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Bath [with water, like]

Disco is My Class War

12:12 / 08.03.06

So, I just had major reconstructive surgery three weeks ago. While this is pretty exceptional for all kinds of reasons (which I won't go into at this time), I am not oermitted to have a bath, or swim, for six weeks. I'm really missing the opportunity to immerse myself in hot water. It's actually fucking with my head, and I'm realising that baths -- if you only have one once a week -- are most necessary. I saw the other 'Bath' thread and figured I would talk about this, but it turns out that Bath thread is about the Victorian resort town. So here is a Bath thread.

So what kinds of bathing do you prefer? Cold bath in the melty heat of summer? Hot bath at 3am on a winter's night? Japanese baths? Bath houses of the sexual kind? Bathing in a river? Bathing in the sea? Public pools? What watery experience makes you feel clean, fresh, brand-new and lovely, and why is it that water can do this? What makes the best bath? What makes the worst?

This, by the way, has got to be the least theoryish thread I have ever posted in this esteemed institution.

I particularly like Japanese baths, which are often communal, but are usually really deep pools of warm water. You wash with soap beforehand, then you lie in the water for hours, and just.... pickle. They're best experienced outside under starlight, also.

12:49 / 08.03.06

Great idea for a thread.

I'm a lover of bathing. Besides it being a bit of a waste of water I can't think of many other simple pleasures which proivide me with such joy. I usually take a bath once or twice a week, and it is solely for the experience and not really to get clean - although this is a happy by-product.

I like to read in the bath or listen to music, and used to enjoy smoking in there too. It really relaxes me and I don't know what I would do without this occasion.

Never been to a Japanese Bath, but checked out the Spas in Budapest and am going for a floatation tank soon.

14:05 / 08.03.06

Ah Bathing! We moved into a house that has a bath built for two. It, unfortunately, is pale pink. It is also made of fiberglass. These are very serious strikes against it, from an aesthetic point of view, but we find we love it because it is deep so you can have water well over your whole body and two people can sit in warm water together. It does feel a little "lonely" somehow when it's just me.

I love a sauna, however, more than any other bath. I feel more clean after a sauna than any other experience. And especially a communal sauna--social bathing is a good thing. Solitary bathing is also good, in a more meditative way.

15:10 / 08.03.06

I've never encountered a tub (that's not in a store) that is big enough for me to have a nice long bath. Usually, half of me sticking out (ha) and gets really cold. I prefer showers, but I'd like to take a nice long bath almost fully submerged.

15:32 / 08.03.06

American baths suck. I learned this the first time I visited South Africa, where they were about six inches longer and twice as deep.

This is a real shame because, you know, the adoption attachment mavens are really big on "co-bathing" (loathsome term, fun activity).

Even younger, baths are touted as a treatment for colic.

I know when *I'm* cranky, a hot tub works wonders.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

16:15 / 08.03.06

I have never lived in a house or apartment with a tub large enough for me to really enjoy.

I found out recently that one of the best rated dayspa/japanese style baths is only a couple of hours away, so will try that asap.

18:51 / 08.03.06

A little while back, for some obscure reason, I obtained this weird growth at the top of my spine. I've had it checked out, and it's nothing serious, but it does mean that I can no longer take a bath comfortably. I miss it.

Ooh, and this is my first post. Sorry for saying, but I thought it was a landmark worth marking...

18:55 / 08.03.06

I used to work in a floatation tank so that would be my favourite opportunity to immerse myself in water. Wonderful degree of relaxation, and a complete endorphin rush whenever you got out. Well recommended if you get the chance. One of my co-workers went for a record 12 or 24 hour float - can't remember which and came out rather spaced. But at least he didn't regress and turn into a caveman.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

19:08 / 08.03.06

I used to work in a floatation tank

Wow! Apart from that sounding like a fun sort of job, I do hope the tank was big enough that you didn't get too claustrophobic working inside it...

Ahem.

One of my co-workers went for a record 12 or 24 hour float - can't remember which and came out rather spaced. But at least he didn't regress and turn into a caveman.

He could have been a very, very wrinkly caveman at that.

I've never tried a floatation tank, and suspect I would probaby like the experience quite a bit, Ken Russell hallucinations notwithstanding (or notwithfloating, perhaps).

Baths are by far the best way to start or end a day, and I still find myself running one nearly every morning, even if a shower would be quicker. It give me time to wake up while getting clean and drinking the second cup of coffee to give me enough neural energy to actually get out of the bath and about the rest of the day.

I suspect I may be missing out by not having an evening bath now and again. They are a good way of getting well and truly relaxed in preparation for sleep, and of course the next day's strenuous bathing.

I doubt I could live somewhere with too small a bath - it's just not right.

19:39 / 08.03.06

I have the opposite problem - most baths are too big and I slide down under the water.
But I love baths, and the one we have here is pretty good. I swing between having it roasting hot so I can only manage a wee while, and making it cooler so I can simmer for hours.
Lush bath bombs are pretty good, though they're prone to leaving the bath strewn with seaweed or glitter.
I'd love to try a flotation tank, but worry I'd feel claustrophobic.

22:07 / 08.03.06

I always fall asleep in baths. Dangerous is what it is.
Relaxing too, though.

Sometimes I shower before getting into the bath. Seems more hygenic. Am I the only one?

*

23:06 / 08.03.06

The hot-tub we have here does not quite make up for the fact that we haven't a proper bath— only showers.

Makes me inclined to start a bath-house, it does.

23:24 / 08.03.06

I'd love to try a flotation tank, but worry I'd feel claustrophobic.

You don't have to do it in those coffin-like pods, Ariadne. The place I did it provided a room for dressing, showing etc, and the tank was basically another room within that. The bath was about 7 feet by 5 feet and the ceiling was plenty high enough for me to stand up. So unless you get claustrophobic in a garden shed, you'd almost certainly be fine.

I'd really recommend it too. I was really sceptical about some of the stuff I'd read about the experience, and while I didn't hallucinate and I never left my rigid reality tunnel, it was hugely restorative. It's physical benefits were more tangible than the putative psychological ones. Completely suspended, I could literally feel my skeleton clicking back into place. I came out feeling 10 feet taller and 10 years younger. I really recommend it.

And you don't wrinkle for some reason (the salts I assume) which is the thing that bothers me most about ordinary baths. But then I think I'm unusually prone, my hands particularly. Does anyone know why that happens? Have I just got cheap skin?

23:46 / 08.03.06

Hey, I fall asleep in baths, too. Is that dangerous? I’ve always figured that I’d probably wake up if I ever started drowning. Drowning takes a while, doesn't it? You’ve got me worried now, Shrug.

I often draw when I’m in the bath. Little sketchpad and a buncha cheap pens, it’s great. I’ve found that I maybe do my best drawing - meaning, drawing that comes out the way I want it to with the least conscious effort or brow-furrowing ART PAIN - if I’m very, very, very relaxed. The first half-hour after I wake up in the morning is good for this, too: I’m generally too dozy to even form sentences, but the less I have in my head, the better things seem to go.

So, anyway, yeah. A sleep-inducing bath is good for drawing, if I can stay awake long enough to get something on paper and avoid dropping the sketchpad in the water when I do nod off.

Bubblegum Death

00:10 / 09.03.06

I don't take baths. Or showers, either. Really, what's the point? You're just going to get dirty again anyways. I just stand outside when it rains. Real refreshing.

Bubblegum Death

00:13 / 09.03.06

In all seriousness, my wife and I used to bathe together. Not often, but it was nice when we did.

Then my son came along; and it was back to the showers for us.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

00:52 / 09.03.06

I don't fit in bath tubs. I'm too tall to comfortably sit in anything that's not a jacuzzi (at least that I've found), but my family's cottage has a big hot tub that's quite nice. Very relaxing. And also very outdoors (its a decent sized property), and directly attached to a little "bunk house", so that after a good soak you can go back into a nice heated room and a big fluffy bed. Its decadent's what it is.

I tried using my parents' little two person jaccuzi tub once. I just got impatient...it took WAY too long to fill up with water, and it really just seemed like a waste of water when all was said and done.

That said, I used to love bubble baths as a kid (there goes my masculinity out the window). Used to LOVE baths until I moved to live with my father when I was 12, then I started just doing showers. Not sure why.

02:05 / 09.03.06

i hate not fitting in bath tubs, too, bard.

but i love fitting in them. what a fabulous tradition we've lost not all being roman senators and bathing for hours every day, including hot tubs, soaping, massage, sleeping, steam... ahhhh

there are some korean baths in sydney i went to a few times with wet and dry saunas, a hot bath, a cold plunge bath, a ginseng bath [mmmm], a spa, sleeping areas, a toiletry facility with razors, soaps, shampoos, etc... the idea is to go spend at least two or three hours [often it turns into fiove or six if you nod off too deeply!] and have a body scrub or massage - i reccomend the former! rough but sweet somehow - and linger. you walk out feeling clean clean clean for days. it's fantastic! and cheap as chips, too.

and spent a few weeks in japan a few years ago. the shower first to wash, then soak long in a big hot pool is a most civil arrangement!

very indulgent, baths. big thumbs up from this hedonist - thanks for starting a relaxing thread, mr d!

04:06 / 09.03.06

This is great!

I primarily take baths. Sometimes I relax for a 30 minutes or so in steaming hot water then switch to a cooler shower in the same session. It's invigorating. I guess I'm fanatical about them in a way. I'll take 2 a day if I can I've even started using bath salts and lavender wash for dry skin. I don't feel less masculine, the reason I love baths so much now is because when I was in the military, they were sort of a luxury i.e no baths on deployments, in the barracks etc...

I also have quite a few rubber duckies. But they're really for display only. I've only put them in the tub once!

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

05:10 / 09.03.06

What's the indulgence/signifgance of a rubber ducky, anyway? I've always wondered.

09:07 / 09.03.06

Hey, I fall asleep in baths, too. Is that dangerous? I’ve always figured that I’d probably wake up if I ever started drowning. Drowning takes a while, doesn't it? You’ve got me worried now, Shrug.

There are high numbers of drownings in bathtubs every year but only in infants. So your pretty safe there, Bed. I was more thinking of the waking-up-six-hours-later-fucking-freezing-chilled-sick-god-awful-brrr-ness of it. And the resultant sickness I've experienced twice because of it. It's no joke if you have asthma and smoke.