Body to body oil behaves differently in an Amsterdam January than in a July heatwave. How our women adjust oil, towels and room heat across the year.
A bottle of massage oil is a small weather system. Its thickness, its warmth and the way it spreads all shift with the air in the room, and the air in Amsterdam rooms shifts a great deal between February and August. The women on our roster adjust for it every evening, usually without mentioning it. Here is what they are adjusting, and how you can help from your side of the door.
From November to March the difficulty is cold arriving from outside and dry heat waiting inside. She has come through wet streets in a taxi, so her bag, her hands and the bottle are all cooler than your room. Oil that has cooled turns thicker and drags; warmed through, it glides. That is why winter bottles travel wrapped, and why her first minutes in the room go on bringing the oil and her own hands up to skin heat before any contact at all. Hotel radiators also dry the air, and dry air draws oil into the skin faster, so winter sessions use a little more of it, topped up more often.
Your part in winter is simple. Turn the heating up when the confirmation arrives rather than when she knocks, because many canal-house hotels run old radiators that need half an hour to make a difference. A room at 24 or 25 degrees feels almost too warm while you are dressed and exactly right once you are lying still.
April, May, September and October are forgiving. Rooms hold a comfortable temperature without much help, the air is neither parched nor sticky, and oil behaves precisely as it should. These are also the months when an open window over a canal is tempting. Close it before the session begins; a draught across oiled skin is felt at once, even in a warm room.
Amsterdam summers are mild on average and now and then not mild at all. During a hot spell the problem reverses: skin is already warm, oil spreads thin and quick, and plenty of older hotels, converted canal houses especially, have no air conditioning. In rooms like those she uses less oil, warms it only lightly and relies on cool towels between passes. In a modern hotel with climate control, set it to a moderate temperature rather than a chilly one. An icy room undoes the whole point of warm oil, and the contrast between cold air and warm skin is uncomfortable rather than refreshing.
Each woman carries the oil she likes working with, and most favour unscented or barely scented blends that rinse off in an ordinary shower. If your skin reacts to nut oils, to a particular fragrance or to anything else, put it in your first message, so she can pack something suitable or we can suggest a woman whose usual oil already fits. The same applies to nuru gel: mention sensitivities before the session, never halfway through it. Our side-by-side guide to oil, gel and lather explains how each texture feels if you are unsure which suits the season.
Towels do far more than protect sheets. Whichever part of you is not being worked at a given moment starts losing heat, so a towel covers it and travels as the session travels. In winter those towels sit near the radiator until needed; in summer one may be dampened with cool water first. Guests seldom notice any of this, which is exactly as it should be.
Every woman on the roster manages temperature well, but some formats sit more naturally in certain months. The slow oil work Cindy, Laura and Luna are known for is at its finest on a dark, cold evening when warmth feels like a present. Nuru, with its lighter, slippery touch, is lovely in high summer, and Bianka and Karolina are the names we usually suggest for it. The signature body to body session belongs to every month of the year. If you would like help matching a woman to the weather, the introductions to all fifteen women note who favours which pace, and the thread can do the rest.
Whatever the season, the rate stays at €180 an hour, arrival in the centre takes twenty to thirty minutes after confirmation, and guests must be 21 or older.