I was feeling a little sore tonight so I decided to soak in the tub. It’s been way too long since the last soak. I don’t do baths very often (like maybe a couple of times a year) but sometimes a good bath is just the frosting at the end of a good day. It got me to thinking about my perfect bath. It has to be in an old-fashioned cast iron tub. I’m not talking one of the new modern versions that are about 3 feet long. I’m talking the kind I can sink my 6 foot body in without bending my knees and high enough so the water is at least chest level. Claw feet are optional but I’ve never seen a proper old-fashioned cast iron tub without the claw feet. Water has to be just a little too hot going in. A couple of inches first so the butt cheeks don’t freeze and then just let the water engulf the body. No fancy bubbles or perfumes for me. That just leaves me feeling icky. Nope, just plain old hot water. Lay back and just let every muscle in my body relax and hit that zen state where you’re almost but not quite asleep. After about 15 minutes, let a little water drain and refresh with hot water. Repeat until you just have to get out. That’s about an hour for me. Stay in the tub while the water drains and then take a quick rinse in the shower with the water just a little too cool. I can sleep like a baby after a bath like that. Man, today was a good day :).
Beverages of choice are a couple of ice-cold beers or a bottle of chardonnay staying cold in an ice bucket. Candles are nice but not required. And although a two-person bath is loads of fun given the right conditions, sometimes you just gotta go it alone to get just the right effect.
Now I want to have a bath! 
Wonder if the boss would let me go home early?
I personally prefere to have some aromatherapy oils in the water. What I use depends on my mood but its usually soothing.
Our tub sits level with the window so if I wish I can peek outside and see whats happening.
I always bring my light reading with me…audiophile magazines, Musician or Oxford American.
If it’s not a reading type of day, the local NPR affiliate at low volume, as long as they’ve got classical. Maybe a book on tape if I want the feeling of reading without the drawbacks of wet pages. Something like Bailey White’s audiobooks are great for this, or Daniel Pinkwater, or Garrison Keillor.
I can’t read in the bath as I wear glasses, so a Big slab of (proper)dark chocolate and a glass of dry white wine is how I would indulge myself.
I wear glasses too, I just don’t submerge my head (a bath to clean yourself? Whatever next?). Echo all the above sentiments. Bath should be very large and clean, water should be very hot with a couple drops each of lavender and geranium. Big glass of ice-cold white wine. Couple of subtle candles to read novel by (for preference, an old softback Georgette Heyer or Victoria Holt with a guy with a mask on on the cover). Classic FM playing softly on the radio.
Any other Harry Potter fans wish they had a bath like the one in Goblet of Fire, as large as a swimming pool with different taps containing different types of bubble bath?
Don’t you find your glasses instantly steam up?
I guess I should mention that I’m a guy. I guess it seems a little stereotypical that most women really enjoy baths while most guys wouldn’t admit it but that’s been my experience.
Mine do…I try to do without them, but sometimes it’s not worth the bother. Hence the audiobooks.
I think I may have the distinction of liking so much steam and hot water that I’ve made wallpaper come off the walls. That can be a bit of a buzzkill.
- Don’t you find your glasses instantly steam up? *
What, from the Georgette Heyer? Erm….
Well they do a bit but I’m so shortsighted it’s less fuzzy than leaving them off. And I have to read otherwise the atmosphere might get to me and I might start thinking deep thoughts.
My old apartment had a huge (like, two person comfortably) whirlpool bathtub. I used to get in there and let the jets run for ten minutes or so, and then sit with my book until the water got cold.
Now you see, I saw this title and thought when I opened it I would be surrounded by scenes of screaming toddlers, shampoo in the eyes, escaping babies and floods in the bathroom floor. I am pleasantly surprised.
Don’t spoil it for me!! This is funny though, Yesterday I had one on those ‘dream baths’ and was reading this particular book during a part of it. Bath foam in the jacuzzi make mounds and mounds of bubbles, its great. Candles, wine, music, Mmmmm.
Mmmm…baths are fun. I just took one last night, for the first time in about a year. I’m a total bath products junkie. Dump 'em all in, ask questions later. I used a whole packet of aromatherapy bath salts, and half a bottle of freesia bubble bath. The key for me is buying cheapo Target bubble bath. It still smells great, and you don’t feel bad dumping a whole bunch in.
Add a margarita, and it just doesn’t get any more relaxing.
You must visit a spa like in Hot Springs, Arkansas with naturally hot water from a mineral spring is pumped to the bath house (they have to add cooled water because it is naturally too hot). Sit in one of those mineral baths for a few minutes, then lie on a bed with heated towel for a few more, followed by an hour-long massage.
mmmmmm… Hot Springs…
We live in a 100+ year-old farm house and don’t have a shower. All we have is the old clawfoot tub that was originally installed. It’s pretty nice taking a bath every day, although it’s a little time-consuming waiting for the tub to fill every morning.
Funny you should mention that, Homebrew. I was thinking the same thing and had started making plans to go up there sometime this summer.
Ahem.
From Flanders and Swann, At The Drop of a Hat. Singing.
Oh, I find much simple pleasure when I’ve had a tiring day,
In the bath,
In the bath
Where the noise of gently sponging seems to blend with my top A,
In the bath,
In the bath
To the skirl of pipes vibrating in the boiler room below,
I sing a pot pourri of all the songs I used to know,
And the water thunders in and gurgles down the overflow,
In the bath,
In the bath
Then the loathing for my fellows rises steaming from my brain,
In the bath,
In the bath
And condenses to the milk of human kindness once again,
In the bath,
In the bath
Oh, the tingling of the scrubbing brush, the flannel’s soft caress,
To wield a lordly loofah is a joy I can’t express,
How truely it is spoken one is next to godliness,
In the bath,
In the bath
If you have the urge to hear this song, I urge you to find it; but be aware, you’ll never take a bath again without it running through your head.
The one thing that really stuck with me about GoF was the prefect’s bath – I WANT one of those! I am a total bath nut. And I’m an aromatherapist, so you can imagine the cool stuff I put in there. After a rough day, I like a hot bath with soothing EOs like lavender, ylang ylang. Lean back with an eye compress (washcloth soaked in cool chamomile or peppermint tea). Drink hot tea. A good place to think about stuff.
MrVisible, I’ll see that song and raise you another…
Clears throat Ladies, gentlemen, bath-people all… I present to you Bilbo’s Bath Song! [sub](For lack of a better title)[/sub]
Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
That washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!
O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain,
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.
O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty thoat and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack,
and Water Hot poured down the back.
O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountaing white beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!
Mmmmmm… “thewiz” in warm bath water.