Hey Dear Steemit Friends .. Today we'll have a look of The Moroccan shower " HAMMAM ", ..
Contrary to common belief the Moroccan hammam is not a steam bath like the Turkish steam room. It is a dry heat hammam diffused by the floor of the hammam, and today by the walls on a half height.
The origins of the hammam :
The hammam, hot water or that spreads heat or hot spring in Arabic, can be private or public. When it is public, it consists of three or four rooms of different temperature on the principle of the Roman baths that the Arabs discovered during the conquests in Syria. The Arabs immediately adopted these "hot water" rituals because they only washed in cold water. The religious saw in the steam bath a real "process" of purification allowing obligatory ablutions before each prayer. The hammam took on a religious significance and quickly became an annex to the mosque and the essential place of the social and religious life of Muslims. The practice of the hammam did not begin to develop until the beginning of the 7th century AD when the prophet Mohammed, conquered, made the apology. He was convinced that the heat of the hammam increased fertility, and thus facilitated the reproduction of believers.
While the Romans built large public baths in the city center, the Arabs preferred to build several smaller ones, scattered throughout the city, in the manner of the Roman balnea. As in the baths, the bather passed through a series of rooms, but their respective importance differed. In the hammam, the Roman tepidarium was reduced to a simple corridor leading to changing rooms in the "harara" (warm room) where one could receive specialized massages, which was not the case in the Roman caldarium. A small room adjacent to the steam bath replaced the laconicum. While the Roman swimmer ended his session in a library or study, the hammam was found in the departure room, where we lay on bunks, in the rest area: there, servants were bringing boisssons and refreshed the bathers with fans.
The practice of the hammam followed the expansion of Islam. Initially reserved for men, hammams open to women quickly turned into day and became their only weekly authorized release. They allowed, among other things, mothers to choose the future wives of their sons or professional matchmakers, Negafas, to identify young girls ready for marriage. For women, the hammam will become their meeting place in the same way as coffee for men.
The special place of the hammam in Morocco :
Today the private hammam has given way to the modern bathroom although a homecoming is observed with the coexist these two. In Morocco, the public hammam remains widespread, it is a religious ritual certainly but also social. Everyone visits this place at least once a week. It always has three or four rooms and the ancestral rituals remain unchanged. The hammam when it is private, or located in a modest neighborhood or in a riad, has only one room, the hottest called barma (about 40 °).
The ritual of the hammam :
You can certainly spend 15-30 minutes as in a sauna or a steam bath then out, but this is not very interesting because we do not exploit the benefits of dry heat on the body. Sweating prepares the skin for deep cleansing. Allow between 30 minutes and 1 hour depending on the duration of the massage.
Black soap and kassa :
So, after 15 minutes lying on the floor (according to the Moroccan tradition) or the bench, the masseuse applies all over the body the traditional black soap as a mask. It is a vegetable pulp based on pulp and black olive oil, often scented with eucalyptus, which softens the skin and prepares it for exfoliation by inflating the dead cells facilitating a deep exfoliation.
The masseuse then proceeds to scrub the whole body with a glove of special crepe hammam, called kassa, kis or kissa. If you have sensitive skin, better wants to require a thin crepe glove to avoid looking like a crayfish. Be careful too, if you have had too much sun during the day, or even worse if you have sunburn. Prohibited scrub!
Ghassoul and essential oils :
The masseuse rinses you with hot water, drawn from a hammam bucket with a copper cup. Your skin is ready for wrapping with ghassoul (or rhassoul), saponiferous clay of the Middle Altas Moroccan volcanic origin, rich in mineral salts and trace elements.
Leave on for 15 minutes. The ghassoul is in the form of a powder to be diluted in a little hot water before application. Today rhassoul can be prepared with additions of aromatic or medicinal plants macerated and essential oil of lavandin. Ghassoul is also applied to the hair which gives them shine and suppleness without altering the keratin. Its properties for the skin are numerous: purifying, emollient, softening, antioxidant. Ghassoul gives the skin a beautiful satin appearance thanks to its slightly foaming power that promotes the penetration of the active ingredients of essential oils.
Massage and mint tea :
A new rinsing session, the masseuse then soap you with essential oils of orange blossom, then rinse again. Stay 5 to 10 minutes longer in the hammam before going into the massage room for a massage of 1 / 2h or 1h in argan oil (natural or scented with essential oils) with emollient and anti -oxydantes.
The ritual finds its epilogue in the rest room or on the terrace or in your room with a mint tea to drink very hot.
Good relaxation!
