Sauna Hat History: From the Russian Banya to Brooklyn

Finland has about 3.2 million saunas, yet the hat most people picture in a sauna comes from somewhere else: the Russian banya. From there it traveled into German Aufguss culture and, more recently, onto the top benches of American bathhouses. Here is how a piece of felt or wool ended up on heads from Moscow to Brooklyn, and what we know for sure along the way.

Key takeaways

1. Finland: where sauna culture starts.
2. Russia: the banya and its felt hat.
3. Why wool and felt work in the heat.
4. Germany: the Aufguss turns up the heat.
5. America: Finnish immigrants bring the sauna.
6. The social sauna wave brings the hat along.
7. How a hat sewn for one head became frihed.

1. Finland: where sauna culture starts

No country is more closely tied to the sauna than Finland. On December 17, 2020, Finnish sauna culture became the country's first entry on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. According to the Finnish government, there are about 3.2 million saunas in Finland, and almost 90 percent of Finns take a sauna once a week. The Finnish Sauna Society, founded in 1937, still runs a sauna center in Vaskiniemi, Helsinki, with four chimneyless smoke saunas among its cabins. Interestingly, the heritage described for UNESCO covers heating the sauna, bathing customs, songs, beliefs and stories. Hats are not part of that description. As far as we could find, the sauna hat has no fixed place in Finnish tradition. It is a personal choice there, not a ritual object.

2. Russia: the banya and its felt hat

The banya, Russia's steam bath, has been part of Russian life since the 12th century, according to Culture Trip, which traces its first written mention to a chronicle from 1113. A banya is hot and humid rather than hot and dry. In the steam room, the parilka, people steam and get whisked with a venik, a bundle of birch or oak twigs. This is where the classic sauna hat comes from. The Moscow Times describes bathers undressing and putting on felt hats before they go in, to protect against the extreme heat. Culture Trip's guide for first time visitors lists felt hats as standard banya gear for protecting head and ears from the superheated steam. In Russian, a hat is a shapka, and the banya version is simply a bannaya shapka, a bath hat.

3. Why wool and felt work in the heat

There is a practical reason the banya settled on wool. Wool fibers are crimped and trap still air, and still air insulates. Wool can also absorb roughly 30 to 40 percent of its weight in moisture without feeling wet, as materials scientist Diana Tuulik of Tallinn University of Applied Sciences told the Estonian public broadcaster ERR, and it keeps insulating when a bit damp. In a room full of steam and sweat, that is exactly what you want on your head. Felt is wool fiber pressed and matted into a dense sheet. Boiled wool, Wollwalk in German, starts as knitted wool that is shrunk and fulled until it is thick, soft and flexible, which is why it can be folded and shaped on the head. For a closer look at both, read wool vs felt sauna hat.

4. Germany: the Aufguss turns up the heat

Germany added its own twist: the Aufguss. Unlike in Finland, guests in German public saunas do not throw water on the stones themselves, as the Goethe-Institut explains. A sauna master does it at scheduled times and swings a towel to send the steam through the room in intense bursts. The German Sauna Association trains sauna masters in towel techniques, and over roughly the past decade the ritual has grown into an international competition, the Aufguss WM. Its 2026 finals were held at Satama in Wendisch Rietz, in the German state of Brandenburg. Short, intense waves of heat at head level make it easy to see why hats caught on. Today a wool or felt hat on the top bench is a normal sight in German saunas, and nobody gives it a second look.

5. America: Finnish immigrants bring the sauna

The sauna arrived in the US with Finnish immigrants. Finns first reached Minnesota in 1864 and brought their sauna culture with them, PBS NewsHour reported in 2026. On new farms, the sauna was often the first building to go up. The Minnesota Historical Society describes a smoke sauna built in 1868 by three Finnish families in Cokato, Minnesota, calling it the oldest smoke sauna still existing in the state and likely in the United States. It was moved in 1979 and restored to its original appearance in 2008. These early American saunas were family and farm saunas, built for weekly bathing. We found no reliable record of hats being part of that early Finnish American tradition, so we will not claim one. The hat arrived later, by a different route.

6. The social sauna wave brings the hat along

The recent sauna surge looks different: city bathhouses, social saunas and towel waving shows. Bathhouse, a New York operator, raised 35 million dollars and now runs three locations in the city, with plans for ten nationwide, Athletech News reported in May 2026. In June 2025 the first US national Aufguss competition took place at Bathhouse Williamsburg in Brooklyn. PBS NewsHour reported that one Minnesota sauna builder has had a waitlist of more than a year for its saunas. With European rituals come European habits, including the hat. We found no reliable numbers on how many Americans wear sauna hats, so we will not invent any. What is clear is the pattern: where people adopt the banya and the Aufguss, the hat tends to follow.

7. How a hat sewn for one head became frihed.

Our own part in this story is personal. Florian Meyer, our founder, sewed himself a hat to protect his head from the heat in the sauna. That hat became frihed., which is Danish for freedom. Today the hats are designed by frihed. in Lüneburg, Germany, and sewn in the workshop of Lebenshilfe Lüneburg, where people with disabilities work. The design is registered, and the Hamburg newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt has featured the brand. In the US, the Original comes in Stone, Basalt, Forest, Navy, Sand and Berry, and the Pro comes in Stone. Both are made of boiled wool, a modern take on the banya hat, built for German Aufguss heat.

FAQ

Why do Russians wear hats in the banya?

To protect the head and ears from the hot, humid steam of the parilka. The traditional banya hat is made of felt, which insulates and absorbs moisture without feeling wet.

Do Finns wear sauna hats?

Some do, but the hat is not part of how Finland's sauna tradition is officially described. Finnish sauna culture centers on heating the sauna, the steam and the bathing customs themselves.

When did sauna hats become popular in the US?

There are no reliable figures. Hats have become more visible alongside the rise of social saunas and Aufguss events in cities like New York in the 2020s, including the first US Aufguss Nationals in 2025.

Want a piece of this history for your own sauna? See all hats and colors, and learn the German ritual in what is Aufguss.