What is a steam bath?
The steam bath is the moist counter-world to the sauna: 40 to 50 °C at practically 100 per cent humidity — a dense, warm mist that settles on the skin at once. The tradition reaches back to antiquity: the caldarium of the Roman baths was a steam-warm bathing room whose name modern spa landscapes still use for their milder steam rooms; the Turkish hammam continues the same line in an Oriental key.
Effect
Because sweat cannot evaporate in the saturated mist, the steam bath feels more intense than the temperature suggests — the warmth works directly on the skin through condensation. The warm, moist mist is considered beneficial for the airways (often reinforced by eucalyptus or herbal aromas), and the skin is moistened and softened at the same time — the ideal preparation for a scrub and care.
Steam bath, caldarium, hammam — the family
The terms are graded by temperature and culture: the caldarium is the mildest form (often around 40 °C, with heated seating), the classic steam bath lies a little above it, and the hammam combines the steam with the great cleansing ritual. Special forms such as the brine steam bath enrich the mist with salt and bring a piece of sea air into the spa.
The steam bath in a spa hotel
Hardly a sauna landscape manages without a steam room — usually tiled or in mosaic, with a central column from which the mist pours. The Landromantik Hotel Oswald runs a brine steam bath and a Turkish aroma steam bath side by side; the Hotel Esperanto in Fulda grades a caldarium, a svedana and a hammam in one sauna world. After the session the same as always applies: cool down, rest — and the softened skin looks forward to the next treatment.
