I never wore a hat in sauna in my childhood and I actually had to check if anyone wore one in the pictures featured in the Unesco’s presentation of Finnish sauna culture. It turns out that Finns wear hats in sauna but my believe is that this tradition might be more popular in Russia.
In any event, sauna hats are very useful especially in barrel saunas as your auricles are very sensitive to heat and you the steam tends to be quite intense at the level of your ears in these saunas. Most hats made of cotton or wool will do as long as they cover your ears.
Some might also think that these hats are uncomfortable because they make you sweat more. That makes sense: if you wear a wool hat in a ski bar, you will eventually want to take it off. However, one of the reasons you go to sauna is that you try to sweat.
So the sauna hats are pretty straight-forward but there are a few commonly known dilemmas related to sauna hats. Firstly, for some of us, sauna is our church or sanctuary and you should not wear a hat in a church if you are a male. That what was told to me. Secondly, I am contemplating, whether a sauna hat can be wore while holding the holy grail of Sauna-Jallu. Sauna-Jallu’s and Ararat Rail’s ways are unexplored.
Hakka-Sauna 