Löyly, and the words that make a Finnish sauna

English borrowed the word 'sauna' from Finnish and mostly stopped there. But Finnish kept a whole small vocabulary for the things that happen inside one — and each word points at something the English blur of 'steam room' quietly misses. Here are the handful worth knowing. (They also happen to be where our hats get their names.)

The most important word, and the hardest to translate. Löyly is the wave of steam and heat that rises when you ladle water onto the hot stones — but it means more than 'steam.' It's closer to the spirit, or breath, of the sauna: the living thing you're actually there for. Finns talk about good löyly the way other people talk about good light. It's why our original, undyed hat is the Löyly Classic.

The kiuas is the sauna stove — the heater topped with stones that stores the heat and releases the löyly when water hits it. Wood-fired or electric, it's the beating heart of the room. No kiuas, no sauna; everything else is just a warm cupboard.

A leafy bundle of fresh birch branches, used to gently swat your own skin. It sounds eccentric and feels wonderful — it wakes up the circulation and fills the room with a green, forest smell. It's vihta in western Finland and vasta in the east, and the friendly argument over which is correct is a small tradition of its own.

Not a sauna word exactly, but a Finnish one you feel in a sauna: sisu is quiet, stubborn resilience — the will to sit through the cold plunge and the long winter both. It's the spirit behind our name (kova means hard, tough, strong). A sauna is where a lot of people first meet their own sisu, one cold rinse at a time.

Every good old sauna is said to have a saunatonttu — a small, benevolent spirit that lives in it and keeps it safe, as long as you behave well inside: no shouting, no bad manners, leave it clean. Folklore, of course. It's also a rather lovely way of saying a sauna is a place that deserves a little respect.

Learn these five and the sauna shifts a little: you stop thinking of it as a hot box and start noticing the löyly, the kiuas, the smell of the vihta, the sisu it quietly builds. That's the whole Finnish idea — unhurried, elemental, a bit reverent. We named the colorways for it on purpose: Lumi (snow), Pilvi (cloud), Havu (pine sprig), Taivas (sky), Savu (smoke), and Marja (berry) — a little Finnish you can wear.