Saunas built of Nordic white spruce are more traditionally Finnish. This material is a beautiful, white-toned, fine-grained wood with very tight 'living' knots that are about the size of a pencil eraser. From very slow-growing woods in Finland's sustainable forests, it darkens only slightly with age. Prices are comparable with cedar.

An excellent wood for benches and backrests is Abachi, another light-toned softwood that looks great with Nordic white spruce.

Other woods used for saunas include clear aspen, clear vertical-grain hemlock, and clear all-heart redwood, although redwood is rarely used today because of its high cost and the fact that it darkens almost immediately.

Domestic spruce and pine have a white wood look when new, but are not the same quality as imported Nordic white spruce. These woods tend to have larger, looser knots that will eventually fall out as the wood dries.