shared with his correspondents over the years. He also has plans for The Kallenator, a sauna stove made from two old 40-gallon hot water heaters.
If you’ve never seen it, take an hour and watch the excellent documentary from the NOVA series on PBS of the Roman Bath. The video is embedded below. but if it’s not working, you can watch it on Hulu, or buy it from Amazon.
In my review of this morning’s Sauna news, I happened upon a review of 
(which probably deserves its own post here).
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