Ok, this might sound a little wierd, but a good friend of mine, when asked what the pinnacle of luxury might mean to her, suggested bathing in massage oil. While we have no intentions of making this happen (through our mutual respect for the envronment!), it got us wondering whether there might be detrimental medical consequences from full immersion in warm and fragrent oil?
Thoughts?
M
Certainly you’d have to be a bit more careful than you would in a water bath; you won’t float in oil (at least not nearly so well), you’ll find it much, much more slippery getting in and out (and keeping your face above the surface once you’re in), and you’ll have to be a bit more careful that you don’t let too much of it get in your mouth, in case it ends up in your lungs (this probably happens more than you realise with a water bath, but because your body is water-based, it isn’t so noticeable).
Towelling off afterwards might also be interesting, as oil is typically more viscous than water; perhaps someone could scrape the most part off with a strigil.
But I don’t see why partial immersion in oil would be drastically worse than merely applying it liberally to your skin.
Were you planning to coat yourselves in batter first?
The question I have is what to do with the oil once you are done? It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to dump it down the drain.
Brian
She’d better make sure it’s not one to which she’s allergic. Soaking the arms and torso in oil is one thing, but a woman’s genitals can be extremely sensitive to perfumes and other chemicals. (Take it from me, a woman who once got blisters in her tender bits.)
What she should do is probably test run the particular oil by rubbing a bit on herself and carefully monitor for any burning or itching. If she has any of that, she should try another oil, even if she doesn’t think it will bother her that much, because after a long soak, it could be much worse.
Another problem might come from this-- she could get some of it in her vagina itself. If it’s hypoallergenic or non-petroleum based, it may be okay, but I know of some women who have gotten infections from getting massage oils up there. (It could upset the natural balance of bacteria.)
strigil
n. instrument used to scrape down skin in Greek and Roman baths
New word for me!!
They actually used oil to remove dirt (although they didn’t bathe in it, AFAIK) - they applied the oil, which would bind to the dirt and grease on the skin, then scrape the whole lot off with a strigil.
I am already laughing because I know what is going to happen.
Once I put a LOT of really oily stuff on my hair and put a towel over it to let it set. But it started to run out on my naked shoulders, so I had to go get in the bathtub.
That was fine. I took the towel off and just let the oil drain over my body for the rest of the thirty minute period. The oil puddled around my body in the tub.
At the end of the thirty minutes, I easily slid down to the faucets and turned the water on to rinse off. Good.
But I needed soap and shampoo. They were back up at the other end of the tub. Slightly uphill. I am very short and my arms aren’t long. There was no way I could just reach out and get them.
I tried kicking off from the end of the tub, but that didn’t work.
I got on my knees and elbows and tried to “walk” to the end. I almost made it, but when I reached for the shampoo, I slid back toward the drain.
I didn’t have the strength to lunge because I was laughing so hard and I am old.
I think I finally threw myself out of the tub onto a mat like a beached whale.
Cool! Here is Adam Hart-Davis using a strigil.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/heritage/england/shropshire/article_2.shtml
Looks like an equine sweat scraper!
Zoe- You didn’t happen to have the forethought to set up a video camera, did you?