Saunas — so hot right now

It’s a Thursday morning in Brooklyn, and a young man in a bell-shaped felt hat is vigorously pumping a branch of oak leaves in my direction. I’m in a banya — the eastern European equivalent of a sauna — deep in the bowels of a new, 50,000-square-foot spa experiencing a “steam massage”, also known as a parenie.

I am crimson-faced and sweating into my swimsuit. But I am on trend. You only have to look at Instagram or TikTok, where stars from Lady Gaga to Gwyneth Paltrow to the Beckhams post pictures from saunas to see the steam rising. The sauna at the Parliament Hill Lido in London is “struggling to cope” with the influx of newcomers during the past year, a manager said. On Instagram, a search for the hashtag #saunaselfie yields more than 33,500 results.

World Spa, the sleek, gargantuan spa where I’m having my humid banya experience, feels like the embodiment of the trend, with its dizzying (sometimes literally) array of heat-based experiences over three floors. As I learn during a sweaty tour through its pine-scented chambers with project director Leonid Khanin, there are thermal rituals here from around the world, including two Russian banyas. There is a drier Finnish sauna too, and a futuristic-looking infrared sauna, which is designed to heat the body in a less intense way, without warming the air around it, as well as Turkish and Moroccan hammams.

There are also pools and restaurants, and a “snow room” (it features “real” falling snow, which I am encouraged to smoosh on my sizzling face). Together, they invite a full day out. “We are hopefully done with the worst of the Covid stuff,” says Khanin. “We are coming back together, and this is the best place to celebrate that, because it gives you an energy boost, an amazing opportunity to refresh your immune system, the combination of healthy food and treatments. It’s basically a ticket back to social life.”

Although the health benefits of saunas, banyas and the like may not be quite as concrete as that (on which more later) the link between steamy chambers, relaxation and community has been embedded in a variety of cultures for thousands of years, from the ancient Romans and Greeks to Aztec and Mayan temazcals.

New York City, with its melting pot of cultures, has long been famous for its bathhouses, including the East Village institution Russian & Turkish Baths, established in 1892, as well as a smattering of South Korean jjimjilbang (one Korean-influenced spa, Spa Castle in Queens, has a full “sauna valley”). In the age of Goop, luxury sauna experiences have also entered the scene, ranging from The Well, a wellness-themed club offering infrared saunas, to Bathhouse Williamsburg, a dimly lit, womblike sanctuary filled with saunas and pools of various temperatures, to Aman New York, the buzzed-about new Manhattan hotel, which has made banyas and hammams central to its 25,000-square-foot spa space.

Some of the recent heat about saunas began during the early months of the pandemic, when multiple sauna manufacturers reported staggering sales as at-home saunas became a self-soothing tool for the 1 per cent. Hailey Bieber was among those Instagramming from her quarantine sauna in a bikini, while the Beckhams posted pictures of their Estonian sauna pod.

We are coming back together, and this is the best place to celebrate that

Alexander Lazarev, director of The Bath House, a banya in Belgravia that counts David Beckham, Guy Ritchie and Justin Bieber among its clients, thinks Covid has sparked interest in communal thermal experiences — a result of the post-lockdown yearning for health and togetherness.

Running a business rooted in Russian culture has not been easy, though. In March 2022, Lazarev — who is Ukrainian — posted a social media statement expressing his disapproval of the war, concerned that some customers would assume that he was pro-Putin. “The banya tradition is probably five to seven centuries long — this cultural health institution exists longer than any political [sic] or government,” he says.

Lazarev thinks customers understand this now, and the banya is as busy as it has ever been. He attracts people who find stress-relief difficult to come by, he explains; who value “socialising with friends, the feeling of wellbeing that comes from treatments and having a nice meal afterwards”.

Many proponents of saunas say they make users feel relaxed and energised. But there is a lot of hot air in the sauna world too, with some claiming infrared saunas eliminate toxins, boost metabolism, support weight loss and strengthen the immune system. In 2021, Paltrow notoriously claimed she had used an infrared version to help her deal with long Covid, much to the chagrin of the medical director of NHS England, who publicly urged her to stop spreading misinformation. (Goop currently has a two-person full-spectrum infrared sauna for sale for $8,099, should you fancy one.)

Some studies about infrared saunas have linked them to astonishing health benefits, including lower blood pressure and reduced chances of fatal heart disease, dementia, stroke and neurological decline. But Jonathan Jarry, a science communicator for the scientific literacy organisation McGill Office for Science and Society, says that while there are some positive short-term changes that occur in the body during a sauna, generally the body returns to normal within a few hours. He points out that some claims (such as “support weight loss”) are so vague that they don’t mean anything, while other claims, like detoxing, are “not really based in scientific facts, and are often based in chemophobia — an irrational fear of chemicals”. The studies that have made specific claims about saunas’ health benefits are nowhere near conclusive, he adds.

In his view, there are plausible claims that saunas can help with temporary pain relief, but everything else “is a giant question mark”. He also points out that while for most people saunas are safe, there are some risks to be aware of. Mixing alcohol with sauna bathing can be dangerous. “There are certain people with certain cardiovascular conditions that should abstain.”

“I am not anti-sauna,” he clarifies, “any activity that promotes relaxation is good.” But he does want to point out that any other of the myriad benefits associated with saunas “haven’t yet been proven”.

Which might put you off that $8,099 sauna purchase, but doesn’t make the idea of spending a day in a public sauna any less lovely, in my view.

Recently I took a friend I hadn’t seen in months to Bathhouse Williamsburg. We spent hours talking about everything from mortality to The White Lotus — it was like catching up over cocktails, minus the promise of a dual hangover.

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