A 20-SEATER sauna is set to be installed on a Scottish island’s beach as the owner aims to offer Scots the “best bits” of Nordic culture.
Local business Haar Sauna already runs two trailers based at St. Ninian’s beach in Bigton, Shetland, and is reportedly set to expand with the addition of two extra saunas in the coming months.
One of the new units is set to be based in Lerwick, meanwhile, another 20-seater unit is also to be placed on St. Ninian’s Isle.
The firm secured a £15,000 funding boost from the Scottish EDGE entrepreneurial awards in March, which has helped the company buy two sauna trailers from the Netherlands, which are expected to be installed this summer.
The company said the expansion will help it offer traditional sauna rituals, known in Scandinavia as aufguss, while also keeping up with the surging demand.
Haar Sauna co-owner Callum Scott said the sauna rituals, aufguss, is a “very new concept for Shetland” but after living and working in Norway for many years, it was his dream to bring the best bits of Nordic culture back home to Scotland.
He added that since introducing the rituals in the firm's two Bigton saunas last year, every session has been sold out.
“It’s absolutely been really popular,” Scott told Shetland News.
“It’s like finding a new way to sauna.
“A lot of people just sit there and sweat, and don’t sauna in the right way.”
Scott explained the ritual has a master who moves hot air around the sauna “in a certain motion” with several natural products used to make a “really good smell inside”.
Birch branches are also used to hit or massage the body to help improve circulation, with each session lasting “approximately 12 minutes” for three or four rounds.
Scott added that people “come out of feeling alive and just incredible”.
“We’re bringing something from the north, to the north,” he said.
“People just want to try new things.”
