Good Old Bathtub

Nowadays some people still do take baths. Not perhaps on a daily basis, but often enough - or so I hope.

It seems that people, who are very successful take only showers - they do not have time and most probably they hear the news while they shower and use products which leave the skin soft and well perfumed right away, so that after the blitz shower they can jump out of the premises, into their clothes ( prepared the night before - nothing to be said against this), run to, most probably, their car and drive, bicycle, walk or what ever, to their important jobs to work hard all over the place. It is a question of time!

There are also people who shower, because they cannot any longer manoeuvre themselves out of the tub and would be sitting there like a duck to be shot. Elderly persons normally do not like any longer to take baths, but prefer to shower. SO, next time you think about being old, think about the shower or bathtub question - and you will see where you stand!

I had an aunt, far aunt, who had in her bathroom a bathtub of 1,90 m -  a very long thing, looking like a sarcophagus - not wide, but long. Next to this wonderful instrument was a very comfortable chair, she had upholstered in the fabric towels are made of, you know what I mean, so that even if sitting there soaked, the chair simply dried up and looked normal. Her daughter and she used to have nice chats in the bathroom, one lying in her bath, the other one lolling in the huge and comfortable chair. Of course this was not a bathroom as we have it nowadays, some sort of cubicle of 1x1 m, where you will throw all your wonderful flacons and things on the floor if you just turn to quickly, without a window and without day light. Hers was a room, more for living with the comfortable attitude of being a room and not a "wet-cell" as the pragmatic Germans say: "Nasszelle". So depressing! And if you have bathroom without any natural airing system, you always have to take a wash with that fan noise... not a thing I would love. Or you start a mushroom culture - also a possibility.

But back to the glories of taking a bath. Being a whale or whatever you chose to be, a bath is always glamorous and it gives you the opportunity to think. In fact your are being hyper practical:  you get clean, gentlemen can shave as well, you can read a book, even hear a good disc on your i-pod and if necessary and wished for, have a chair there for that chat. The vast choice of delicious bath oils is worth giving the old bathtub another go -  in a shower you smear the stuff on your poor body for ca 54 seconds, wash it off and I do not believe, that any good is done, sorry. Showering is for getting clean, quickly, and nothing more. Fair enough!

In a bath you linger and can indulge in wonderful perfumes - no wonder that clever Mrs Estee Lauder introduced the famous bath oil ( now not longer available) of the famous "Youth Dew" - it was a revolution at the time as it started to make it "normal" for ladies to purchase scent for themselves, albeit in disguise of an innocent bath product. Until then and for a long time before, it was the husband/lover/admirer who bought and decided on the scent a woman had to live with. With the invention and matter of factly purchasing power of the bath oil - a product to take a bath, not a sinful  luxury thing - she transferred to women the power to buy a scent which was distinctively luxurious, sexy and made taking a bath not longer a chore, but a pleasure.

And if you do not like "Youth Dew" or her clever sisters, try some Verveine tea bags or some Epsom Salts,  a cup of milk (only think of good old Liz Taylor as Cleopatra.....) or some essential oils, a shot of good hairconditioner or a baby bath - the experience is always the same: relaxation and some me time of the best.