Coniferous friends of the Russian bathhouse. Pine

Preparing brooms for a bath: when to collect and how to knit

Coniferous bath brooms are very useful. Some bathhouse attendants do not accept any other types of tree species except deciduous trees; they usually only steam with birch and oak trees, but the benefits of coniferous trees are undeniable. The bark and needles of such trees have long been used in folk medicine to treat many ailments. The following trees can be used to create bath accessories: fir, juniper, spruce, pine.

Spruce broom

It is best to always use a fresh spruce broom for steaming. The advantage of this type of bath accessory is that you can collect spruce branches at any time of the year and the benefits will always be maximum. If there is no opportunity to collect a spruce broom right before going to the bathhouse, then you can do this in advance at the end of spring. At this time, the branches are young and soft, which makes its effect on the body gentle.

To make bath brooms, herbs and branches from bushes and trees are used. Each plant has its own healing properties. We invite you to familiarize yourself with the types of bath brooms and the benefits of their use.

• Juniper
• Spruce
• Fir

• Nettle
• Bamboo
• Wormwood
• Mint

A fragrant, whipping broom is one of the main accessories of a Russian bath. Ancient healers claimed that sauna healing is impossible without a good broom. Each ligament has its own strength and is used for different diseases. In this article we will look at the types of bath brooms and their features.

This type of broom is the most popular and is characterized by the presence of a large number of leaves, which gives the product a good “fluffiness”. Leafy brooms are convenient for steaming and rubbing.

There is nothing complicated in preparing brooms for a bath, but, as in every business, there are some nuances: you need to know when it is better to knit brooms for a bath, which branches to choose, how long they should be, how to preserve brooms for the whole year without losing quality .

Our ancestors prepared raw materials for bath brooms in the first half of June - on Trinity Day after Green Christmastide. If you are far from church calendars and rituals, collect branches in early June, when the foliage has already grown and become stronger, but has not yet become faded and withered.

You can knit brooms for a bath yourself

For church holidays or calendar dates, you can only focus on regions: our country is large. In some places it’s almost summer on Trinity Sunday, and in others the leaves have barely sprung. So it’s better to focus on the condition of the foliage.

It’s not so easy for a beginner to immediately figure out how to properly soak a bath broom. Although, it would seem, what’s so complicated about it – pour boiling water over it and worry about your health.

But the fact is that dry and fresh brooms are prepared for use in the steam room in completely different ways. During the preparation process, you may need water of different temperatures - from cold to very hot.

Bath attributes made from different tree species also have their own characteristics of steaming. Birch wood is processed in one way, and coniferous wood is processed in a completely different way. Otherwise, instead of a fragrant natural massager, you may end up with a bunch of shabby twigs that can hurt you. Also pay attention to how correctly the broom was assembled and prepared.

Experienced steam lovers know how to steam brooms for a bath - this, one might say, is sacred information for every steamer:

• Fresh brooms are not steamed at all, so as not to spoil them. Green branches just need to be rinsed with running water or soaked in a basin and shake off excess moisture. And to strengthen the broom, they do this - by going into the steam room and staying there for some time, they stroke the body, already wet from sweat, with branches. This is how experts in bath procedures “temper” brooms;
• Coniferous species are not suitable for people with delicate and overly sensitive skin. They can be used in another way - not for body massage, but for aroma. Just put it on the shelves and inhale the unique healing smell;
• Eucalyptus varieties are beneficial for their abundance of essential oils and disinfectant properties. But a bunch of such branches is not very convenient for use in a steam room - they are thin, and the leaves on them are long and narrow. It’s better to use a little trick: build a combined bundle of oak and birch branches and add eucalyptus branches to them. This broom is convenient and combines the benefits of all trees.

Coniferous brooms for baths

Prickly coniferous brooms are not very popular among ordinary people; rather, they are a professional tool. When used correctly, brooms made from pine, fir, cedar and other coniferous trees can relieve fatigue, stress and malaise. People believe that their use promotes longevity, as it cleanses the energy shell and expels any disease. However, when working with such brooms, it is important to stop in time. Having taken away everything unnecessary, the needles will begin to absorb the “useful” and can leave you literally without strength for a long time.

Coniferous brooms are used during the waxing phase of the Moon, knitted immediately before the bath and not stored, since the needles fall off in any conditions without a living tree. For brooms, choose young light branches that grow in the shade, which are not exposed to direct rays of the sun - they are the most delicate and cannot damage the skin.

Knit the broom very tightly, completely covering the handle with fabric or rope. This is necessary to protect the hands of the bath attendant, since under the influence of temperature the needles begin to intensively secrete resin, which can burn you. The resin that gets on the skin during vaping does not cause harm and can be easily washed off with soap or cotton wool soaked in alcohol. Before steaming, the broom is steamed in boiling water for 10 - 25 minutes until the needles soften.

Pine needle massage is the final stage of the bath procedure. On your last visit to the steam room, you should lie down for about 5 minutes and only then begin the massage, which consists mainly of stroking and applying, but in no case whips. For very sensitive skin, a “passive massage” is performed: pine branches are placed on shelves, covered with a cloth and laid on this kind of mattress to steam.

Fir

The most effective of all coniferous brooms. An excellent massage product for patients with rheumatism, neuralgia, radiculitis, gout and those suffering from pain in the spine.

The resinous substances contained in the needles irritate the skin, stimulating sweating and increasing blood circulation deep in the muscles and even in the internal organs. These same resinous substances have disinfectant properties and cleanse the skin of pathogenic microbes. Fir oil and fir tannins, when steamed from a broom, penetrate the pores of the body and help get rid of skin diseases.

A large amount of essential oils helps improve breathing and cure respiratory diseases. The smell of fir broom is used as a powerful psychostimulant. A fir broom is very good for stress, anxiety, nervousness and nervous exhaustion. In general, fir is a classic natural relaxant. It helps relieve internal nervous and muscle tension, calm down, and relax. Fir oil also has an erotic effect by increasing overall tone and harmonizing mood.

Juniper

If you use a juniper broom improperly, it is very easy to injure your skin. It is necessary that the bathhouse attendant barely touches the skin. But the inconvenience is fully compensated by its benefits.

In terms of bactericidal properties, juniper has no equal. In the recent past, surgeons sterilized threads for suturing wounds in juniper oil.

Superstitious people believe that the smoke of juniper branches can remove damage and drive out evil spirits. For us, its value lies in the smell, which can give confidence in one’s abilities and cure melancholy. Thanks to it you can protect yourself from the flu and other colds. Juniper is also known for its beneficial effects on pulmonary patients. It also helps with allergies of various origins, problems with appetite, digestion or urinary tract.

Thuja

A rare guest of the bathhouse is a thuja broom. This broom has a wonderful aroma that has an antiseptic, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and tonic effect. Its wonderful pine smell, spreading throughout the steam room, will help cope with overwork and tones the nervous system.

A thuja broom is indispensable in caring for oily skin. It is also considered the ideal broom for women. If you steam it well, the thuja needles become very tender, and after massaging with them, the skin takes on a fresh and elastic appearance.

Spruce

Despite the fact that in Siberia there are many lovers of spruce brooms for baths, we would like to remind you that in our country they have long been used in the rituals of washing the dead. The older generation still believes that any variant of the presence of spruce branches in the steam room during the soaring of the living helps to reduce the further life path of all those present. Therefore, for bath procedures it is better to use spruce’s sister – pine. We talked in detail about pine and no less useful cedar brooms in the series of articles Coniferous Friends of the Russian Bath. Pine and Cedar.

The saunas of Yekaterinburg invite you to take a steam bath with pine brooms and get new sensations all year round.

Oksana Smirnova

Tags: bath brooms

How to properly steam brooms of different types of wood

Quite often we come across the question of how to steam a fir broom for a bath. This is not difficult to do, and the process brings pleasure due to the special aroma that has a beneficial effect on the nervous system.

Brooms made from deciduous trees are popular among people, especially real Russian symbols - birch and oak. Coniferous bath accessories are often made from spruce, pine, cedar, fir and juniper branches.

It is also good to steam with herbal brooms made from nettle, mint and wormwood. They cleanse skin pores, rejuvenate it and add elasticity.

Important! Why is there nothing to do in the steam room without a broom? A bunch of branches or medicinal herbs acts as a natural massager. And all the healing substances contained in properly steamed brooms penetrate the skin well and quickly, having a beneficial effect on the body.

Birch broom

Why do most steam lovers go to the sauna with a birch broom?

It is very durable and flexible, and thanks to phytoncides, essential oils and flavonoids it:

• Cleanses the skin of toxins;
• Helps eliminate skin problems, including acne;
• Normalizes the functioning of the lungs and bronchi;
• Eliminates aches in joints and muscles;
• Cleanses the body of toxins, which helps improve the functioning of internal organs.

To get the maximum benefit from using a birch broom (dry), you need to know the rules for preparing it for bath procedures.

Method number 1:

1. Rinse the broom with running water to remove dust.
2. Place it in a bowl of cold water for 2 - 3 minutes. Then we transfer it to a container with warmer water, about 40°.
3. After 5 - 6 minutes, add boiling water, cover the bowl with a broom with a lid and wait for at least 10 minutes.
4. And the final chord is to hold the steamed bunch of branches over a hot heater for several seconds. We make sure that the leaves do not fall on the stones, otherwise they will start to burn and emit a specific smell.

A bath accessory made from birch twigs can be prepared in advance. It needs to be placed in cold water for soaking, kept there for 10 hours. Then removed, wrapped in a damp piece of cloth and placed on the bottom shelf of the steam room.

About 10 minutes is enough for the broom to acquire the necessary elasticity and begin to release its special birch aroma. And its beneficial properties will be fully preserved with this method of preparation.

Oak broom

Tannins in oak leaves improve the condition of the skin, especially oily skin, and treat acne. Bath procedures with oak brooms tone blood vessels, calm the nervous system, and normalize blood pressure.

A bunch of oak branches is prepared for the steam room in the same way as birch branches. There are other ways to soak oak leaf brooms:

• This method is suitable for those who have time to prepare bath attributes. A day before going to steam, the broom is wrapped in a well-moistened cloth. Within 24 hours, the branches and leaves will be sufficiently saturated with moisture. All that remains is to scald the broom with boiling water, and it is ready for use;
• Even an hour is enough to bring the broom into proper condition. It is kept soaked in a basin of cold water for half an hour, turning it over periodically. After this, they are placed in water for 15 minutes like a bouquet - cuttings down, leaves up. This way the water will saturate the branches and they will be flexible and strong. The broom is placed in a bag and sent to the bathhouse. There is no need to steam it anymore;
• If you don’t have time to prepare an oak broom, the classic method will help - place it in a bowl of boiling water for 10 minutes and let it steam. Then the bundle is held directly in the steam room for 5 - 10 seconds over hot stones and after that it can be safely used;

Useful video

Be sure to see how to properly steam an oak broom

Fir broom

A fir broom is a useful thing; it treats rheumatism, colds, allergies, and bronchitis. It emits a special aroma that has a beneficial effect on the respiratory system and nervous system.

But the branches of coniferous trees with their needles are prickly and quite hard. Not everyone can afford such a hard body massage.

Please note: for harvesting, take young coniferous branches with small buds at the tips. It is better to work with pine brooms with gloves so as not to get injured by the resin that is released when the pine branches heat up.

How to properly prepare a pine broom for a steam room:

• To soften fairly hard pine brooms, they should be placed in boiling water for 15 - 20 minutes. You need to close the basin with the branches with a lid, otherwise the essential oils may evaporate;
• After steaming, the needles will become softer, more elastic and will not prick as much as dry ones;
• When the broom is ready, you can massage your body with it, previously steamed in the steam room. Use it carefully; there is no need to whip the inner thighs and stomach with branches, so as not to injure the delicate skin.

Steamed pine brooms emit a wonderful healing aroma. But you can also use essential oils in the steam room. They have the effect of relaxation, stress relief, antibacterial and healing effects.

Pour water into a wide bowl, add 7 - 10 drops of essential oil and place the container near the stove. You can steam brooms in this water and water wooden bath shelves with it.

Help: The water in which the brooms were soaked should not be thrown away. She absorbed all the beneficial properties. It is good to wash your hair with to strengthen hair roots and prevent dandruff. Rinse the body with water to make the skin more elastic. They also sprinkle the infusion on the heater and walls, then the steam room is filled with a healing aroma.

Anyone who knows a lot about the bathhouse treats steaming brooms as a special procedure. After all, you can only get pleasure and benefit from visiting the steam room with a carefully prepared broom in your hands.

In this case, it will be an excellent massager - moderately flexible and elastic. And everything useful that was contained in a bunch of branches or herbs will be absorbed into the skin and saturate the body with healing substances.

Bamboo broom

The bamboo broom has recently come into use among those who like to take a steam bath. But not as a broom for steaming, but as an excellent tool for massage. Please note that there is absolutely no need to steam this broom.

Coniferous friends of the Russian bathhouse. Pine

Pine is a tree of the northern hemisphere, not found wild at all in South America, Australia and Africa, with the exception of its northernmost part. Its beneficial properties have been known to mankind since ancient times. It is believed that the ancient Sumerians were the first to prepare pine infusions and decoctions to treat diseases.

It’s hard to imagine a bathhouse without pine. It is used to build bathhouses, sheathe interior spaces, make brooms and other bath accessories, and use it in aromatherapy to prepare bath steam, in cosmetic and medicinal procedures, and, finally, for brewing medicinal tea.

For treatment, pine buds, pine needles, resin and nuts are used. The most valuable buds are prepared on the eve of blossoming in February - March. The buds are cut off with about 3 centimeters of the remaining branch and dried in a well-ventilated area, in the shade, avoiding mold. The needles are collected all year round and used fresh. The needles of new branches collected in winter are the most saturated with useful substances.

Pine, especially its Siberian variety, helps get rid of almost all existing diseases. Thanks to its antimicrobial, disinfectant, diuretic, choleretic, antiscorbutic, blood purifying and expectorant effects, it helps in the treatment of respiratory diseases, kidney diseases, cardiovascular system, neuralgia, rheumatism, gout, dropsy, rickets, hemorrhoids, convulsions, retinal detachment and optic nerve atrophy, metabolic disorders, sleep problems and many others. It is interesting that no one has yet spoken about the harmful effects of pine on humans.

In construction

Due to its low cost and good quality, pine wood is the most popular material for construction, including bathhouses. It has a soft and light structure, easy to process, and does not crack or deform when dried. The disadvantages include poor resistance to rotting in a humid environment, susceptibility to wood fungus and wood parasites, which gradually destroy the tree. In addition, pine releases resins, which give the steam room atmosphere a somewhat suffocating aroma, and they can also cause burns.

Bath brooms

Pine brooms are especially popular in Siberia. They are used for radiculitis, rheumatism, neuralgia and gout, and also as a bactericidal, anti-inflammatory and tonic.

He doesn’t prepare pine brooms for future use - the needles will fall off, so they are cut off shortly before the bath procedure. The branches should be young, light green, resinous, with small buds at the tips. It is advisable to choose those that grew in the shade and were not exposed to direct sunlight.

Steam these brooms at least half an hour before use. Before using them, steam the skin thoroughly and be sure to wear gloves to protect against the released resin. A pine broom is the final chord of a bath massage, a kind of acupuncture in Russian. They do not whip them, but stroke the skin. After the procedure, droplets of resin are easily removed from the skin with cotton wool moistened with alcohol or vodka.

Aromatherapy

Steam with the aroma of pine in a bath, in addition to its healing properties, brings the feeling of being in a coniferous forest, refreshes the head, fills you with calm and gives strength.

The easiest way to get a pine aroma is to put a pine sprig in a steam room. For those who take a thorough approach to bath procedures, it is better to prepare a special infusion that can be used to spray the walls of the steam room and water the stones.

The pine infusion is prepared as follows: place several tops of young pine shoots in boiling milk and cook over low heat for 20 minutes. Then let the broth brew for 1.5 hours, strain and dilute with water in a ratio of 1:3. Or this: buy pine extract at the pharmacy, dilute it with water and enjoy the same effect.

Massages

As you know, there are about 60 acupuncture points on our feet, which can be used to treat the entire body as a whole. A very simple and effective way to get a foot massage is to put pine needles on the floor in the bathhouse and just walk on it.

When you are tired, it is good to do a pine back massage. To do this, scatter pre-steamed pine needles on a towel and lie on your lower back for about 15 minutes.

A general massage with pine essential oil is very useful. In addition to the above aromatic and medicinal properties, it also has an excellent cosmetic effect: cleanses pores, disinfects the skin, improves microcirculation, and normalizes metabolic processes. This oil is especially useful for people prone to swelling. Pine oil can also be used for scalp massage, which helps strengthen and protect hair from climatic influences in winter and summer.

You can buy pine oil or prepare it yourself. To do this, you need an old kettle, into which a quarter is filled with young chopped pine needles, half filled with water and closed tightly with a lid. A plastic or metal outlet tube is placed on the spout, which is lowered into a container of cold water. When the kettle is heated, water vapor along with the essential oil moves into the container, where the oil cools and floats to the surface. Now it can be removed with a pipette and used.

Pine baths

It is believed that pine baths can cure up to 90 percent of diseases, including oncology. In addition, they, in combination with drinking pine decoction, promote weight loss and get rid of cellulite, remove waste, toxins and radionuclides from the body. Saunas in Orenburg and spa centers in other cities offer such baths to treat neuroses and depression, and athletes use them to remove lactic acid.

To prepare a bath, you need to take one kilogram of pine needles, bark and branches, chop it, add 7-8 liters of water and cook for 30 minutes. After cooling, strain the broth and pour into a warm bath. If you want to speed up the process, add 4 kg of table salt or 1-2 kilograms of sea salt to the bath. The water temperature should be 36-38 degrees.

The bath is taken in the evening, at least an hour after meals, approximately 1-1.5 before bedtime. They are immersed in it so that the area of ​​the heart is above the water. You need to lie in a comfortable position, relaxing your muscles. If you feel unwell during the procedure, you should leave the water immediately. If you tolerate the bath well, the duration of the procedure should not exceed 15 minutes. After the procedure, you should take a shower, wrap yourself in a warm blanket and rest for 30 minutes. Baths are taken every other day, the course of treatment is 10-15 sessions.

Drinks made from pine needles

People who survived the war say that during the famine years tea made from pine needles saved them from illness, and Siberians still drink pine infusions to prevent scurvy. Even for healthy people nowadays, pine drinks will help strengthen the immune system and prevent the onset of diseases.

To prepare tea, you need to rinse 1 tablespoon of pine needles, chop it and brew a glass of boiling water for 10 minutes. It’s difficult to call this vitamin drink tasty; it’s bitter. However, adding lemon juice and honey makes the taste of pine tea very pleasant.

According to another version, to prepare an infusion, it is enough to grind a little pine needles, pour boiling water, boil, leave for 20 minutes, strain and consume during the day with honey and lemon for 4 months to forget about the most serious illnesses.

Mask for the face

Beauties have long established that even one pine needle mask can have a beneficial effect on mature facial skin and smooth out wrinkles. To prepare it, you need to take 20 milliliters of olive oil, three tablespoons of honey and 30 grams of chopped pine needles. Gently mix the ingredients until smooth and apply on the face for 10 minutes. Wash off with warm water. Use this product no more than twice a month.

Oksana Smirnova

Tags: natural cosmetics, pine needle cosmetics

The benefits of fir broom

What are the benefits of a fir broom used in a bath? Any coniferous brooms have a healing effect on the human body. If used in a steam room, you can get a restorative, antimicrobial, as well as anti-inflammatory and tonic effect.

Fir, compared to other coniferous plants, is more suitable for bathing procedures, since it is more gentle on the skin, unlike prickly varieties. Its needles are not so sharp, so it does not harm the skin, and fir for baths can be used even by people with sensitive skin.

The procedures have the most beneficial effect on the human body, and in particular on the respiratory system. In the paired branches, fir trees smell wonderful due to the release of essential oils, and thereby calm the nerves, relieving the effects of stress. If you are interested in the benefits of a fir broom for a bath, then it is recommended to steam with it to prevent colds and various viral diseases.

What's the best way to steam with a fir broom?

If you need to steam thoroughly, it is advisable to perform this procedure together, and accordingly, have two fir brooms. One of the sauna visitors lies down on a bench. If lying down is not possible, the procedure can be performed while sitting.

It happens like this:

1. The second person lightly strokes the first with a broom, in the direction from the neck to the toes. Then they do the sides. The first broom strokes one of them, and the second - the other side, moving in the opposite direction. They do this at the same time.
2. Then tapping (massage) is performed on the pelvis, thighs, calves, and feet. These actions are performed several times (3-4). Then both brooms are held above your head. This process contains the answer to the question of how to properly steam a fir broom for a bath. The fact is that hot air rises. Then the brooms are lowered onto the lower back, pressing them to the surface of the body for a few seconds. This action is repeated several times.
3. The entire surface of the back is treated in the same way, as well as the arms and elbow and knee joints. All movements are repeated 3-4 times.