Bathing and the Shower

I will state the matter plainly: the bath is civilisation, and the shower is efficiency, and the man who confuses the two will find satisfaction in neither.

The Shower

The shower belongs to the morning. It is brisk, purposeful and brief. You step in, you attend to the business of washing, and you step out again, alert and ready for whatever the day intends to do to you. In my time, a man began the day with a cold or tepid sponge bath taken from a basin and pitcher; the shock of cool water against the skin was understood to be invigorating, a prompt to the circulation and a signal to the body that the day had commenced. Your modern shower is the descendant of that practice, and it has gained enormously in convenience. But something has been lost in the inheritance: the briskness, the intention and the understanding that washing is preparation, not relaxation.

Warm water. Not hot. Hot water, which so many of you seem to regard as a birthright, strips the oils from your skin and hair and leaves you looking like something that has been left out in weather. Warm water opens the pores and softens the skin without parboiling you, which is a distinction worth preserving.

Wash your hair first. The shampoo will run down your body as you rinse, stripping oils from your skin on the way; this is why you wash your body second, so the moisturising soap or wash can restore what the shampoo removed. The sequence is gravity, working in your favour for once, and you need only cooperate with it.

Use soap or a body wash on the areas that require it: underarms, groin, feet and anywhere that has been in contact with the world. The rest of your body does not need to be scrubbed raw every twenty-four hours, for your skin has its own arrangements for maintenance, one that has been functioning rather well for millennia. Stop interfering with it.

Wash your feet deliberately. Standing in soapy water does not count, however much you might wish it did. Bend down and wash them as you would wash your hands, attending to the spaces between the toes with the same care you would give to any surface that meets the world. If this feels beneath you, I assure you that the alternative, which your companions will detect before you do, is considerably worse.

A morning shower should last no longer than seven or eight minutes; beyond that you are not washing but loitering, and the water you are wasting has no opinion about your reluctance to face your employer. Dry yourself thoroughly. A damp man is not a clean man; he is a man who has postponed the problem. Towel off completely, including your back, before you dress, for putting clothes on a wet body is not getting dressed. It is upholstery.

The Bath

The bath belongs to the evening. It is an entirely different undertaking, serving an entirely different purpose, and the man who has never drawn a proper bath, lowered himself into it, and simply sat there thinking is a man who has denied himself one of the few genuine pleasures that require neither money nor company nor an internet connexion.

On temperature: the water should be hot but not punishing. If the skin turns scarlet upon entry, you have overshot the mark, and the result will be lightheadedness rather than relaxation. Test with the inside of the wrist, where the skin is honest about such things.

On duration: twenty to thirty minutes is sufficient. Beyond that the water cools, the skin wrinkles and the purpose is defeated. You are soaking, not pickling. If you wish to extend the experience, add hot water in modest amounts rather than beginning at a temperature that borders on the medical.

On purpose: the bath is for the removal of the day. Not merely the dirt of it, which the shower handles well enough, but the weight of it: the accumulated tension of hours spent in offices, in traffic and in the company of people whose conversation you did not choose. The bath is the transition between the working day and the private evening, and it performs this service better than anything else I have encountered in either century.

Of the bath one need feel no shame. I am aware that some men regard it as an indulgence, something faintly feminine, as though sitting in warm water were a confession of weakness rather than a practice of elementary good sense. These men are wrong. The Romans bathed. The Greeks bathed. The Japanese have elevated the bath to an art of considerable sophistication. The objection is not historical; it is merely foolish.

The practical man will shower in the morning and bathe in the evening, or bathe two or three times a week when the day has been particularly long and the need is felt. He will not apologise for either practice, nor will he confuse one for the other. They are different instruments. Use each for its proper work.