Sauna Talk: The Sauna Twins from Finnmark Sauna in Great Britain

Today on the bench, we hear from kindred spirits from across the big pond: Jake and Max Newport.

We had been planning this interview for several months. However, within a couple minutes after an email back and forth, we jumped on a Zoom call and were able to Sauna Talk together in spontaneous, quick fashion.

As you will hear in this episode, we get right into the chatter, as mutual lovers of good sauna tend to do.

Doers vs. dreamers

We hear the origins of Finnmark Sauna, from their first experience of Finnish sauna, to building a wood fired sauna in their family backyard, to the origins of their sauna business, Finnmark Sauna.

Jake and Max are busy guys, helping customers all over Great Britain with their desire to own their own saunas. Finnmark does custom installs, mainly electric interior projects. They are willing and enthusiastic about spending time helping educated clients and non clients alike not just on what a good sauna is all about, but how to achieve an authentic Finnish sauna solution for the interested potential customer.

We talk about Sauna Studies and the simple empirical, experiential goodness of sauna: real sauna! With great heat, ventilation, lämpömassa, and, of course, cold plunge, which is written into the Finnish sauna experience DNA. Further reading: Dr. Mathew Walker Why We Sleep

Could infrared cabin marketing hucksters be committing a cultural crime?

If we at Saunatimes ever thought that we were alone in our suspicion of of infrared hucksters, we can now look to our allies, Jake and Max, from across the big pond who are extremely impassioned towards preserving the authenticity of Finnish sauna. This includes calling “bullshit” on the false claims and marginalization of what is a pure and centuries old tradition: authentic Finnish sauna.

You will hear a summary of Jake’s speech to the World Sauna Congress last year, where he outlines the importance of maintaining definition, integrity, and authenticity of the word “sauna.” This includes building good saunas, of course, which includes focus towards such critical elements as:

• design (hot room size, material, bench layout, etc.).
• ventilation
• lämpömassa (sauna stones, surround, stove density, etc.)
• heater (quality built, recognition of origin, properly sized, etc.)
• nature (cold plunge, fresh air, proper cool downs).

Sauna is an experience to be enjoyed

Sauna is not about forcing pain upon yourself.

There is an ethos in Great Britain that “the medicine should taste foul” and with exercise, “it must be painful to be good.” But with sauna, when we listen to our body, we tap into what wellness is all about. And really great sauna feels awesome.