Bathing and the Shower

The shower, in its modern iteration, belongs properly to the morning hours; it is an affair of brisk purpose and brief duration. One enters the cabinet, attends to the necessary business of cleansing, and emerges alert, ready to face whatever trials the day may provide. In the years of my youth, a gentleman began his day with a cold or tepid sponge bath, often taken from a porcelain basin and pitcher; the sudden shock of cool water against the skin was understood by all right-thinking men to be a necessary invigoration, a prompt to the circulation and a definitive signal to the physical frame that the day had commenced. Your modern shower is the direct, albeit more convenient, descendant of this Spartan practice, yet I fear something of the original intention has been lost in the transition. Washing in the morning is a preparation for duty, not an invitation to indolence, and one would do well to remember as much before settling in for a lengthy steam.

Regarding the temperature of the water, a middle course is strongly advisable. Hot water, which so many of your contemporaries seem to regard as an inherent birthright, is a treacherous thing; it strips the natural oils from the skin and hair, leaving a man looking like a piece of parchment that has been left too long in the sun. Warm water is quite sufficient to open the pores and soften the skin without parboiling the occupant, a distinction that remains well worth preserving. Furthermore, there is a logical sequence to these matters, dictated by the very laws of gravity. One ought to wash the hair first, for the soap will inevitably run down the body during the rinse; by washing the frame second, one ensures that any oils removed by the shampoo are not left to accumulate upon the lower parts.

When applying soap, one should be punctilious but not excessive. The underarms, the groin, and the feet require diligent attention, as these are the areas most subject to the rigours of active life, but the remainder of the body does not require being scrubbed raw every twenty-four hours. The skin possesses its own arrangements for maintenance, which have functioned admirably for millennia, and poor judgement lies in interfering with them too vigorously. One must also speak plainly on the matter of the feet. Merely standing in a pool of soapy water does not constitute a cleaning; one must bend down and attend to the spaces between the toes with the same deliberate care one would accord to any other surface. To do otherwise is a lapse in grooming that your companions will surely detect, likely before you do yourself.

A morning shower should occupy no more than seven or eight minutes of one’s time; beyond that limit, one is no longer washing but merely loitering, and the water being squandered has no interest in your reluctance to face your employer or spouse. Once the task is finished, one must towel off completely, including the back, before attempting to dress, for the act of placing fine cloth upon a wet body is a form of upholstery, and an unflattering one at that.

The bath, by contrast, is a ceremony belonging exclusively to the evening. A wholly different undertaking, it serves a restorative purpose that the shower cannot hope to emulate. The man who has never drawn a proper bath, lowered himself into the warmth, and sat in quiet contemplation has denied himself one of the few genuine pleasures that require neither great wealth nor my assistant’s modern ‘internet’ connexion. The temperature should be hot but never punishing; if the skin turns a vivid scarlet upon entry, you have overshot the mark and will suffer lightheadedness rather than relaxation. The inside of the wrist proves a most honest judge in these matters. Twenty to thirty minutes is a sufficient duration for such a soak; beyond that point, the water cools and the skin begins to wrinkle, thereby defeating the object of the exercise.

The bath serves for the removal of the day — not merely the physical dust of the street, which the shower handles well enough, but the spiritual weight of it. A transition between the arduous working day and the private comforts of the evening, it performs this service better than any other contrivance I have encountered in either century. I am aware that some modern men regard the bath as a feminine indulgence or a confession of weakness, as though sitting in warm water were somehow beneath their dignity. Such men are historically illiterate. The Romans bathed, the Greeks bathed, and the Japanese have elevated the practice to a most sophisticated art.