What looks sensible

A wool hat in a hot room and a thin-soled shoe on a hard pavement make a curious pair. One adds a thick layer between us and our surroundings, while the other removes much of what we normally put there. Both can look like a mistake if we judge them by how much protection we think we need. What, then, is the person choosing them trying to achieve?

In last month’s article, we looked at what a sauna hat is for, but it is worth lingering over the objection to it. We associate wool with keeping warm, so it is reasonable to wonder why anyone would choose it in a room that is already much hotter than their skin.

The useful property of wool is that it slows the movement of heat. On a cold day, the air held within the fabric helps slow heat travelling from a warm body towards colder surroundings. In a sauna, the direction is reversed: heat is moving from the hot surroundings towards the skin, and an insulating layer can slow that transfer too. The felt has not acquired a different property because someone carried it indoors. We have simply put it between two temperatures in a different order.

That explains the material, but leaves another question. If the heat is part of the reason for being in a sauna, why keep any of it away? It helps to distinguish the sensation around the head from what the body is doing as a whole. In their 2018 systematic review, Hussain and Cohen describe the response to sauna heat: blood flow to the skin increases, the heart beats faster, and sweating helps the body lose heat through evaporation. Sitting still does not mean the body is doing nothing.

This is part of what makes sauna interesting beyond the immediate pleasure of it. In a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2015, Laukkanen and colleagues followed 2,315 middle-aged Finnish men for around 20 years. More frequent sauna bathing, and longer sessions, were associated with lower rates of death from cardiovascular disease. Those were observations about sauna habits, not a test of hats or proof that adding minutes causes better heart health. They give us a reason to be interested in sauna without making every extra minute a target.

A person can want the heat and still be relieved that their ears are not getting quite so hot. Covering the scalp, ears and hair with felt is a local adjustment for comfort, rather than an attempt to avoid the whole experience. It may help someone enjoy a longer session, but a comfortable head is not a measure of how safely the rest of the body is coping. The hat should make the experience more enjoyable, not persuade us to disregard signs that it is time to leave.

The shoe complicates the idea of protection, because cushioning and strength are not quite the same thing. A foot has muscles that help control its arch as it carries our weight, so there is a question beyond whether a sole feels reassuringly substantial: what work is the foot itself doing? A wider front gives toes room, while a flexible sole allows movement. With less support from the shoe, might the foot become stronger through use?

That is a question researchers have tested. In a six-month study published in Scientific Reports in 2021, Curtis and colleagues compared 22 adults who switched to minimal footwear with 24 who continued in conventional shoes. The shoes used were VivoBarefoot’s Stealth II. The minimal-footwear group increased their measured toe-flexion strength by an average of about 57 per cent. They were wearing the shoes for ordinary daily activity, not following a special foot-strengthening programme, and were specifically told not to run in them.

It was a small study in healthy adults, measuring foot strength rather than treatment for knee, hip or back pain. What it offers is a reason to take the apparently insubstantial shoe seriously: less external support may leave the foot with more work to do, and the capacity to do that work can change. The six months matter, too. A different shoe does not confer that capacity on the day it is bought, which is why a change needs to be gradual, especially before running.

There is beauty in both a barefoot shoe and a sauna hat, though usefulness alone does not account for it. It matters how thoughtfully each has been made: whether its shape serves its purpose, its materials suit the conditions in which it will be used, and its making reflects care beyond the person who buys it.

For us at Amurr, that care begins before the wool becomes felt. We source our wool from farms that look after their sheep and rear them ethically. Choosing it for a sauna hat means thinking about the heat it will meet, the person who will wear it, and the animals it came from. These are not separate considerations from how the finished hat looks; they are part of what makes it beautiful to us.

Amurr is a VivoBarefoot affiliate. If you are buying a pair, our current VivoBarefoot discount codes apply at checkout: ASAUNA25OFF for 25% off full-priced items in the UK, EU, USA and Ireland stores. Excludes sale items and Primus Lite IVs. The ongoing ASAUNA15 gives 15% off. When you shop through the link on that page, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.