The treatments
What Is a Foam Massage? Köpük in the Turkish Bath
Picture a Turkish bath and you probably picture the foam: someone lying on warm marble under a thick white layer of it. This is what's happening in that picture.
Updated
In short
A foam massage — köpük in Turkish — is the part of a Turkish bath where soap foam is heaped over you in a thick layer and worked in by hand. The kese scrub comes first and the rinse after it, and the foam feels light and soft where the kese is firm. Our Alanya programme includes köpük, washing and massage alike, in the basic price, and a roughly 20-minute massage with aromatic oil follows them.
Where the foam comes in
The order matters. First the heat, then the kese scrub, then the foam. By the time the foam arrives you're warm and scrubbed, and the foam wash is the part that feels like pure comfort after the firmness of the kese.
What happens
Lying on the warm marble, you're covered by the attendant in a great heap of soap foam, which is then worked in with long strokes of the hands — part wash, part massage. After that comes the rinse, with warm water poured from the hamam's bowls.
Foam massage and oil massage are two different things
The foam massage belongs to the washing: it happens in the foam, on the marble. The oil massage is its own stage, afterwards. Our basic programme gives you both — first the foam, then around 20 minutes of massage with aromatic oil. A massage upgrade, if you choose one, is priced on top of the basic programme. The massage upgrades.
The foam and the kese side by side
The kese is the scrub: a coarse mitt, firm strokes, first. The foam is the wash: soft, light, second. Between them they are what a sauna or a steam room can't give you. More about the kese.