Embedded in British culture is a conspiracy of silence around what must be domestic life’s most overrated activity. Mention baths in polite company and faces immediately soften with dreamy nostalgia. “Oh, I love a nice hot bath,” they’ll sigh, “so relaxing, so therapeutic.” As a vulnerable student subjected to the barrage of academic tasks that Oxford throws at you, a hot bath might seem a welcome refuge. I am here to tell you that it’s all a lie, and it’s about time someone came clean.
But before we even address the bath itself, we must look at the lengthy faff that comes before it. First, there’s the herbal tea to prepare. Something suitably virtuous. Chamomile, peppermint, or green? Whichever you choose, you’ll position it carefully on the bath’s edge, despite knowing full well you won’t touch it, partly because you’ll be too hot, but mainly because herbal tea is, quite simply, horrible. Then comes the agonising over which podcast or playlist will provide the perfect sonic backdrop to your imminent discomfort. Something educational, perhaps, so you can pretend this whole exercise has intellectual value? Or something soothing, to compound the self-care delusion?
The bath product decision tree appears never-ending. Bubbles, oils or bath salts? Each promises to provide some form of spiritual transcendence, when they’re actually just hideously expensive ways to make the water cloudy, the bottom of the bath slippery, or both. You arrange your towel within tactical reaching distance and fetch a book, which will acquire a light misting of condensation and remain completely unread, its pages gently warping in the humidity.
We then face the inevitable miscalculation of the temperature. The aim is to find the impossibly tiny sweet spot between hypothermia and accidental sous vide cooking of oneself. It’s never been found, never will. Too cool, and you’re sitting in what is nothing more than a large puddle. Set it too hot, you will be singed, and within minutes, you will experience the biological paradox of sweating while submerged in water. Given that we all seem to opt for the latter, I will proceed.
The aforementioned paradox contributes to the inescapable reality that everyone seems unwilling to acknowledge. You are sitting, no, marinating, in an increasingly concentrated solution of everything you’re supposedly trying to wash away from your body.
But perhaps most mortifying of all is the unavoidable anatomical audit. Unless blessed with the neck mobility of a swan and the self-discipline of a Trappist monk, you will be looking down, forced to gaze upon the sorry sight of one’s own genitals. And no, no amount of strategically placed bubbles (which dissipate with infuriating rapidity) can spare you this unwanted audience with yourself.
The coup de grâce comes with getting out. You painfully lever yourself to your feet, blood swiftly abandoning your skull (as if there are more important places for it to be), the room tilts, your vision dappled with stars. There, you teeter; woozy, pale, and naked.
Meanwhile, the shower – that honest and blatantly superior institution – stands neglected in the corner. No admin involved in its preparation, no elongated ritual, just efficient vertical cleansing that doesn’t require you to marinade in your own effluent or risk the loss of consciousness. Water comes down clean, dirt goes down the drain. Job done. You emerge refreshed, as opposed to parboiled and flirting with syncope.
The bath is a monument that commemorates our capacity for self-deception. It is a ritual that persists due to social conformity, but is fundamentally absurd. This weird, culturally ingrained cover-up has gone on far too long. It’s time we came clean about baths.