Community / Lerwick in line for 20-seater sauna as company steams ahead
LERWICK is set to get a lot warmer this summer with the addition of a new 20-seater sauna.
The popular Haar Sauna, which currently has two trailers based at the St. Ninian’s beach in Bigton, is set to expand with the addition of two extra saunas in the coming months.
One will be based in Lerwick, at a location which will be announced shortly, with the other 20-seater unit also going to St. Ninian’s Isle.
The move will allow the company to begin offering traditional sauna rituals – known in Scandinavia as aufguss – as well as meeting growing demand for the existing sauna.
Haar Sauna co-owner Callum Scott said they had been keen on opening a sauna in Lerwick for “quite some time”.
A £15,000 funding boost from the Scottish EDGE entrepreneurial awards in March has helped the company buy two sauna trailers from the Netherlands, which are expected to be installed this summer.
“The reason why we wanted to buy them was to give us bigger sauna space,” Scott told Shetland News.
“We want to do sauna rituals inside the actual sauna itself.
“To do that we wanted a bigger capacity, but also a bigger space for the master to do the ritual.”
Scott admits aufguss, as it is known as Norway, is a “very new concept for Shetland”.
Haar Sauna began running rituals in its two Bigton saunas last year, with the biggest of the two holding eight people.
Scott said that every session had since been sold out, with some people booking out every one after trying it once.
The ritual, he explains, sees a master move the hot air around the sauna
“in a certain motion” with a number of natural products used to make a “really good smell inside the sauna”.
Birch branches are also used to hit or massage the body to improve circulation.
Despite being a new thing for Shetland, Scott said people had embraced it wholeheartedly.
“It’s absolutely been really popular,” he said.
“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.”
Each session has three or four rounds lasting “approximately 12 minutes”, and Scott says people “come out of feeling alive and just incredible”.
Aufguss is very popular with our neighbours in Norway, and Scott said Haar Sauna was the first to take it to Scotland.
He said there had been a “steep hockey stick curve” for aufguss in this country after it had been trialled in Shetland.
“We’re bringing something from the north, to the north,” Scott added.
“People just want to try new things. Our ritual sessions for May and June are already booked up.”
Haar Sauna will not be announcing the location of its Lerwick sauna until a few weeks before it opens to the public.
Scott hopes the two of them will be open in either June or July, though it could be August.
He said the lack of capacity at the two current Bigton trailers had hindered the already strong progress of Haar Sauna.
“We find that that we just need more space,” Scott said.
‘We’re essentially sold out, especially for the community and women’s sessions.”
As well as the £15,000 Scottish EDGE funding boost, Haar Sauna is also in the running to win a share of a £1.5 million prize.
The company has made the final of Scottish EDGE’s bi-annual awards, which celebrate the best of small businesses in Scotland.
Scott and co-founder Hannah Mary Goodlad will pitch their business ideas to a panel of eight judges next Friday for the chance to win £100,000.
He said that would be a “huge amount of money” for them, and he encouraged other small businesses in Shetland to apply.
Scott urged anyone interested in taking part in Scottish EDGE to contact Haar Sauna with any questions.
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