Kylpy is a Finnish sauna bath. "Sauna" relate to the bathing chamber, not the bath itself. You should take off all your clothes, take a shower and get into the sauna. The sauna temperatures vary from 70°C to over 100 °C. And you can regulate the heat by sitting higher up on the benches, dubbed lauteet. Just sit back and let the heat penetrate into your body and open the pores of the sweating skin.
The stones on the sauna stove, called kiuas, in the corner, are exceptionally hot and when water is purred on them, a hot, yet invisible, puff of steam (called löyly in Finnish) inflate the room, and due to this steam the sauna becomes hotter. You may produce löyly as often as you wish. And in 5–20 minutes, you should leave the chamber and cool down outside, by having a cold shower and then sitting outside at the terrace (if there is any) for a while, typically sipping beer or some other kind of a drink. You may have the process repeated for several times. Usually it takes from 30 minutes to two hours to enjoy the whole process of kylpy. And finally a shower is taken with soap and shampoo.
If there is a kylpy at lakeside cottages, it is normally complete with a refreshing swim. Sauna veterans in the winter may even enjoy ice swimming in  an ice-hole with water temperature usually ranging from 1 °C to 4 °C, or they just might get into the snow. Sauna lovers may also apply a vasta (Eastern dialects) or a vihta (Western dialects), a strong wisp or bundle of birch twigs with the leaves (Silver Birch, Betula pendula, is suitable for this). This wisp is plunged into warm water and then one is beaten with it gently or not (as one wishes). This process cleanses and exfoliates the skin and relaxes the muscles. And there is also a pleasant, fresh birch odour to the sauna session after using a vihta.
There is a sauna almost in every Finnish home. Modern saunas are integrated to the house. But older properties have separate sauna buildings. In apartment buildings there is either a common sauna or own one at each flat.
Traditionally the public saunas are not only a sauna but also a meeting place. But this is mostly unknown to the younger generation.
There are also corporate saunas. Companies esteem the sauna as an important part of the company representation, inviting the potential business partners for a dinner and a sauna. Besides guest saunas, corporations also have saunas for the employee hygiene or more likely for informal parties called saunailta. The sauna is a fundamental part of Finnish domestic business.
As using sauna is considered essential, every Finnish building usually includes a sauna. Thus such establishments as dormitories, schools, hospitals, garrisons, hotels, and prisons have saunas for guest/inmate use. There are also various sport facilities, such as swimming pools and gyms, as the main facilities are designated for refreshment and hygiene. More than 100 people can enjoy a large institutional sauna at the same time.
Saunas at summer cottage, preferably near a lake, are often more traditional and have a more labor-demanding wood-burning kiuas instead of an electric one. And after the sauna experience, you may often have a small meal of saunamakkara (sausage) and beer.
As a rule men and women don't go to the sauna together except for the members of the same family or close friends. Nowadays public saunas are almost always single-sex. Customarily particularly in the countryside the whole village used to go to sauna together. But today it's only the younger generation who are likely to have mixed-sex saunas.
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