Aromatherapy For Saunas: Scents And Tools To Elevate Sessions

Sauna ritual videos are full of scent right now – a few drops in the bucket, a bunch of eucalyptus by the door, a bowl steaming over the stones. The idea is older than the trend: a Finnish sauna has long smelled of birch as much as of hot wood. Done well, scent is subtle. You notice it on the first ladle and have forgotten it by the third.

This guide goes through it in six steps: two ways to choose a scent, three ways to get it into the air, and a cool finish. It is about enjoyment, not treatment – nothing here is medical advice, and plenty of sauna regulars prefer no scent at all.

One note before you start: the water steps are for a traditional sauna with a stone-topped heater that is made to take water. In an infrared cabin, or with a heater whose manual says to keep it dry, check the manual before you bring any liquid into the room.

And one rule covers everything below: scent goes into water, and the water carries it. Undiluted oil never goes on the stones, on the heater or on your skin.

Step 1 · Pick one scent

One scent per session is enough. Blends sound appealing, but in a small hot room they turn muddy fast.

Eucalyptus is the usual place to start: fresh, green and a little sharp. A single-ingredient oil such as the Plant Therapy Eucalyptus Globulus names the species on the label and has nothing else in the bottle, so you know what is going into the air. Other common choices are pine or spruce, citrus and lavender. Peppermint is strong – a single drop is plenty.

• Smell a new oil from the open bottle at arm’s length first. If you do not like it cold, you will not like it hot.
• Ask everyone who shares the sauna. Scent is personal, and nobody can step away from it on the top bench.
• Buy small. At two or three drops per session, a 1 fl oz (30 mL) bottle lasts a long time.

Safety: essential oils are concentrated and flammable. Keep the bottle outside the hot room, capped, and away from children and pets – several oils, eucalyptus among them, are toxic to cats and dogs. Skip the scent if anyone in the sauna is pregnant, has asthma or is sensitive to fragrance.

Step 2 · Or use a ready-made sauna scent

If counting drops is not your idea of relaxing, there are scents made for the bucket. The Rento Birch Sauna Scent is one – its Finnish label calls it löylytuoksu, scent for the löyly water. Birch is the leafy, green smell many Finns connect with a summer sauna, where bundles of fresh birch twigs are part of the ritual.

The Amazon listing gives no dosing, so follow the label on the bottle and start below it. You can always add more to the next bucket.

Choose Step 1 or Step 2 for a session, not both.

Step 3 · Mix it into the bucket

The simplest way to scent a sauna is the löyly water itself. Fill the bucket with clean tap water and add the scent outside the hot room: two or three drops of essential oil for a full bucket, or the ready-made scent according to its label.

A metal pail such as the SAUNOM aluminum bucket suits scented water because its smooth surface rinses clean afterwards. It holds 1.3 gallons (4.9 L), and its ladle is big – 13.5 fl oz (400 mL) – so pour about a third of a scoop at a time.

• Oil floats. Stir with the ladle before every scoop, or the first pour gets all of it.
• Keep the first round plain and scent the second. You will notice it more.
• Pour slowly across the stones with a long arm and your face back, then wait for the wave to pass.
• If the steam smells harsh or burnt, the mix is too strong. Top the bucket up with plain water.

Safety: water goes only on a heater that is built for it, and only on the stones. Never drip oil into a ladle held over the heater, and never pour oil or undiluted scent onto the stones.

Step 4 · Set a stone cup on the rocks

Thrown water gives a burst of scent that fades with the steam. For a steady background note, a stone cup does the opposite: it sits among the heater stones and lets a little scented water evaporate slowly.

The Northwood aromatherapy stone cup is granite with a removable stainless steel inlay. Nest it between the top stones while the heater is still cold. Once the sauna is hot, stir one or two drops of oil into a ladle of water and pour a little of that into the cup – that way the bottle never comes near the heater and no neat oil lands in a hot cup.

• Check the cup between rounds. A small cup can boil dry; refill it by ladle or leave it empty.
• Do not touch it during the session. It is as hot as the stones.
• When everything has cooled, lift out the steel inlay and wash it.

Step 5 · Or hang a bowl above the heater

A hanging bowl does the same job as the stone cup from the wall, and you can turn it down. The HSE aromatherapy bowl hangs a 16.9 fl oz (500 mL) stainless steel bowl from an 8.7 in (22 cm) swinging arm on a red cedar block.

Fill the bowl about half full while it is parked against the wall, add two or three drops, and swing it over the heater. The rising heat warms the water and the scent spreads gradually. Too much? Swing it back to the wall. Filled with plain water, the same bowl adds a little humidity with no scent at all.

Use the stone cup or the bowl, not both – and on a day when you scent the bucket, leave them empty.

Safety: the block is screwed to the wall, so check your heater’s manual for the clearance it needs above and beside the stones before you drill. Bowl, chains and arm get hot in use: move them with a sauna mitt, or wait until they have cooled.

Step 6 · Cool off and reset

After a few minutes in a scented room most people stop noticing the scent. That is your nose getting used to it, not the scent running out – so more drops are not the answer. Stepping out is.

When the round is done, leave the hot room and cool down in fresh air or under a cool shower. Where there is no shower close by, a mister such as the BeautifyBeauties continuous spray bottle, filled with cold tap water, gives a fine cool mist for face, neck and arms. Keep it on the bench outside the door – it is not made for the heat – and fill it with plain water only.

Rest for at least as long as you sat in the heat, and drink water. When you walk back in, the scent is there again.

Safety: leave right away if you feel dizzy, sick or get a headache, and do not use the sauna after drinking alcohol. If you are pregnant, have a heart condition or take medication that affects blood pressure, talk to your doctor before using a sauna at all.

What about the eucalyptus bundle?

The bunch of eucalyptus from the videos works best where the air is warm and damp rather than hot and dry: in the shower you rinse off in, or in the changing area. Tie a few fresh stems together and hang them out of the direct spray.

In the hot room itself, keep any greenery well away from the heater and take it out when the session ends – leaves dry out quickly in the heat, and dry leaves near a hot heater are a fire risk. Fresh stems from a florist are the ones to use; preserved decorative stems are often dyed or treated and are made for a vase, not for heat.

After the session

• Empty the bucket, rinse it and let it dry. Scented water left standing goes stale.
• Wash the cup inlay or the bowl with dish soap – oil leaves a film that plain water does not shift.
• Wipe any drips off the benches. Oil stains bare wood.
• Leave the door open for a while. By the next session the sauna should smell of wood again.
• Store the oils capped, cool and dark, outside the sauna.