My Favourite Thing to Do in a Sauna

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 One of my favourite things to do in a sauna, is to attend what we call an 'opgieting' - Germans call it 'Aufguss', which literally means 'pouring on'. I've heard it compared to the Finnish 'löyly', but I understand that has a much wider definition, and I've never been to Finland, that's still on my wish list of destinations.

Anyway, what's an 'opgieting'? People gather in a sauna with a good temperature, usually around 90 degrees Celsius. During a session of at least 15 minutes, a sauna master pours water scented with essential oils on the stones of the heater, and starts to distribute the resulting steam through the sauna. Different methods of doing this are employed - most often with a towel sometimes with a fan, or a banner. And most sauna masters try to reach every single person in the sauna with their towel movements, so that everyone feels the result.

Image by Ulrike Leone (pixabay.com)

What makes it such an interesting experience, is that it feels much hotter than it really is, but at the same time the towel movement adds a kind of wind chill factor. Since the 'wind' moves hot air, the result is an almost contradictory sensory experience which feels great! Not to mention of course the effect on the senses of the scents added to the water.

In Dutch spas the session is often ended with a treat, like some fruit, or a drink. And sometimes you get some honey to give your skin a treat - because of the temperature, the honey goes really runny, and is easy to massage into the skin.

End it all with a cold shower and a dip in the cold plunge pool, and the whole thing is really refreshing and rejuvenating!

And since every sauna master has a different approach to the experience, it has become a bit of a hobby of mine to try out the sessions at different spas, and at different times, and see what I like best. 

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