Bathing and the Shower

The shower belongs to the morning; it is an affair of brisk purpose and brief duration.

What follows distinguishes the shower from the bath, which belongs to the evening and serves a different purpose entirely.

In the years of my youth, a gentleman began his day with a cold or tepid sponge bath, taken from a porcelain basin and pitcher; the sudden shock of cool water against the skin was understood by right-thinking men to be a necessary invigoration. Your modern shower is the direct, if more convenient, descendant of this practice, yet something of the original intention has been lost. Washing in the morning is a preparation for duty, not an invitation to indolence.

A middle course on temperature is advisable. Hot water strips the natural oils from the skin and hair, leaving a man looking like parchment left too long in the sun. Warm water opens the pores without parboiling the occupant. There is also a logical sequence to observe: wash the hair first, for the soap will run down the body during the rinse; washing the frame second ensures that oils removed by the shampoo are not left to accumulate.

When applying soap, be punctilious but not excessive. The underarms, the groin, and the feet require diligent attention; the remainder of the body does not need to be scrubbed raw every twenty-four hours. The skin possesses its own arrangements for maintenance, which have functioned admirably for millennia. 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. To do otherwise is a lapse your companions will detect before you do yourself.

A morning shower should occupy no more than seven or eight minutes. Beyond that, one is no longer washing but loitering. Once finished, towel off completely, including the back, before attempting to dress. Placing fine cloth upon a wet body is a form of upholstery, and an unflattering one.

The bath, by contrast, belongs exclusively to the evening. A wholly different undertaking, it serves a restorative purpose the shower cannot 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 an internet connexion. The temperature should be hot but not punishing; if the skin turns vivid scarlet upon entry, you have overshot and will suffer lightheadedness rather than relaxation. The inside of the wrist proves an honest judge in these matters. Twenty to thirty minutes is sufficient; beyond that, the water cools and the skin begins to wrinkle, defeating the object.

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 weight of it. It is the transition between the working day and the private comforts of the evening, and 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. Such men are historically illiterate. The Romans bathed, the Greeks bathed, and a man who claims the bath is beneath his dignity has simply not drawn a proper one.