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What Is a Traditional Moroccan Hammam? A First-Timer's Guide
Nearly everyone hesitates before their first hammam.
The questions are always the same, and people are usually too polite to ask them out loud. Do I take everything off? Is someone going to scrub me? Will it hurt? How much do I tip? Is this a spa or is this a public bath, and what happens if I turn up expecting one and get the other?
Fair questions, all of them. So here is a straight answer, start to finish, with none of the mystique.
First, What a Hammam Actually Is
A hammam is a steam bath. Not a sauna, which is dry heat, and not a Jacuzzi. It is a set of tiled rooms heated by steam, where you sit, sweat, and get very thoroughly clean.
The form descends from the Roman bath, which spread across North Africa and was absorbed and reshaped by Islamic culture. Ritual washing before prayer gave the bathhouse a religious function on top of a practical one, which is why traditional hammams were built beside mosques and often shared their water supply and heating furnace. In Fes, that arrangement is still visible if you know where to look.
For most of Moroccan history, the hammam was infrastructure. Homes did not have hot water. The neighbourhood hammam was where you washed, weekly, along with everyone else on your street. It was also where mothers looked over prospective brides, where gossip travelled, where women had a space away from the household. Some of that survives. Public hammams are still busy, still cheap, and still social in a way that surprises visitors.
What you will find in a riad or spa is the same ritual with the volume turned down: private, quiet, and paced for someone who is not in a hurry.
The Two Kinds, and Which One You Want
The public hammam (hammam sha'bi) is the neighbourhood version. Entry costs a few dirhams. You bring your own bucket, soap, glove, and towel, or buy them at the door. It is loud, communal, hot, and completely unglamorous. Men and women go at separate hours or use separate entrances. For a small extra fee, an attendant, a kessala for women or kessal for men, will scrub you.
It is a real experience and worth doing if you are curious and reasonably relaxed about the idea. It is not relaxing in the spa sense. Nobody dims the lights.
The spa or riad hammam is a private treatment room, usually booked by the hour, where an attendant guides you through the whole sequence. Same steps, same products, more comfort and more privacy. This is what most first-timers should book, and it is what we offer at Riad Joy.
If you want both, do the spa hammam first. Once you know the sequence, the public bath stops being confusing and starts being interesting.
What Actually Happens, Step by Step
1. Heat
You start in a warm room, sitting on heated tile or marble. Warm water is poured over you and you are left to sit in the steam for ten to fifteen minutes. Nothing happens during this part. That is the point. The heat softens the outer layer of skin so the scrub can do its job, and it takes time.
2. Savon beldi
Next comes the black soap. Savon beldi is made from crushed black olives and olive oil, sometimes with eucalyptus. It has the texture of soft butter and it is not remotely like the soap you know. The attendant applies it over your whole body and it sits for five to ten minutes while you stay in the steam.
It does not lather. It is doing chemistry, not foam.
3. The kessa
This is the part people talk about afterwards.
The kessa is a coarse mitt, and the attendant uses it to scrub you from shoulders to feet with real pressure. Dead skin comes off in visible grey rolls. Every single person is startled the first time. Many are slightly appalled. Almost everyone finds it funny within about thirty seconds.
It should feel vigorous but not painful. If it is too much, say so. Bshwiya means gently, and any attendant will adjust immediately. You are not being difficult by asking.
4. Ghassoul
A mineral clay quarried in the Atlas Mountains, mixed with warm water or rose water into a smooth mask and applied to skin and hair. It draws out oil and impurities and leaves skin noticeably softer. It sits for a few minutes and then rinses off.
5. Rinse and cool down
Buckets of warm water, then progressively cooler, to close the pores and bring your body temperature back down. You will feel light-headed for a moment. That is normal.
6. Argan oil
The finish. Argan oil, pressed from the kernels of a tree that grows only in southwestern Morocco, is massaged into the skin. Rich in vitamin E and fatty acids, it replaces what the scrub stripped away. Many treatments extend this into a full massage.
Total time: around 45 to 90 minutes depending on what you book.
What to Wear, and Other Things Nobody Tells You
Wear disposable underwear. This is the single most useful thing to know. Women typically wear bottoms only, men keep on shorts or underwear. Full nudity is not the norm and in men's sections it is not acceptable. Whatever you wear will get soaked and soapy, so do not bring anything you like.
Bring flip-flops. The floors are wet and hot. Most riad spas provide slippers; public hammams do not.
Do not shave beforehand. Give it at least a day. Freshly shaved skin and a kessa glove are a poor combination.
Do not eat a large meal first. Light stomach, well hydrated, and drink water afterwards. The heat does more than you expect.
Take off jewellery and leave contact lenses out if you can manage without them. Steam and lenses do not agree.
Tip the attendant. In a public hammam, 20 to 50 dirhams is standard for a scrub. In a riad or spa, follow the house guidance, though something in the region of 10 to 15 percent is normal and always welcome.
Time it well. The evening of your arrival day works beautifully after a flight. So does the end of a long day walking the medina, which in Fes means a lot of hills and a lot of dust.
If you are pregnant, have low blood pressure, or a heart condition, talk to the spa first. Prolonged steam is not right for everyone and any good spa will adapt or advise.
Is It Worth It?
Yes, and not only for the reason you would guess.
Your skin will be softer than it has been in years. That much is guaranteed and it lasts about a week. The heat loosens muscles that walking a medina all day has tightened. The clay and oil do genuinely nourish skin and hair.
But the part people remember is different. A hammam is one of the very few hours in a trip where you have nothing to look at, nothing to photograph, and nothing to decide. You sit in the steam and time slows down. In a city as dense and demanding as Fes, that is not a small thing.
It is also the closest most visitors get to an ordinary Moroccan routine rather than a performance of one. Everybody here does this. It just happens to feel remarkable if you did not grow up with it.
The Hammam at Riad Joy Fes
We built Joy Spa inside the riad, in a seventeenth-century building in the heart of the medina, because we did not want our guests hunting for a hammam at the end of a long day.
The ritual is the traditional one, done properly: purifying black soap hammam, the full kessa exfoliation, ghassoul clay, and a choice of massages and treatments to finish. Private, quiet, and unhurried, with attendants who will explain each step as they go if you would rather know what is coming.
Open daily, 10:00 to 21:00. The full treatment menu is on the spa page.
A practical suggestion. Book for late afternoon on your first full day. You will have walked the medina, you will have found something to eat that you cannot pronounce, your legs will be finished, and you will have earned it. Then dinner at the restaurant upstairs, without leaving the building.
Book Directly & Get the Best Rate
Reserve your suite at Riad Joy Fes through our website and you'll always get our best available rate.
Nearly everyone hesitates before their first hammam.
The questions are always the same, and people are usually too polite to ask them out loud. Do I take everything off? Is someone going to scrub me? Will it hurt? How much do I tip? Is this a spa or is this a public bath, and what happens if I turn up expecting one and get the other?
Fair questions, all of them. So here is a straight answer, start to finish, with none of the mystique.
First, What a Hammam Actually Is
A hammam is a steam bath. Not a sauna, which is dry heat, and not a Jacuzzi. It is a set of tiled rooms heated by steam, where you sit, sweat, and get very thoroughly clean.
The form descends from the Roman bath, which spread across North Africa and was absorbed and reshaped by Islamic culture. Ritual washing before prayer gave the bathhouse a religious function on top of a practical one, which is why traditional hammams were built beside mosques and often shared their water supply and heating furnace. In Fes, that arrangement is still visible if you know where to look.
For most of Moroccan history, the hammam was infrastructure. Homes did not have hot water. The neighbourhood hammam was where you washed, weekly, along with everyone else on your street. It was also where mothers looked over prospective brides, where gossip travelled, where women had a space away from the household. Some of that survives. Public hammams are still busy, still cheap, and still social in a way that surprises visitors.
What you will find in a riad or spa is the same ritual with the volume turned down: private, quiet, and paced for someone who is not in a hurry.
The Two Kinds, and Which One You Want
The public hammam (hammam sha'bi) is the neighbourhood version. Entry costs a few dirhams. You bring your own bucket, soap, glove, and towel, or buy them at the door. It is loud, communal, hot, and completely unglamorous. Men and women go at separate hours or use separate entrances. For a small extra fee, an attendant, a kessala for women or kessal for men, will scrub you.
It is a real experience and worth doing if you are curious and reasonably relaxed about the idea. It is not relaxing in the spa sense. Nobody dims the lights.
The spa or riad hammam is a private treatment room, usually booked by the hour, where an attendant guides you through the whole sequence. Same steps, same products, more comfort and more privacy. This is what most first-timers should book, and it is what we offer at Riad Joy.
If you want both, do the spa hammam first. Once you know the sequence, the public bath stops being confusing and starts being interesting.
What Actually Happens, Step by Step
1. Heat
You start in a warm room, sitting on heated tile or marble. Warm water is poured over you and you are left to sit in the steam for ten to fifteen minutes. Nothing happens during this part. That is the point. The heat softens the outer layer of skin so the scrub can do its job, and it takes time.
2. Savon beldi
Next comes the black soap. Savon beldi is made from crushed black olives and olive oil, sometimes with eucalyptus. It has the texture of soft butter and it is not remotely like the soap you know. The attendant applies it over your whole body and it sits for five to ten minutes while you stay in the steam.
It does not lather. It is doing chemistry, not foam.
3. The kessa
This is the part people talk about afterwards.
The kessa is a coarse mitt, and the attendant uses it to scrub you from shoulders to feet with real pressure. Dead skin comes off in visible grey rolls. Every single person is startled the first time. Many are slightly appalled. Almost everyone finds it funny within about thirty seconds.
It should feel vigorous but not painful. If it is too much, say so. Bshwiya means gently, and any attendant will adjust immediately. You are not being difficult by asking.
4. Ghassoul
A mineral clay quarried in the Atlas Mountains, mixed with warm water or rose water into a smooth mask and applied to skin and hair. It draws out oil and impurities and leaves skin noticeably softer. It sits for a few minutes and then rinses off.
5. Rinse and cool down
Buckets of warm water, then progressively cooler, to close the pores and bring your body temperature back down. You will feel light-headed for a moment. That is normal.
6. Argan oil
The finish. Argan oil, pressed from the kernels of a tree that grows only in southwestern Morocco, is massaged into the skin. Rich in vitamin E and fatty acids, it replaces what the scrub stripped away. Many treatments extend this into a full massage.
Total time: around 45 to 90 minutes depending on what you book.
What to Wear, and Other Things Nobody Tells You
Wear disposable underwear. This is the single most useful thing to know. Women typically wear bottoms only, men keep on shorts or underwear. Full nudity is not the norm and in men's sections it is not acceptable. Whatever you wear will get soaked and soapy, so do not bring anything you like.
Bring flip-flops. The floors are wet and hot. Most riad spas provide slippers; public hammams do not.
Do not shave beforehand. Give it at least a day. Freshly shaved skin and a kessa glove are a poor combination.
Do not eat a large meal first. Light stomach, well hydrated, and drink water afterwards. The heat does more than you expect.
Take off jewellery and leave contact lenses out if you can manage without them. Steam and lenses do not agree.
Tip the attendant. In a public hammam, 20 to 50 dirhams is standard for a scrub. In a riad or spa, follow the house guidance, though something in the region of 10 to 15 percent is normal and always welcome.
Time it well. The evening of your arrival day works beautifully after a flight. So does the end of a long day walking the medina, which in Fes means a lot of hills and a lot of dust.
If you are pregnant, have low blood pressure, or a heart condition, talk to the spa first. Prolonged steam is not right for everyone and any good spa will adapt or advise.
Is It Worth It?
Yes, and not only for the reason you would guess.
Your skin will be softer than it has been in years. That much is guaranteed and it lasts about a week. The heat loosens muscles that walking a medina all day has tightened. The clay and oil do genuinely nourish skin and hair.
But the part people remember is different. A hammam is one of the very few hours in a trip where you have nothing to look at, nothing to photograph, and nothing to decide. You sit in the steam and time slows down. In a city as dense and demanding as Fes, that is not a small thing.
It is also the closest most visitors get to an ordinary Moroccan routine rather than a performance of one. Everybody here does this. It just happens to feel remarkable if you did not grow up with it.
The Hammam at Riad Joy Fes
We built Joy Spa inside the riad, in a seventeenth-century building in the heart of the medina, because we did not want our guests hunting for a hammam at the end of a long day.
The ritual is the traditional one, done properly: purifying black soap hammam, the full kessa exfoliation, ghassoul clay, and a choice of massages and treatments to finish. Private, quiet, and unhurried, with attendants who will explain each step as they go if you would rather know what is coming.
Open daily, 10:00 to 21:00. The full treatment menu is on the spa page.
A practical suggestion. Book for late afternoon on your first full day. You will have walked the medina, you will have found something to eat that you cannot pronounce, your legs will be finished, and you will have earned it. Then dinner at the restaurant upstairs, without leaving the building.
Book Directly & Get the Best Rate
Reserve your suite at Riad Joy Fes through our website and you'll always get our best available rate.
4 Derb Drissiyen Douh Am | 30 100, Fès – Maroc | Tel: +212 5 35 63 71 47 | contact@riadjoy.com
© 2026 - Riad Joy - All rights reserved
Made with ❤️ by ngen solutions
Terms and Conditions
Privacy Policy
© 2026 - Riad Joy - All rights reserved
Made with ❤️ by ngen solutions
Terms and Conditions
Privacy Policy
4 Derb Drissiyen Douh Am | 30 100, Fès – Maroc | Tel: +212 5 35 63 71 47 | contact@riadjoy.com
© 2026 - Riad Joy - All rights reserved
Made with ❤️ by ngen solutions
Terms and Conditions
Privacy Policy