Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Why Baths Suck and Showers Rule

I know there will be loads of you who just looooooove your bubble baths and who will balk at this post but I'm sorry - your reasons for loving baths just do not hold water with me (get it? hold water? I'm on FIRE!) I always have and always will think showers are far superior. After my newly acquired power shower went down for repairs recently, I was forced to bathe and it reminded me of the numerous reasons why baths suck and showers rule.

 

Baths suck because...
  1. you have to wait ridiculous amounts of time for sufficient water to fill the bath to even begin to make it enjoyable.
  2. if you mess up the temperature, you're screwed. Too hot and you have to wait for it to cool down or scald yourself while forcing yourself in (admit it, you know you do that to yourself). Too cold and it's too bad for you because you can't heat it up as you usually will have already used all the hot water.
  3. even if a hot bath feels good at first, within 5 minutes your body heat is through the roof and if you're like me, you will lie in the hot bath...sweating. Not cool.
  4. when you begin to actually bathe, you end up sitting in your dirt. If you shave, you see the shaved hairs, you see the soap residue and you can't really feel rinsed off seeing all of that. In fact, the same holds true for draining the bath - all the dirt, gunk and soap-scum remain on the edges.
  5. if you have a mane of hair like mine, washing hair in a bath is difficult. Yes the dunking of the hair works well for total wet factor, but you can't lather it twice (see reason 4) let alone condition it.
Showers rule because...
  1. In and out factor - it's efficient and to the point. You can't really get it wrong: turn on, adjust temperature, wash, rinse and you're done.
  2. You can easily position yourself to stand under the stream just so as to get hot water on aching necks, shoulders, back. Therapeutic and relaxing. 
  3. Temperature is easily adjustable. On cold days, I like to slowly inch the temperature up bit by bit and just turn around in the shower warming myself up.
  4. Your dirt rinses as you go including soap, shaving cream, shampoo etc. You get to feel clean right away!
  5. Energy efficiency - you use less water showering than bathing.
Note: I will allow that for families, baths are somewhat better for kids but that's only because of conditioning. Because really, shouldn't kids be learning how much better showers are as soon as they can stand up?

What do you think - which do you prefer and why?