fields

Showertime

Shower routine…

Auto-ethnography of my shower routine for the HAT project

1. Get the shower running. It’s a Mira shower running from a combi boiler downstairs in the kitchen so it takes approx 2 mins to get up to heat. It’s a nice simple shower, possibly the best I’ve ever had – it has good pressure, mixing is good and I love the magic red button that gives me that extra heat. Although I still find many guests don’t use it and then wonder why it doesn’t get hot enough. It’s a simple button if you ask me and stops the kids getting scolded.

2. Get a decent towel ready, usually run around the bedroom radiators trying to find a ‘body towel’ rather than one of the kids comedy towels. Sling it over the side of the shower glass. I’m a little neurotic about getting the wooden floor wet, largely because I don’t find the time to revarnish it. So I figure drying most of myself inside the cubicle will reduce water spillage.

3. Have a wee before getting in. Perhaps brought on by the running water but still waiting for the water to be hot enough. Critically you notice I don’t flush yet. Don’t want to upset any chances of getting that water hot. Something also worries me about crossing the streams and putting stress on the water system. It’s a good house, 100 years old but it has it’s idiosyncrasies and I’d hate to upset it and cause a problem. 4. Time to get the clothes ready. Keeping it simple, I just grab some clean pants, and in this case yesterdays jeans (it’s the weekend!). After the shower I’ll go to the same drawers and get a t-shirt and socks. It was a warm day so didn’t need much else.

5. The pants and jeans are thrown on to the floor ready for me to put on once dry. By now the water will be reliably hot enough and we’re ready to jump in.

6. It’s a good size space, but shower products clutter it up – you’ll see later which products. Usually though you can tell which people have been in here last – my wife probably, judging from what is on the soap dish. There is also razor holder on the wall for her razor but she buys so many different types there is never a razor in the holder! Me, I’m a Gillette Mach 3 kinda guy. How can razors get sharper eh? Mach 5 seems unnecessary.

7. I’ll use any shower product. Actually prefer a solid soap bar but this will do. A random shower gel bought for my wife, by my mum. I tend to wash my hair twice a week as it’s thin and tends to get too fluffy for my style. It’s usually Head and Shoulders but we’re out at the moment so I’ll risk life and limb and use Steph’s Paul Michell Tea Tree. Rarely use conditioner though. I like a shower but don’t often feel that I can spend too long in there for fear of wasting gas or worse a leak. It’s an old house and I still worry about the chap who plumbed it! Touch wood nothing has happened yet. I often think about Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Shower that used a much finer spray and cleaned users with minimum water in 2 minutes. What happened to the future of showers? 8. Time to get out. Turn off water and grab the towel. Towel down mostly inside the shower to prevent excess water leakage. Funny how paranoid I am about the wood. We had a problem in a previous flat that we owned and a leak progressively ruined the ceiling of the flat below us. In general I don’t trust water. 9. 70% dry I’m out and continue to dry off on these ridiculous IKEA mats that move around the bathroom floor with a life of their own. One day I’m on a green one, the next I’m on a purple one. I don’t care but much prefer the shag pile purple one. We have a blue one that feels very thin. 10. Pants on, followed by trousers. You may notice the door is still open. I think it’s because I expect to be shouted for, usually related to getting the kids dressed and ready for school – so the door stays open even on the weekend. No peace for the wicked. When using the loo I’m a little more discrete. 11. Flush the loo! Yep once dry, and trousers on, the grand finale is the flushing of the toilet. I could probably leave it there to ‘mellow’ but it feels like closure and is connected to the fact that it wasn’t flushed earlier when the shower was running. No shave today it’s the weekend. Usually this happens between trousers on and toilet flush. I notice the pink flash on the iPhone camera and wonder if it was such a good idea to take it into the shower.

12. Just for reference these are the products that were inhabiting our shower that week:

Sanex Zero%, V05 Nourish and Shine, V05 Nourish and Shine conditioner, Redken Smooth Down conditioner, Kounon shower gel, Paul Mitchell Tea Tree shampoo and Femfresh shower gel.

Ideas:

1. The habits formed around the idiosyncratic plumbing in this particular house dictates the order of things.

2. Bathroom and bedroom are linked during preparation.

3. Showering is daily, functional and non-intimate experience for me. It’s at the end of a communication channel that is left open in preparation of being shouted at.

4. However I expect that summer showers are different to winter showers and door may well be closed to keep the heat in.

5. Small rugs still feel good under foot.

6. Shower products hang around until empty and I’ll use anything. Detergent is detergent isn’t it so long as it breaks the water tension?!

7. I’m paranoid about leaks and wood.