Bathing beauty

I recently asked thirty of my peers, “Do you like to bathe?” Their responses ranged from mild indifference to active loathing, one claiming to shower while microwaving a cheese-based Kraft meal, another limiting her shower to the length of a Simpsons ad break. No one expressed relish, no one used a tub, and no one involved Mister Bubbles.

I have no doubt these people register as scientifically clean, I have seen them and detected no visible stains, but then we are not laboratory rats or brains in jars, we are people, and it seems truly strange that we should choose to briefly fire boiling water into our faces and then carry on about our day.

It was with this in mind that I set about on a journey — a journey to rediscover bath time, the concept. I began by filling a bucket with milk, and sinking my feet inside. As this was the habit of the most allegedly beautiful woman of all time, Cleopatra, it seemed the logical blastoff point. Modern dogma dictates that honey, salt and bicarbonate soda should be added to the milk base — salt to strip the skin of its dead cells, honey to soften it — but the milk itself proved offensive once brought to room temperature, and the footsies in question, while sweetly tenderised, demanded a secondary bath to purge traces of the first.

The legend of Kate Moss involves bathing often in Evian and once in champagne with Johnny Depp. Both baths are speculative. Depp has repeatedly denied the champagne episode, stating to press “I wish it were true,” although such a bath would have certainly rendered him rancid. And whilst bathing in Evian is quite credible (note: Perrier facials exist), the difference between mineral and tap water in a domestic tub seems slight if not totally void.

If pleasure was to be sought in tubs, I was not finding it by paddling in beverages. Seeking at this point professional help, I reached Island Day Spa, a softly-lit underground fantasy cocoon, lined with candles, laced with silk drapes and set to a gentle soundscape of panpipes, Kenny G and simulated ocean noises.

The hydrotherapy process begins with one’s total nudity, which is protected with a fresh, cotton robe and disposable pantaloons — although these more or less resemble standard-issue underpants, they seem to only come in one size, that size being jumbo (they may or may not have had a specific front and back, this remained unclear to me).

Once inside one’s private hydrotherapy chamber, the robe is discarded, but the pantaloons retained, and a modesty bosom towel poised for the taking. The hydrotherapy tub itself is more or less a giant pod; one lies on the flat and steaming bed, then, once exfoliated, the lid is lowered, much like a clamshell or hamburger bun, totally encasing the body, omitting only the head, at which point the body is steamed and bathed with a series of alternating Vichy shower-heads — small but potent jets that tend to shoot into one’s ankles, knees, torso and, most directly, crotch.

My own treatment at Island, “Body Polish”, running just shy of an hour, began with a sea salt exfoliant, quite chunkier and more abrasive than a domestic exfoliant, stripping the skin of dead cells with an erotic intensity, followed with an enduring Vichy shower, during which the scalp was massaged, concluding with a delicate rinse and a succulent glaze of lavender body lotion — a precious experience.

But more is, of course, more. Seduced by the promise of steaming lashings of Dead Sea mud, I reached Orchid Day Spa, eagerly pursuing the “European Seaweed and Sea Spa Vichy”. Once nestled into an identical hamburger bun hydrotherapy tub, I was exfoliated with another savage yet luscious cocktail of sea salt and essential oils, then smothered in the anticipated mud and seaweed combination, scraped from the base of the Dead Sea (known as an unfathomably potent regenerative agent). Once fully glazed, I was encased and steamed, inviting the pores to open wide and drink in the manifold Dead Sea juices, and finally showered to perfection. Note: the rich and opulent Dead Sea fragrances will linger on the person for several hours.

But of course such a treatment is a seasonal indulgence, and while hydrotherapy had stirred in my loins a passion, deep and throbbing, I had still not discovered that which I do not understand — the bath at home, a ritual I continued to resent and consider a waste of time.

The domestic tub is rarely in charming condition, and I submit that erotic bathing is impossible in any such tub. I may have seen giant home tubs in movies, but never in actual life have I physically seen a home tub that could painlessly contain a couple, let alone a full orgy.

But then, what if I could recreate the fantasy day spa cocoon in the home? Of course I had no handy clamshell tub or giant, vicious salts, but could some precious products and a well-poised candle melt my frigid loins? They had come this far, had they not?

I gathered random magnificent items at this point — L’Occitane en Provence “Bath Tonic”, a sweet, light bubbling agent, the Roger & Gallet “Shiso” range, including a particularly delicious body cream, and finally MOR’s “Flower of Narcissus”, an epic collection modeled on ancient Roman neo-classical architecture, which aroused my quivering heart and uncloaked the true meaning of bath time. With each piece in place — the bubbling elixir, the lush black candle softly licking the walls with golden light, the grape seed exfoliant swept gently across my body — everything became clear. The ritual of bathing is romancing one’s self.

Perhaps after this journey I would still re-engineer myself to stew in my own juices. I continue to resent my body’s unremitting needs, and it is true, I could use that time. But it is clear the beauty in bathing lies not in its function, but in its mood, its fantasy and in one’s own personal love affair, and this much I cannot reject, for I cannot reject baths of glory.

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