Something interesting is happening to British wellness.
People are rediscovering the sauna.
Not simply as a hot room tucked away at the back of a gym, but as somewhere to slow down, meet people, cool off, warm up again and properly disconnect from everyday life.
New social saunas are appearing around Britain. Cold plunges, sauna rituals and communal wellness are becoming fashionable.
To us at Clover, this all feels very familiar.
Because across much of Europe, people have understood for generations that the best sauna experience is simple:
Get hot. Get naked. Relax.
And perhaps Britain is finally beginning to catch up.
Why sauna works so well as a social space
Most of modern life encourages us to present ourselves to other people.
We choose what to wear.
We think about how we look.
Our clothes communicate our job, wealth, taste, age, personality and even which social group we belong to.
Then we add smartphones, watches, notifications and social media.
There is always something competing for our attention.
Walk naked into a sauna and suddenly most of that becomes irrelevant.
There are no designer labels.
No business suits.
No carefully chosen outfits.
No flattering clothes.
No obvious clues about who earns what or who considers themselves important.
Just a group of human beings sitting together in the heat.
It is remarkably equalising.
And once you experience it, you begin to understand why naked sauna culture is so normal across Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe.
Naked doesn’t mean sexual
This is probably still the biggest cultural hurdle Britain has to overcome.
We have become accustomed to seeing nudity through a sexual lens.
But human nudity and sexual behaviour are completely different things.
Being naked in a sauna is no more inherently sexual than being barefoot on a beach.
Context matters.
In a respectful clothes-free spa, people are simply doing normal things without clothes.
They sit in the sauna.
They use the steam room.
They relax in the hot tub.
They cool off.
They have lunch or a drink.
They chat.
They read.
After a while, the nakedness becomes surprisingly unremarkable.
In fact, one of the most common discoveries for first-time visitors is that being surrounded by naked people feels considerably less exciting or frightening than they imagined.
It simply becomes normal.
Clothes can make us more self-conscious, not less
It sounds counter-intuitive.
Surely taking your clothes off would make you more conscious of your body?
Initially, perhaps.
But then something quite interesting happens.
When everyone is naked, there is nothing left to hide behind and very little point comparing outfits.
You also see something we rarely see in advertising or on carefully edited social media:
real human bodies.
Different ages.
Different shapes.
Different sizes.
Scars.
Wrinkles.
Stretch marks.
Bodies that have lived ordinary lives.
And you begin to realise that there really isn’t a correct way for a human being to look.
That can be extraordinarily liberating.
Becoming comfortable in your own skin
Body confidence is often sold to us as another project.
Lose some weight.
Build some muscle.
Buy better clothes.
Improve your appearance.
Then, supposedly, confidence will arrive.
But there is another possibility.
Perhaps confidence doesn’t always come from changing your body.
Perhaps it comes from changing your relationship with it.
Being naked around ordinary people can gradually teach you something very simple:
Nobody else is nearly as interested in your imperfections as you are.
People aren’t examining you.
They aren’t keeping score.
They’re busy living inside their own bodies and thinking about their own lives.
Once that sinks in, something starts to change.
You become a little less concerned about being judged.
You stop trying quite so hard to conceal yourself.
You become more comfortable in your own skin.
And that confidence doesn’t necessarily stay behind when you put your clothes back on.
There is something wonderfully human about it
One of the things we love most about clothes-free socialising at Clover is the mixture of people.
Different ages.
Different careers.
Different backgrounds.
Different beliefs.
Different shapes and sizes.
People who might never normally meet can end up sitting together in the sauna or chatting around the hot tub.
Without the usual visual signals, people tend to meet each other more simply.
Human being to human being.
That doesn’t mean everyone instantly becomes best friends.
Nor does it mean you have to talk to anybody.
But it creates an environment where connection can happen very naturally.
There is less judgement.
Less performance.
Less need to impress.
Sometimes you don’t even realise how much energy you normally spend presenting yourself to the world until you stop doing it.
The sauna makes you slow down
You can’t do much in a sauna.
That is part of its genius.
You don’t answer emails.
You don’t scroll endlessly through your phone.
You don’t rush around completing tasks.
You sit.
You breathe.
You sweat.
Eventually you get too hot.
So you cool down.
Perhaps with a cold shower or plunge.
Then you rest.
And perhaps you do it all again.
Heat.
Cold.
Rest.
Conversation.
There is something wonderfully uncomplicated about the whole thing.
In a world that constantly tells us to optimise ourselves, measure ourselves and improve ourselves, sauna gives us permission simply to be.
Why wet swimwear suddenly seems rather strange
Once you become accustomed to European-style sauna culture, sitting in very hot conditions wearing a damp swimming costume starts to feel rather unnecessary.
Clothes-free sauna allows the heat and air to reach the whole body.
There is no wet material sticking to you.
Nothing to adjust.
Nothing to think about.
You shower, dry yourself, sit on your towel and enjoy the sauna as it was intended.
Again, the unfamiliar quickly becomes ordinary.
Many people who are initially nervous about being naked eventually reach the point where wearing swimwear in a sauna feels like the unusual option.
Social sauna may be new. Social nakedness isn’t.
The current growth of social sauna in Britain is encouraging.
It suggests people want something more human from wellness.
They want experiences rather than possessions.
They want real conversation.
They want to escape their screens.
They want heat, cold and simple pleasures.
They want somewhere they don’t have to perform.
But perhaps we shouldn’t stop halfway.
European sauna culture offers something even more liberating.
Leave your phone behind.
Leave your clothes behind.
And, for a few hours, leave some of your inhibitions and social expectations behind too.
We’ve been doing it in Birmingham since 2010
At Clover Spa and Hotel, clothes-free social wellness isn’t a new trend.
It has been at the heart of what we do since we opened.
Our mixed-gender spa includes a sauna, steam room, hot tub, cool plunge, heated loungers, gardens and relaxed social spaces.
People visit to unwind, talk, have treatments, eat, drink, stay overnight or simply spend a few hours doing very little.
The atmosphere is friendly, respectful and unmistakably non-sexual.
Nobody needs the right body.
Nobody needs to look a certain way.
You don’t even need to think of yourself as a naturist.
You simply need enough curiosity to discover what happens when you stop worrying about what you’re wearing and start enjoying how you feel.
Britain may only just be discovering social sauna.
Perhaps the next discovery will be the one Europeans made long ago:
Sometimes the easiest way to switch off is to take everything off.
