What Is a Hammam? Turkish vs Moroccan Bath Explained

A Hammam is a steam bath rooted in the bathing cultures of the Middle East, North Africa and the wider Mediterranean. For centuries it has been a place to cleanse the body, relax the muscles and slow down. At its heart, the ritual is simple: warm, humid air opens the pores and softens the skin, the body is gently cleansed, and you leave feeling lighter than when you arrived. It is wellness at its most unhurried, and it pairs beautifully with the massage that follows.

If you have never tried one, the idea of a public bathhouse can sound intimidating. In a spa setting it is anything but. The room is warm rather than scalding, the pace is slow, and the whole point is to let tension melt away before any deeper bodywork begins.

How a Hammam ritual works

A traditional Hammam moves through a few gentle stages. First you spend time in the warm, steamy room so the heat can relax your muscles and open the pores. Then the skin is cleansed and exfoliated, often with a textured mitt, to lift away dead skin and leave the surface smooth. Finally there is a rinse and a period of rest, where the body cools gradually and the heart rate settles.

The sequence matters. By the time the warmth has done its work, your muscles are noticeably more pliable, which means a massage afterwards reaches deeper with less discomfort. This is exactly why the Russian and European spa tradition treats heat as part of the therapy, not an optional extra.

Turkish vs Moroccan Hammam: the difference

People often use the words interchangeably, but the two styles have distinct characters.

A Turkish Hammam is built around dry-leaning steam heat and a large heated marble slab at the centre of the room, called the gobektasi. You lie on the warm stone while the heat radiates upward through the body. The focus is on warmth, a foaming soap cleanse and a vigorous exfoliation that leaves the skin glowing. It is the more theatrical, scrub-forward experience.

A Moroccan Hammam leans into humid, enveloping steam and is famous for black soap, a paste made from olives, followed by exfoliation with a kessa glove and a rinse with warm water. The emphasis is on softening and deeply cleansing the skin, and the atmosphere tends to feel more cocooning and intimate. If you would like to read more about that experience specifically, see our Moroccan bath in Abu Dhabi page.

Neither is better than the other. Some guests prefer the dry, radiant heat of the Turkish bath; others love the soft, steamy embrace of the Moroccan version. At Le Pavot Spa you can choose whichever suits your mood when you arrive.

The benefits of a Hammam

A regular steam ritual offers more than a pleasant hour. The warmth encourages circulation, helps the body relax and supports the feeling of release that good bodywork is built on. The exfoliation leaves skin visibly smoother and helps it absorb oils and moisture better afterwards. And because the whole experience is designed to be slow and quiet, it is genuinely restorative for the mind as much as the body.

For anyone who carries tension in the neck, shoulders and back, the combination of heat then hands-on massage is hard to beat. The heat does half the work before the therapist has even begun.

Your free Hammam at Le Pavot Spa

Here is the part our guests love most. At Le Pavot Spa, inside the Sheraton Hotel in Al Zahiyah, Abu Dhabi, every 60-minute massage includes a complimentary 30-minute Turkish or Moroccan Hammam, plus 15 extra minutes of massage time on the house. There are no vouchers and no minimum spend; it is simply our standard offer.

We are open daily from 10:00 to 02:00, with certified European and Russian therapists and a same-gender therapist for every guest. Choose your Hammam when you arrive, let the warmth do its work, and step straight into a treatment your body is already primed for. It is the most natural way we know to begin.