The Moroccan hammam: ritual and benefits

An age-old place in Morocco, the hammam is a genuine site for purifying body and soul, but it is also where everyone meets: where men, separate from the women, talk about their lives, introduce their children and strike up friendships.

It is a bath of moist heat, very different from the sauna, which is based on dry heat. It is also different from the Turkish bath, which is almost entirely steam. The Moroccan hammam is heated by a coil system up to mid-height. Unlike the Turkish bath, it is humid but not saturated with humidity.

Inspired by the Roman baths the Arabs discovered when they conquered Syria, the hammam today often consists of a single room, or two for the scrub. However, that is the shortened version we know now. Traditionally it has several rooms (at least 3) that increase in temperature up to the hottest room at 50 °C. The aim is to move through these rooms, accustoming the body to gradually more intense heat.

The Moroccan hammam, a beauty ritual with many benefits

To enjoy the benefits of the hammam, stay for at least 30 minutes and at most 1 hour, resting and stretching out on the floor or on the benches. During that time, a Tiaba (the name for the women who perform the scrubs in hammams) applies Moroccan black soap all over the body. Then, after leaving it on for about fifteen minutes, during which rest is the rule, the Tiaba rinses off the black soap; using a grainy exfoliating glove, she then rubs the body to remove impurities.

Thanks to these stages, it is a genuinely deep exfoliation which, for newcomers, is sometimes astonishing, so much dead skin comes away and is lifted off. After a full rinse, she applies natural ghassoul, a Moroccan clay earth, to the body and hair. An excellent cleansing product, ghassoul washes the body thoroughly and leaves it supple and soft.

After this care, a nourishing massage feeds the skin, and the finishing touch that always remains is mint tea, to round off this moment of incomparable calm.