Nuru gel is a clear, unscented, water-based gel thickened with seaweed extract, warmed before use, rinsed away with water, and unlike massage oil in every practical respect.
Nuru gel is the medium the technique is named for, and it is the one thing in her bag that nothing else could stand in for. It is water, thickened with an extract of seaweed, traditionally nori, and in a good preparation very little else is added: no perfume, no colour and no oil. What results is clear, odourless and heavy, a substance that pours slowly and holds its shape on the skin in a way no bottled oil does.
Because many makers sell products online under the same name, the word covers a wide range, and a buyer who has only seen the bottles may mistake it for several things it is not. It is not an oil: it stays on the surface of the skin instead of soaking in, and it needs no soap to come away. Nor is it a cosmetic, and it is not meant to remain on the body once the evening is over. It is, above all, a surface, and its whole value lies in staying on the skin as an even film for as long as it is kept warm and moist.
No therapist working for this house uses whatever gel happens to be available. The women who take nuru carry a preparation they have chosen and know well; they mix and warm it before the session, and loosen it again with warm water whenever the film begins to thin. That attention is the difference between a glide that feels the same in the final minutes as in the first, and one that turns tacky halfway.
At the close, a few moments under running water free the skin of it entirely, which is why every nuru booking ends in the shower and why the bathroom counts for as much as the bed. The waterproof cover exists because of the same material, and the room is warmed for its sake as well, as the entry on temperature sets out. For the longer account, from the seaweed to the signs of an inferior product, the guide to nuru gel goes further than a definition can.