The Calm Scandinavian Bathroom: 10 Pieces That Earn Their Place
The bathroom is the smallest room and the one you use most. Ten Nordic pieces, from the pump on the basin to the basket in the corner.
Read More →Steam on the Window: 10 Nordic Pieces for the Bath Hour
By the first week of November the bathroom has quietly become the warmest room in the house. It is small, it holds heat, and it is the one place where twenty minutes alone is not considered antisocial. Finland built a whole culture on that principle. Everyone else makes do with a locked door, a running tap and the window going grey with steam.
What follows is the kit for that half hour: towels with different jobs, something warm to stand on, something that smells of the coast, and a basket for the pile that comes afterwards. Ten pieces, all of them in stock in the UK, Germany, Norway and Denmark, and all worth comparing across the shops on ScandiDeals before you buy.
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1. FRAMA Heavy Towel – The weight is the point
You notice this one before you have used it. Heavy Towel is thick cotton terry in an undyed bone white, 140 by 70 centimetres, which is the size that actually wraps an adult rather than almost wrapping one. FRAMA works out of Copenhagen and tends to leave materials close to their raw state, so there is no sheen and no pattern here, only loops and weight. It takes longer to dry on the rail than a thin towel. In exchange it gets better with every wash.
FRAMA Heavy Towel bath towel 140x70 cm Bone white (white)
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2. Humdakin Waffle bath towel – Dries while you sleep
The counterweight to the heavy towel. A waffle weave holds less water in the cloth than a deep pile does, so it is back to dry on the hook in hours rather than overnight, which is the property that matters in a flat where the bathroom window stays shut from October onwards. Stone is a warm grey that sits quietly next to almost any tile. A loop at one corner keeps it hanging flat instead of bunching. Humdakin is Danish and keeps its textiles deliberately plain.
Humdakin Humdakin Waffle bath towel 70x135 cm Stone
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3. Moomin Arabia hand towel – Small hands, lower hook
Children want a towel they recognise and adults want one small enough for hands. This is both: 50 by 70 centimetres, pale blue, with Tove Jansson's Moomintroll sitting on the front and a navy corner folded in above him. The hand towel is washed more often than anything else in a bathroom, so a printed one that survives the machine is worth knowing about. Hang it on the lower hook and the step stool can stay in the cupboard.
Moomin Arabia Moomin hand towel 50x70 cm Moomintroll navy blue
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4. Mette Ditmer Diagonal bath mat – Cold tiles, solved cheaply
Cold tile is the reason a November bath ends badly. Fifty by eighty centimetres of cotton fixes it for less than the cost of a good towel, and Diagonal runs broad dark olive stripes across a sand ground, which forgives a wet footprint for the ten minutes it takes to dry. A leather tab at the corner lets it hang over the side of the bath afterwards instead of lying there damp. Mette Ditmer is Danish, and the weave is dense rather than fluffy, which is what survives a daily soaking.
Mette Ditmer Diagonal bath mat 50x80 cm Dark olive
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5. Iris Hantverk bath brush – A handle for your palm
Not a scrubbing brush for tiles. This is a bath brush: a domed birch knob that fills the palm, pale natural bristles underneath, round and roughly the size of a scone. It is used on skin, dry before the water or wet in it, and it does more for cold November circulation than any bottle of lotion. Wood and bristle age visibly rather than wearing out, so keep it on the edge of the bath where it can drain instead of shut in a cupboard.
Iris Hantverk Iris Hantverk Bath brush with knob birch
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6. Marimekko Unikko soap dish – The bar stays dry
Bar soap has come back and most dishes have not kept up, which is why the bar is a soft grey paste by Wednesday. This one is a small oval in a soft beige glaze with low ridges running across the well, so water drains off and air gets underneath. Unikko is the poppy Maija Isola drew for Marimekko in 1964; here it is the name on the box rather than a print on the object, and a bathroom shelf is the better for that restraint.
Marimekko Unikko soap dish Beige
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7. Skandinavisk ØY hand soap – Island air at the basin
Half a litre is a serious quantity of hand soap, and that is the argument for it: the bottle at the basin empties faster than anything else in the house. ØY is the Norwegian word for island, and the scent follows the idea rather than the postcard, with sea air and something green in it and nothing sweet. The bottle is a pale blue-grey, plain enough to leave standing out. The range refills, which matters more than the bottle does.
Skandinavisk ØY hand soap 500 ml
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8. Stelton Fjord toothbrush mug – Clutter, out of sight
Toothbrushes are the fastest way to make a clean bathroom look untidy. Fjord is a rounded beaker with a slight belly to it, matte black, no handle and no decoration, deep enough that the brushes stand upright and only the handles show above the rim. Stelton is Danish and has spent decades working in the same register: one shape, resolved properly, then left alone for years. It wipes clean with the cloth already in your hand.
Stelton Fjord toothbrush mug Black
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9. Zone Denmark sauna towel – Flat weave, for sitting on
A sauna towel is not a bath towel. This one is flat rather than piled, 50 by 100 centimetres, striped in white, soft grey and a dull eucalyptus green, so it dries fast and folds down to almost nothing. Sit on it in the sauna, take it to the pool, leave it in the bag for the swimming hall on a Tuesday evening. It costs less than most hand towels, and of everything on this list it is the piece most likely to leave the house.
Zone Denmark Sauna towel White-soft grey-eucalyptus, 50x100 cm
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10. Ferm Living Herman laundry basket – Where the pile goes
Every bathroom has a corner pile. Herman is a soft natural cotton bag with a fold-over top and a small leather tab, held in a slim black steel frame that crosses at the front, and the bag lifts out of the frame to be carried down to the machine. It takes a week of towels for two people. It also does not read as a laundry basket from across the room, which is the only reason a thing like this can stand where it has to stand.
Ferm Living Herman laundry basket Black
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Final Thoughts
None of this is a renovation. The bathroom is the room where small objects do nearly all the work: the thing your feet land on, the cloth you dry your hands with, the bar that sits in a dish by the tap. Replace four of them with versions chosen properly and the room shifts more than new tiles would, for a fraction of the mess.
Buy the towels first, because they are handled twice a day, then the floor, then the shelf. And check all four regions before you order. The same Danish towel can sit at noticeably different prices in the UK, Germany, Norway and Denmark in any given week, and the gap is often larger than the delivery. Compare them on ScandiDeals, then run the bath.
