Helping you to be familiar with spa terms
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Traditional Spa References You Should Know
When designing your new luxury bathroom, it will be beneficial for you to understand traditional spa references that your designer may use. This will help you to visualise your space better, as well as showcase multiple design possibilities. Let us show you what we can do.
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Sauna
- Scandinavian in origin: pouring water on heated stones to generate steam (outdoor settings)
- Efficient rather than luxurious
- Relies on hot, dry air
Intended to:
- Relax muscles and ease pain (heat relaxes, endorphin release acts as a mild tranquiliser)
- Flush ‘toxins’ (through sweat)
- Boost the immune system (and clears sinus cavities and respiratory system)
Materials: utilitarian, natural finishes (wood
panels)
We collaborate with you to create a bathroom that is individual to you.
Come in and see us, or call us to book a design appointment
Hammam
- A North African and Middle Eastern form of bathing based on steam rather than water
Intended to:
- Cleanse the skin (hot steam opens the pores, scrubbing and soaping deep cleans)
- Invigorate the body (scrubbing causes increased blood flow)
- Relieve stress (the heat of the steam is relaxing)
- It normally involves a bath house as a place for gathering, rather than being alone.
- It typically involves a succession of rooms/processes and temperatures, starting with an adjustment room (for adjusting
to the heat), an area for black, olive-based, skin softening soap scrubbing, to cleanse and exfoliate the body, and hair washing, followed by hot steaming - Skin feels ‘softer’ at the end of the process
Rexa has created a Hammam range, that brings stylistic elements of the interior architecture of the hammam to the domestic bathroom. The materials used are velvety soft Corian contrasted with fired clay elements in a variety of shapes and colours.
Turkish bath
Steeped in the mists of time, the Turkish indoor bathing space – its architecture and its tradition – was an inherited practice from the Romans adapted to Turkish tastes
- Similar in its cultural heritage to the Moroccan Hammam and in its progression through degrees of warmth and heat, but relies on water and bathing, and lower temperatures, rather than steam
- Starts with relaxing and warming in dry heat, then moves to body scrubbing, soaping and massage on a warm marble slab
- The bathing spaces tend to be in ornate settings, and allow natural light to filter in from high, and to beguile as it mixes with the rising steam from below
- Finishes with a cooling section, where the body returns to its natural temperature – tea or sherbert drinks may be served here.
Associated materials: marble, stone, gold designed for cleansing and taking time to relax and luxuriate.
