Traditional hammam

A warm room is provided to help you acclimatise and relax. The warm steam bath opens your pores and the staff treat your body with savon beldi (black natural soap with olive oil), rhassoul (mineral clay) and argan oil. Once you have been soaped up, rubbed down and massaged (body hair can also be removed if desired), warm water is poured all over you. Afterwards, you relax in a cooler area while you reacclimatise. For Moroccans, the hammam ritual is not just about the body. It is also a place to meet and socialise – many people go once a week.

“The suggestion was made to visit a hammam (…) We entered a wide, high building, in the middle of which a fountain gently burbled (…) I was not in the least tempted to disburden myself of even the smallest part of my toilette; in addition, I couldn’t even see a bathtub.” General Field Marshal Helmut von Moltke’s description of his first visit to a hammam is not exactly enthusiastic. At the start of the previous century, the principle of a Middle Eastern bath was barely known in Central Europe, and the Prussian must have been truly baffled by the procedure.

However, his scepticism and initial discomfort were thoroughly and vigorously brushed off, leaving nothing but a profound sense of well-being and the feeling

In a traditional hammam of the sort that the locals visit in Morocco, gentle massage strokes are not on the cards. This is serious business, and unlike in Europe, cleansing doesn’t just mean having a shower and using soap. The result: You will feel reborn – and, up to a certain point, the feeling is correct.

People come to the hammam not just for cleansing, but also to relax. As opposed to the classic European wellness rituals, the public hammams in Morocco where the locals also go can get quite lively. They are places for gossiping, laughing, arguing. A visit to the hammam is a fixture in the weekly routine.

A visit to a classic hammam follows certain rules that you should adhere to. Get undressed in the changing rooms. Men should keep their underpants on, but the rules in the women’s section tend to be more relaxed. Before visiting a hammam, make sure to purchase some essentials, such as a towel, a peeling glove, a ladle, slippers, and the traditional olive soap paste, savon noir or black soap, an unbelievably soft, rich soap with an intense scent of olives.

The first step is cleansing, i.e. ridding the body of any surface impurities (the fact that we are really just talking about the surface here will be obvious at the end of the process). Fill a bucket with hot water and ladle it over yourself (using the ladle you brought), rubbing yourself down with soap at the same time.

After the first cleansing step comes the steam bath, where moist, hot steam provides a sense of pleasant warmth and helps relax tense muscles (and thoughts). Next, you will be placing yourself in the competent hands of the Kessal, the bathhouse masseur (or his female equivalent), the Kessala. Be warned: They are serious about getting you cleaned up. Essentially, the top layer of your skin will be removed, together with any dead skin cells.

All who have been through the process report the same thing: At the beginning, they resisted the treatment and perceived it as rough, but past a certain point, they began to understand its popularity: You end up feeling reborn, with velvety-soft skin that is as clean as never before – and, in a strange way, it feels as if your mind and your soul have also been purified.

To conclude the treatment, your body will be soaped and massaged one more time. And then? Don’t rush off to your next leisure activity – give your body time to recover and let your mind wander at will for the treatment to unfold its full healing power.

Of course, you may also visit the hammam in your hotel or a dedicated hammam for tourists, but if you would like to experience a little bit of Morocco’s soul, make sure to head for a traditional hammam.

Looking for a private, exclusive experience? We recommend visiting a hammam in a luxury hotel or riad, for example in Marrakesh, Essaouira or Agadir. Morocco’s best accommodation offers both traditional bathing rituals and a variety of spa treatments and massages to suit all requirements.