The History of Spas: From Ancient Baths to Modern Rituals

Every time I sink into a warm bath after a long day in the apiary, I’m taking part in a ritual that stretches back thousands of years. Long before plush robes and cucumber water, people were gathering around hot springs, building bathhouses, and treating a good soak as one of life’s essential pleasures. The history of spas is really the history of people making time to rest, and it’s a story worth telling.

In this article, we’ll trace spa culture from ancient Greece and Rome through the grand European spa towns, all the way to the modern spa industry, and then bring it home, literally, with a few simple ways to create the ritual in your own bathroom.

Where Does the Word “Spa” Come From?

The most widely accepted origin of the word points to the Belgian town of Spa, in the Ardennes hills, famous for its iron-rich chalybeate springs. According to local tradition, an ironmaster named Collin le Loup discovered the springs in 1326, and over the centuries the town became such a celebrated destination that its name came to stand for any health resort built around natural waters.

You may also have heard that “spa” is an acronym for the Latin phrase salus per aquam, meaning “health from water.” It’s a lovely idea, and you’ll see it printed on spa menus around the world, but most language historians consider it a backronym, a phrase invented after the fact to fit the word. The little Belgian town remains the true namesake.

Either way, the word has traveled far. Today it covers everything from thermal resort towns to the day spa around the corner to the ritual you create at home with warm water and a few well-chosen ingredients.

Mix your bath with our different bath soaks for an at-home spa moment

Ancient Beginnings: Greek Baths, Roman Thermae, and Finnish Saunas

Spa culture began with ancient civilizations that gathered around natural hot springs and built some of the world’s first public bathing spaces. These weren’t just places to get clean. They were social destinations, gathering spots, and in many cultures, sacred spaces.

Egyptian Bathing and Cleopatra’s Legendary Honey Bath

Some of the earliest bathing rituals we know of come from ancient Egypt, where scented oils, botanicals, and honey were prized in daily beauty routines. Honey’s role in Egyptian life went well beyond the bath, and our history of honey traces it from temple offerings to trade currency. And no figure looms larger in bathing lore than Cleopatra, who, according to legend, soaked in baths of milk and honey to keep her skin famously soft.

As a beekeeper, I have to be honest with you about the history here: ancient sources never actually recorded Cleopatra’s bathing routine. The best-documented milk bather of antiquity was Poppaea, wife of the Roman emperor Nero, whom Roman writers described bathing in donkey’s milk. Cleopatra’s honey bath is a tradition that grew up around her legendary reputation for beauty. But what a tradition it is. Milk and honey baths have been recreated by bathers for two thousand years, and honey’s silky feel in warm water explains why the legend has such staying power. If you want to try it yourself, our milk and honey oatmeal bath recipe is a modern take on the queen’s legendary soak. Honey’s romantic reputation reaches far beyond the bath, and we trace the whole story in our piece on honey as an aphrodisiac.

Greek Bathing Practices

The ancient Greeks were among the first to build public bathhouses, often centered around pools they held sacred. Simple heating methods, like steam rising from hot water or warmth from charcoal braziers, created inviting bathing environments. Hippocrates, often called the father of medicine, wrote about bathing practices and was an early advocate of water-based regimens. For the Greeks, bathing was part hygiene, part ritual, and part leisure, a combination that still sounds familiar today.

Roman Baths

The Romans took the Greek idea and built it into an empire-wide institution. Roman baths, or thermae, were sprawling complexes with heated pools, steam rooms, cold plunges, and swimming pools. Romans believed deeply in the value of their waters and made bathing a centerpiece of daily life. The thermae were where citizens socialized, did business, exercised, and relaxed, making them the beating heart of Roman cities. You can still walk through remarkably preserved examples, most famously in the English city that took its very name from them: Bath.

Finnish Saunas

In the north, Finland developed its own enduring tradition. The Finnish sauna, one of the oldest continuous bathing customs in the world, uses dry heat to warm the body, traditionally followed by a cold plunge or a roll in the snow. For Finns, the sauna has long been a place of quiet, reflection, and togetherness, woven into family life for generations. That rhythm of heat, cold, and rest remains a cornerstone of spa culture everywhere, and it’s a big part of why a sauna session feels like such a reset.

From Medieval Springs to Grand Spa Resorts

The story of spa culture didn’t move in a straight line. It ebbed and flowed with the centuries, shifting from public bathing to sacred springs to fashionable resorts for the elite.

Medieval Europe

When the Roman Empire declined, so did its bathhouses. Aqueducts fell into ruin, living conditions changed, and public bathing faded across much of Europe. But the springs themselves never lost their pull. Throughout the medieval period, people continued to make pilgrimages to celebrated waters, and the belief in their restorative powers kept many spring towns alive.

Renaissance Revival

The Renaissance brought renewed interest in classical traditions, bathing included. In Britain especially, spa resorts became fashionable, and by the Elizabethan era, taking the waters was firmly ingrained in the culture. These destinations were no longer just about bathing. They were about wellness, society, and escape, laying the groundwork for the resort spas we know today.

18th and 19th Century Spa Resorts

By the 18th and 19th centuries, spa towns had become the glamorous destinations of their day. European towns like Baden-Baden in Germany, Vichy in France, and Bath in England drew royalty and society figures to their waters and grand hotels. Bath’s hot springs carry legends reaching back to Celtic times, and visits by Queen Anne in the early 1700s helped make the city one of the most fashionable addresses in England.

Across the Atlantic, America caught the fever too. Colonial-era spring resorts like the baths at Bristol, Pennsylvania drew visitors seeking rest, and in the 19th century, Saratoga Springs in New York became America’s first truly popular spa destination, complete with grand hotels, promenades, and a social season all its own.

Recreate a classic spa treatment at home with our Ultimate Guide to Facial Steaming

The Modern Spa Industry

The 20th century transformed the spa from a destination built around a spring into an experience you could find almost anywhere. Facials, exfoliation treatments, and aromatherapy joined the menu. Massage traditions from around the world, Swedish, Thai, and Ayurvedic among them, enriched what a spa visit could look like. Fitness programs, hydrotherapy circuits, and skincare services rounded out the offerings.

Today, spas range from destination wellness resorts to urban bathhouses enjoying a genuine comeback, to the neighborhood day spa where you can slip away for an hour. What unites them all is the same thing that drew Romans to the thermae: the promise of stepping out of ordinary time for a little while.

Our Peace of Mind Massage Candle melts into a warm massage oil when lit

Why the Spa Ritual Endures

Strip away the marble columns and the eucalyptus towels, and what’s left is remarkably consistent across four thousand years: warm water, quiet, scent, touch, and time set apart from everything else. The Greeks had their sacred pools, the Finns their sauna evenings, the Victorians their season at the springs. We have Sunday nights with the bathroom door closed.

There’s a reason the ritual has never gone out of style. A warm soak eases you out of the day. The scent of lavender or rose shifts the mood of a whole room. A few unhurried minutes of massage or skincare feel like a small luxury precisely because most of our days don’t include them. Spa culture endures because the need it answers, the need to pause, has never gone anywhere.

Famous Spa Towns and Destinations

If the history has you dreaming of a pilgrimage of your own, the classic spa towns are still welcoming visitors, many with their original bathhouses intact.

In Europe, Bath in England offers beautifully preserved Roman baths alongside Georgian architecture. Baden-Baden and Bad Ems in Germany have welcomed bathers since Roman times, and Vichy in France, Karlovy Vary in Czechia, and Montecatini Terme in Italy each carry centuries of spa heritage. In North America, the natural hot springs of Colorado and the historic resort town of Saratoga Springs keep the tradition alive. And in Asia, Japan’s onsen culture, built around thousands of natural thermal springs, remains one of the most beloved bathing traditions in the world, while Bali and the Maldives have become bywords for retreat-style relaxation.

Bringing the Spa Tradition Home

Here’s my favorite part of this whole story: you don’t need a thermal spring or a train ticket to Baden-Baden to take part in it. The heart of the spa tradition has always been simple, warm water, lovely scents, and unhurried time, and all three are available in your own bathroom tonight.

Start with the water. A generous scoop of mineral bath soak with real lavender buds or rose petals turns an ordinary tub into something closer to the springs that started it all. If you love a step-by-step ritual, our lavender relaxation ritual guide walks through a full evening of it, and our lavender milk bath recipe shows you how to blend a silky soak from pantry staples, a trick bathers have used for centuries.

After the bath, keep the ritual going the way the great spas always have: with touch and scent. A massage candle melts into warm oil for tired shoulders, and a rich body butter applied to damp skin leaves it feeling soft and conditioned. If you’d rather have the whole routine gathered for you, our spa bags and boxes bundle scrub, soak, and butter in sequence, made in small batches at our Owings Mills, Maryland facility.

Four thousand years of bathers can’t be wrong. Close the door, light a candle, and give yourself the same gift the Romans gave themselves: a little time in the warm water. Bringing the spa home? the ultimate guide to spa candles covers scent, ritual, and setting the mood.