# The Finnish sauna, and which one you are in

Almost every confused question about Finnish sauna etiquette is really a question about which sauna the asker is standing in. There are four, they carry four different sets of obligations, and English has one word for all of them.

## The short version

- Four kinds: your own, the building's, a public one, a cottage one. The rules follow the room.
- The building sauna runs on a saunavuoro - a booked hour, on a fixed day, paid for either way.
- Shower first and sit on something. Those are the two nobody says out loud.
- Ask before throwing water. The person on the top bench is hotter than you are.
- It is a verb: saunoa. That is most of what English lost in the loan.

## The four rooms

Not ranked, and deliberately so - Finland's own description of its sauna culture declines to put one kind above another, which the [etiquette piece](https://finnishirl.com/blog/finnish-sauna-etiquette) goes into. What differs between them is not quality, it is what you owe.

- **Your own, in the flat or the house**: Electric, small, usually off the bathroom, and in a startling share of Finnish homes. Nothing is owed to anybody: you heat it when you want it. This is the one that surprises people most, because it is a sauna with no occasion attached - a Tuesday thing, not an event.
- **The building's, on a booked hour**: Most people in Finnish cities do not have their own and have a saunavuoro instead: a turn in the shared sauna downstairs, typically weekly, on a named day, charged on the rent. This is the one with actual rules, because it is shared property with a list - and the rules are set by your building rather than by the country. What the terms usually are: [the building sauna](https://finnishirl.com/blog/what-to-say-in-a-finnish-sauna#if-the-sauna-is-in-your-building), and the word itself: [saunavuoro](https://finnishirl.com/words/saunavuoro).
- **A public one, which you pay to enter**: Some over a century old and some built in the last ten years. Here the house sets the terms and will state them - mixed or single-sex, swimwear or not, whether a drink may come in - so the thing to do is read the sign rather than apply a rule you read in English. Several have a hole in the ice attached in winter.
- **The cottage one, wood-fired**: By the water, heated for an hour before anyone gets in, and the version in almost every photograph of Finland. It is also the only one of the four with a fire in it, which is why a wood stove in a building you do not know is not something to experiment with. The beer comes onto the bench here, and the cooling-off happens in the lake. The surrounding weekend: [mökki](https://finnishirl.com/words/mokki).

A savusauna, a smoke sauna, is a fifth and sits slightly outside the set: no chimney, heated for hours, aired out, then used on the stored heat. Nobody does that on a Tuesday. It is the oldest form and now mostly a thing people travel to, which is worth knowing so that a photograph of one is not mistaken for the ordinary case.

## Every word said in there

The vocabulary is small and almost none of it is in a course, because it is spoken in a room where nobody is writing. Where a word has a page here it is linked; the rest you will only ever hear.

| Word | What it is | The part that matters |
| --- | --- | --- |
| [sauna](https://finnishirl.com/words/sauna) | The room, and the building it is sometimes in | Also a verb: saunoa, to sauna. English has no verb for it, which is most of why the loanword feels thin |
| kiuas | The stove | Wood-fired or electric. The thing nothing may ever be hung above, which is a fire rule rather than an etiquette one |
| [löyly](https://finnishirl.com/words/loyly) | The steam off the stones | A noun English has no word for. Thrown, never made: heittää löylyä |
| lauteet | The benches | Plural, always. The top one is hotter, and whoever is on it decides how much more heat the room gets |
| kauha | The ladle | Or löylykauha. Ask before you use it - voiko heittää? - because the person above you is already hotter than you are |
| vihta / vasta | The birch whisk | The same object under two names: vihta in the west, vasta in the east. There is no neutral word, so whichever you pick says where you learned it |
| pefletti | The seat cover | A paper mat to sit on. Required in nearly every shared sauna and almost never mentioned out loud |
| vilvoittelu | Cooling off between rounds | On the step, in the yard, in the lake, in a hole in the ice. Counts as part of the sauna rather than an interruption of it |
| avanto | The hole cut in the ice | The hole, not the activity. The activity is avantouinti |
| [saunavuoro](https://finnishirl.com/words/saunavuoro) | Your booked hour in a shared sauna | An administrative object with a list, a key and a weekday. The thing that catches newcomers hardest |
| saunakalja | The beer that goes with it | At a mökki it comes onto the bench. At most public saunas it waits in the yard |
| savusauna | Smoke sauna | No chimney. Heated for hours, aired, then used off the stored heat. The oldest kind and the one people travel for |

Two of these are worth more than the rest. Löyly is a noun for the wave of steam off the stones, and English not having it is why sauna conversation in English ends up being about temperature - the one measurable and least interesting property of the room. And vihta against vasta is the same object under two names, west and east, with no neutral third option: whichever you say is a small statement about where you learned your Finnish.

## The words with pages

Each one carries its spoken form, who says it, and its own sources.

- [sauna](https://finnishirl.com/words/sauna): More saunas than cars, and one rule everyone actually enforces
- [löyly](https://finnishirl.com/words/loyly): The word meant soul for four thousand years before it meant steam
- [saunavuoro](https://finnishirl.com/words/saunavuoro): Your building has a sauna, and a list, and you are not on it
- [taloyhtiö](https://finnishirl.com/words/taloyhtio): It books your sauna and your laundry, and it is not your landlord

## The long versions

What is said in there and in what order, what Finland's own UNESCO file says against the English guides, and the hole in the ice as an administrative act.

- [What Finns actually say in the sauna, in order](https://finnishirl.com/blog/what-to-say-in-a-finnish-sauna): The famous 3.3 million saunas trace to one unpublished bulletin
- [Finland's UNESCO file contradicts the sauna guides](https://finnishirl.com/blog/finnish-sauna-etiquette): Five of the six rules in the guides are not in the file
- [9 untranslatable Finnish words, counted. 6 barely exist](https://finnishirl.com/blog/untranslatable-finnish-words): Kiitos appears a million times. Kalsarikännit appears eight

## If you are about to be in one

Work out which of the four it is, because that answers most of the rest. If it is a building sauna, the hour is somebody's and the list is on the door or with the maintenance company. If it is public, the house has a sign. If it is a cottage, the person who lit it is in charge of it and you can simply ask.

Then: [what gets said, in order](https://finnishirl.com/blog/what-to-say-in-a-finnish-sauna), [the exchange as a scene](https://finnishirl.com/situations/sauna), and [the quiz](https://finnishirl.com/quizzes/could-you-survive-a-finnish-sauna) if you would rather find out where the gaps are before the bench than on it.

## About the Finnish sauna

#### How many kinds of Finnish sauna are there?

Four that you will realistically meet: your own, inside a flat or a house; the shared one in your building, which runs on a booked hour; a public one you pay to enter; and a wood-fired one at a summer cottage. A smoke sauna is a fifth and is mostly a destination rather than a routine. The reason to count them is that the obligations differ completely - the building one has a list and a key, and the cottage one has a fire.

#### Is sauna a verb in Finnish?

Yes. saunoa - to sauna. Finnish treats it as something you do rather than somewhere you go, and English having only the noun is part of why the borrowed word feels smaller than the thing. Mennään saunaan is "let us go into the sauna"; saunotaan is closer to "let us sauna", and there is no tidy English for it.

#### What is the difference between vihta and vasta?

Nothing, except where you are. They are the same bundle of birch twigs under two names - vihta in western Finland, vasta in the east. There is no neutral national word, so whichever one you use is a small statement about where you learned your Finnish, which is the kind of detail nobody will correct and everybody notices.

#### What is löyly?

The steam that comes off the stones when water is thrown on them, as a thing in its own right. It is not the heat and not the humidity; it is the wave. Finnish has a noun for it and English does not, which is why sauna conversation in English ends up talking about temperature instead - temperature is the part that can be measured and the least interesting part of the room.

#### Do I have to be naked in a Finnish sauna?

In your own and at a cottage among friends, usually yes and nobody is thinking about it. In a shared building sauna the turns are single-sex or private and the same applies. In a public sauna it varies by the place and the place will tell you. The two things people genuinely notice are neither of those: shower first, and sit on something.

#### What is a saunavuoro?

Your household's booked turn in the building's shared sauna - typically an hour, on a fixed weekday, recurring weekly, and charged on the rent whether or not you use it. It is the single most Finnish administrative object there is, and the one that catches people who assumed the sauna downstairs worked like a gym facility you drop into.

[More questions →](https://finnishirl.com/faq)

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Canonical page: https://finnishirl.com/finnish-sauna  
Summary: There are four kinds of Finnish sauna and the rules you owe depend on which one you are standing in. The four, plus every word said in them, in one table.  
Finnish IRL - real spoken Finnish, one word a day. Citation terms: https://finnishirl.com/terms#ip