Sauna hats??

While looking at a picture of sauna accessories, I noticed sauna hats. Hats? I was mystified. This was quite out of my experience.

When I ventured further onto the Internet, I found more hats. One website for a public sauna business encouraged people to bring their own — the sillier, the better.

Sure enough, photos show happy people wearing woolen caps. Hats apparently protect a person’s head and allow them to enjoy hotter temperatures and/or longer saunas.

Does it work? Anyone who’s convinced? Let me know.

Side note: My hairdresser said that heat is especially hard on hair dyes — worse than chlorine pools. Her usual suggestion is that  those who’ve treated themselves to expensive hair coloring should limit time under a blow dryer or in the sun. I bet that would include the sauna as well. When I’m due for a recoloring, maybe I should  try a hat.

Nikki 

Buy a copy of Some Like It Hot: The Sauna, Its Lore and Stories from the publisher, North Star Press of St. Cloud, Minnesota, or from local booksellers.  

For a personally inscribed copy, send $20 (which includes tax and shipping costs) to: Nikki Rajala, P.O. Box 372, Rockville, Minnesota 56369.

Sauna scents

As a memento from a spa in Germany, my friend Heidi brought me some sauna scents, lovely citrus oils to add to the waters for fragrant steam. Every now and then, I add a few drops into a ladle full of water, sprinkle it on the rocks — and breathe in the aroma of lemon, or orange, or grapefruit.

The scent doesn’t stay long — that magical steam is momentary. As the next ladle of plain water becomes steam, I can barely detect a whiff of briefly-wonderful bouquet.

I hadn’t tried — or even considered — sauna scents before Heidi gave them to me. Now I wonder what other products I’ve missed. Let me know…

Nikki