Hukka Design Turns 40: Four Decades of Finnish Soapstone Sauna Products
The North Karelian company has been carving sauna accessories from billion-year-old soapstone since 1986, exporting 70% of its production worldwide.
Hukka Design, the Finnish company that has been turning North Karelian soapstone into sauna accessories since 1986, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Based in Tuupovaara in eastern Finland, the company works with a material that's nearly three billion years old, carving it into products that have found their way into saunas across the world.
The Product
Hukka's flagship is the Loylynhenki ("The Spirit of the Sauna"), a soapstone steam fountain designed by Jukka Tommila and launched in 1985. The device sits on the sauna heater stones and provides a steady, humid heat when water is poured over it. It's become one of the most recognized sauna accessories in the Finnish market and increasingly in Japan, where Hukka has found a particularly strong following.
To mark the anniversary, Hukka has released a limited commemorative edition of the Loylynhenki: 40 numbered pieces in exclusive packaging.
Why It Matters
Hukka is a good example of the kind of company that makes the Finnish sauna supply chain distinctive: small, specialized, deeply rooted in local materials and craft traditions, but with genuine global reach. The fact that 70% of production is exported, with Japan as a leading market, speaks to the international appetite for authentic Finnish sauna products.
Under new leadership (Michel Mercier took over in 2024), the company is focused on international growth and sustainable innovation while maintaining the craft-based approach that's defined it for four decades.
Arlene Scott
Senior Wellness Correspondent & Hospitality Consultant
Arlene Scott brings over fifteen years of reporting and consulting experience across energy infrastructure, sustainable design, and thermotherapy-focused hospitality.
Full byline
Arlene Scott is a Senior Wellness Correspondent for SaunaNews.com, bringing over fifteen years of experience at the intersection of energy infrastructure, sustainable design, and thermotherapy. Her work focuses on the physiological benefits of passive heat therapies and the sustainable integration of sauna culture into modern wellness routines.
Arlene's background is rooted in the clean energy transition. She was a founding writer at MicrogridMedia.com, where she covered the technical and economic viability of desalination projects, microgrid deployments, and distributed renewable energy systems. During the mid-2010s, she was a regular contributor to Greentech Media (GTM) during its independent era — prior to the Wood Mackenzie acquisition in 2016 — reporting on the early integration of thermal energy storage and sustainable infrastructure.
Transitioning her focus from macro-energy systems to human-scale wellness, Arlene now applies her technical background to the hospitality sector. She operates as an independent consultant, advising boutique hotels and eco-resorts on the design, energy efficiency, and historical authenticity of commercial sauna and thermal spa installations. Her consulting work ensures that high-end wellness facilities balance traditional Nordic bathing principles with modern sustainable engineering.
Arlene holds a specialized certification in Applied Thermic Wellness from the Nordic Institute of Passive Heat Studies (NIPHS) and is a recognized associate member of the International Sauna Association (ISA). When she isn't reviewing the latest innovations in infrared technology or consulting on a new resort project, Arlene can be found tending to her own traditional wood-fired sauna in the Pacific Northwest. You can read her complete archive of essays on energy, wellness, and sustainable living at www.arlenescott.com.
