Two men dressed in caveman-like sacking are performing an ancient ritual in front of me, swirling towels to direct hot air at my fellow sauna-goers in 90˚C heat. Steam rises as ice is heaped on hot stones, and the fragrance of pine swirls around against a soundtrack of howling wolves. Thankfully, no one is naked. Elaborate ceremonies like these are known as the Aufguss – the wafting of steam and essential oils – a kind of performance art, and part of a global resurgence in the popularity of saunas. I’m at Sauna Fest, the annual festival held at Therme in Bucharest, Romania (therme.ro), which feels a million miles from my twice-weekly sauna in the UK. But after making it part of my weekly routine a few years ago I have lower blood pressure, improved skin tone and better stress management, so I’m keen to find out more.
Saunas have been popular in Scandinavia, Germany, Russia, Japan and Turkey for centuries, but apart from a brief spell in the 1970s, they didn’t get much traction in the UK.
Emma O’Kelly, who built a home sauna after researching Sauna: The Power of Deep Heat (Welbeck), says, ‘They’re popping up everywhere in the UK – more than 70 beach box saunas, hotels building forest saunas, plus pop-up festivals in cities, and home saunas too. People like to chill out and de-stress, and there’s the social aspect as well.’