Nuru vs body-to-body massage: which slippery hour is yours?

Two of my bookings get mixed up more than any others, usually in a message that reads something like “the slippery one, but not the mat one? Or is it the mat one?” Fair enough. Both are naked, both are close, and both end with you in the shower wondering where the last hour went. But they feel very different, so here’s nuru vs body-to-body, honestly, from the woman who does both.

What is body-to-body massage?

Body-to-body starts like my sensual naked massage: you, just out of the shower and face down on clean linen, warm oil, and my hands working the week out of your back. Then I take my hands out of the equation. Oiled and naked, I use the whole of me instead: my forearms, my stomach, my thighs, the long glide of my body over your back and down your legs.

Oil keeps a little grip, and that grip is the point. You feel exactly where I am at every moment, the warmth, the weight, the slow drag of skin on skin. It’s intimate in a quiet, heavy-lidded way, and it happens on my table at my flat in Earl’s Court, the same as every massage I give. I don’t take massage out to homes or hotels: a hotel bed is the wrong height, and a sheet over somebody’s duvet is no match for my table, warm towels and a hot shower ten steps away.

What is nuru massage?

Nuru means slippery, and it isn’t exaggerating. Instead of oil we use a warm, odourless gel made from seaweed, on both of us, generously. Instead of the table there’s a waterproof mat on the floor, because nobody wants to attempt this at waist height.

Then it’s body-to-body with every bit of friction taken away. I slide over you and around you, from your shoulders to your feet in one long, unbroken pass. It’s hard to tell where you stop and I start.

Nuru happens at my flat too, and it couldn’t happen anywhere else. The mat is the size of a small boat, and the gel gets everywhere: elbows, ears, places you’ll still find it on the Tube home if you skip the shower. You won’t skip the shower. Afterwards we rinse off together, long and hot, and the gel melts away with warm water and leaves your skin ridiculously soft.

It’s also the most playful hour I do. Somebody always slips. Nobody gets up gracefully from a nuru mat, and the laughing is half of what makes it good.

How nuru and body-to-body feel different

The simplest way I can put it: body-to-body is pressure, nuru is glide.

On the table, oil lets you feel me arrive and leave. Every stroke has a beginning and an end, and the anticipation in between does a lot of the work. It’s slow and it smoulders, and there’s plenty of eye contact once you turn over.

On the mat, there’s nothing to hold on to, so nothing stops. Strokes don’t end; they turn into the next one. We’re both down on the floor, on equal footing, or rather no footing at all, and it tends to go from giggly to very much not giggly in about a minute.

Cut to: the shower, where the gel finally lets go and neither of us does.

Nuru and body-to-body prices side by side

• Body-to-body: £80 for half an hour, £100 for 45 minutes, £120 for the hour.
• Nuru: £130, £150 or £170 for the same three lengths.

Neither leaves SW5, and another half hour on either is £50. Nuru costs more because it takes more: the gel, the mat, the clean-up and a bathroom that looks like a seal has used it. Every rate I offer is on my rates page, and there’s nothing extra to find out when you arrive.

Which should you book first?

If you’ve never had either, start with body-to-body. You get to know my hands before you get the whole of me, and the oil gives you something to feel rather than something to keep your balance on. Sixty minutes the first time; you’ll know by the end whether you want more friction or less.

Book nuru first if you’re nervous but laugh easily. It’s impossible to stay self-conscious while sliding across a mat, and the ice is broken the first time one of us loses our footing. Take the full hour at my flat in Earl’s Court: thirty minutes on a nuru mat goes by embarrassingly fast.

Can’t choose? Lola Unwrapped has both: a striptease in the lingerie you pick, then sensual and body-to-body massage, plus twenty minutes of nuru if you’re brave.