A public steam bath. Three tiled rooms getting progressively hotter, heated by a wood furnace, where you wash sitting on the floor with buckets. Every Moroccan neighbourhood has one and most people go weekly.

What do you wear in a Moroccan hammam?

Underwear bottoms, or swimsuit bottoms. Not nothing. Women in the women's session are usually topless; men wear shorts or briefs. Bring a dry pair to change into afterwards.

Does the hammam scrub hurt?

It stings rather than hurts, and only in places — the shoulders and shins. The grey rolls coming off your skin are dead skin, they are normal, and they are alarming the first time. Say "shwiya" if it is too hard.

Are hammams in Morocco mixed?

Public hammams never are. They either have separate buildings or separate hours for men and women. Mixed sessions exist only in hotel and riad spas, and they are a tourist product rather than a Moroccan one.

How much does a hammam cost in Morocco?

A neighbourhood hammam is a few dirhams to enter and around 50 to 100 more if someone scrubs you. A riad or hotel version runs into the hundreds. Prices move — confirm when you book.

What do you take to a public hammam?

Savon beldi, a kessa glove, shampoo, a plastic mat or stool, a towel, flip-flops, a comb, dry underwear and small notes. Buckets are usually available at the door. Nothing is provided.

How long does a hammam take?

Between 45 minutes and an hour and a half. Most of that is sitting in the heat waiting for the soap to work, which is the part nobody warns you is the point.

Is the hammam better in Marrakech or Casablanca?

Marrakech has the polished visitor version and far more of it. Casablanca has better ordinary neighbourhood hammams because it is a working city with fewer tourists. For a first hammam, Marrakech; for the real thing, Casablanca.

Can men go to a hammam in Morocco?

Yes — every public hammam serves men, either in its own building or in the early morning and evening slots. The scrub is the same and usually harder.

The Moroccan Hammam: What Actually Happens

A Moroccan hammam is a public steam bath, not a spa. You sit in a hot tiled room until your skin softens, black soap goes on, and then someone scrubs you with a rough glove until the dirt comes off in grey rolls. It takes about an hour. It stings. Moroccans go weekly.

Public hammam or riad spa

Both are real. Every neighbourhood has a hammam; Morocco still runs thousands of them, and they are not the same experience as the version sold to visitors. People book the wrong one constantly.

	Neighbourhood hammam	Riad or hotel spa
Cost	A few dirhams to enter, 50–100 for a scrub	Hundreds, often ten times more
Who is there	Your neighbours, their children, everyone	You, and a booking
Provided	Nothing. You bring it	Everything, in a basket
Language	Darija, some French	English, French
Mixed	Never	Sometimes
Rooms	Three, tiled, hot, loud	One, candlelit, quiet
Suits	Anyone who wants the real thing	Anyone nervous, or short of time

There is no wrong answer. My honest advice: if you are travelling with someone Moroccan or with a guide who can walk you in, go to the neighbourhood hammam. If you are on your own and unsure, book a mid-range riad hammam for the first one and go public afterwards, when you know the sequence.

What you wear, and what you do not

Underwear bottoms. Swimsuit bottoms if you prefer. Not nothing, and not a full swimsuit either — the top gets in the way of the scrub and nobody wears one.

In the women’s session most women are topless and nobody looks. Full nudity is not done. Men wear shorts or briefs throughout. Bring a dry pair to change into, because everything you wear in there comes out soaked.

Never photograph anything. Phones do not come past the changing room.

Mixed or separate? The honest answer

Public hammams are never mixed. A hammam either has two buildings, or it runs men’s hours and women’s hours — commonly men early morning and after work, women through the middle of the day. Ask at the door; the times are local and they change.

Mixed hammams exist in hotels and some spas, and they are a tourist product. There is nothing wrong with booking one. It is simply not what the word means to a Moroccan.

What happens in a Moroccan hammam, step by step

You pay at the door and leave your clothes in the changing room, with an attendant watching them.
You take a bucket — usually two, one for hot, one for cold — and a mat or a low stool.
You go through the rooms. Cool, warm, hot. Most people settle in the second room; the third is for people who like it.
You sit and sweat, ten to twenty minutes. This is the part visitors rush and should not. The heat is what makes the scrub work.
Savon beldi goes on — a soft black olive-oil soap, spread everywhere, left to sit for five to ten minutes.
You get scrubbed. Either you do it yourself with a kessa glove, or you pay the tayeba, who will do it properly. This lasts ten to fifteen minutes and involves being moved around like laundry.
You rinse with a bucket. There is no Moroccan hammam shower and no plunge pool — a bowl of water poured over your head is the whole of it.
Optional: ghassoul in the hair and on the face, rinsed out.
You come out and lie down. Tea, water, twenty minutes of stillness. Do not stand up and walk into the sun.

The whole Moroccan hammam routine takes forty-five minutes to an hour and a half. In a spa the same sequence happens on a heated slab with a Moroccan hammam treatment written on a menu, and someone brings you the tea.

The kessa scrub: does it hurt, and what comes off

It stings. Shoulders, shins and the tops of the feet are the places you notice. It is nothing like pain and it does not last.

What alarms people is not the sensation, it is what appears: grey-brown rolls of dead skin, lifting off in strips. Everyone produces them, including Moroccans who came last week. It is not dirt in the way you are imagining, and there is no reason to be embarrassed.

The tayeba scrubbing you is doing a job she does forty times a day, at speed, with a strong forearm. She will turn you over, lift your arm, and get on with it. If it is too hard, say shwiya — a little — and she will ease off. If you want it harder, zid. A few more of these are on the language page.

Savon beldi is olive soap and does the softening. Ghassoul — sometimes written rhassoul — is a clay mined in the Middle Atlas, used on hair and skin. Argan oil goes on at the end, and in a spa it comes with a massage that is not part of a traditional hammam at all.

What it costs, and what to leave

A neighbourhood hammam costs a few dirhams to walk in, and roughly 50 to 100 dirhams more if someone scrubs you. A riad hammam with the oils and the tea runs to several hundred, and a hotel spa considerably beyond that. Prices move, so confirm the figure when you book rather than after.

Tip the person who scrubbed you 20 to 50 dirhams, in cash, in her hand. It is not included anywhere and it is the part visitors forget. The wider picture is in money and tipping.

Marrakech or Casablanca?

People genuinely search this, so: Marrakech has the visitor version, done well and everywhere — dozens of restored riad hammams within the medina walls, English spoken, easy to book. It is comfortable and it is somewhat staged.

Casablanca has better ordinary hammams, because it is a working city where people go weekly and almost nobody is a tourist. Nothing there is designed for you, which is the point.

First hammam, alone, nervous: Marrakech. Second hammam, or travelling with someone local: Casablanca, or any neighbourhood in any town.

Going alone as a foreign woman

You will be looked at for about ninety seconds, and then absorbed. The women’s hammam is a social room — conversation, gossip, mothers scrubbing daughters, someone’s cousin doing someone’s hair. Nobody is scandalised by a foreigner and several people will try to help you.

Two things make it easy: go mid-afternoon on a weekday rather than Thursday evening, when the whole neighbourhood is preparing for Friday, and say salam alaikum when you walk in. The rest of the social grammar is in customs and etiquette.

Who should not go

Skip it if you are pregnant and past the early months, have a heart condition or low blood pressure, are recovering from surgery, are badly sunburnt, or have a tattoo less than a month old. Do not go on a full stomach, and do not shave your legs that morning — the kessa will find every nick.

Drink water afterwards. The heat takes more out of you than it feels like at the time, and the flat, sleepy hour that follows a hammam is well known here and entirely normal.

We book whichever version suits the person — the neighbourhood one or the riad one — and we will tell you honestly which you will actually enjoy. After a day in the souks, it is the correct thing to do with an afternoon.

Tell us what you want from your trip, or read more in the Moroccan culture guide.