How do the Maxwells shower/bathe?

[DarkAnts]

I have a genetic skin condition where my skin produces skin faster then it sheds it. So, I literally have thick uncomfortable skin. I tend to take warm baths and soak to help my skin soften enough to scrub off. Its best to sit in the tub for 30 min before scrubbing. I scrub my skin with a clarasonic brush and mild cleanser. I dry myself. Then, I spread my first layer of prescription lotion all over and hop into a bath robe. I wait 20 min before spot treating the angry spots. Then 20 min after that, I put final layer of lotion on and hop into bed. Its way too long a process to do in the morning. My hair dries over night and then I pull it back for work in the morning. I have to pull it back for work for safety reasons. Evil women chem lab worker here.

[Anxious Girl]

I'm quite surprised by the navy shower thing :?

For me, shutting the water while washing myself is normal, letting the water run the whole time would be such a waste of water, do you all really do that ?

I get wet, then stop the water, soap up and rinse... and, how can you soap up properly with the water running over yourself...

Wow, Freejinger make me think of weird things :lol:

Not me, most of the time. The only part of the shower when I turn the water off is is when I'm washing my body; 'cause I like to save the hot water like that (even if I do take long hot showers.). I'm OCD about saving paper, though. I have to use both sides, and always buy at least 2 notebooks each year even though I don't need them, just to write random shit down that I might be ineterested in looking up online/books I need to finish reading/want to buy. I love writing in script. I don't know why it's considered a lost art. And now I'm going OT... :D

edit: Btw, I try and recycle everything, but my mom doesn't like the garbage and recycling to get messed up, but I like to give the recyclers a challange... 8-) A greener Earth is a better Earth, IMO.

[themadapple]

I guess I'm one of those horrid, evil Americans who wastes water without a second thought. I take 10 minute showers with absurdly hot water each and every day. Sometimes, I take a shower just before going to bed just to relax. And I flush every single time the toilet is used. I could not bear to think of anything "mellowing." I can barely type out the words. That's about all my water indulgence at home - I have to pay for my water and my rates for city water & sewage are crazy high, so I'm rather conservative.

When I'm in Oklahoma once a year for a couple of weeks on vacation, I waste my well water like nobody's business. I usually do a load of laundry a day, I take long, long showers in the morning and just before bed and I drink gallons of it (no other water tastes as good to me).

Here's a confession that I can make here but no where else: I don't bother recycling. I really don't care about it. Perhaps it's because I'm an evil American who has too many resources and too little care about others. In this one instance, yes, that's true. I'm spoiled by having clean drinking water easily accessible and having a well in OK that's never gotten close to going dry, even during the Dustbowl years. I'm spoiled. I'm not rich by American standards though I make enough to support my rather frugal lifestyle. My biggest splurge is that I don't waste my time recycling. I don't want to have to worry about sorting out my trash, keeping it separate from the dogs, putting it out on different days, etc., etc. Basically, I don't want to spend any of the precious little free time I have recycling and taking a whore's bath to conserve water or worrying about buying "correct" products. I am evil and I don't care. I have no children and never will so I don't worry so much about the world I'll leave behind. Yes, I know other people have children and on some levels I care about all children, i.e. want them to have healthcare, education, food, etc. but I don't want to recycle. I happily pay my taxes for social services and would happily pay more. I give money to charities and do so happily. But the one thing I don't care about doing is recycling. I figured that buying & selling used cardboard boxes for 10 years (millions of tons of boxes, mind you) that would be either recycled or reused has allowed me to hit my quota of recycling that would make up for my carbon footprint. So I'm done. I'm not going to rinse out my Lean Cuisine dinner tray to recycle it or try to rinse out a 20 oz plastic Coke bottle - it's a pain in the ass to do that and I don't want to. Feel free to hate my entitled American imperialist ass.

Preach it :twisted:

Though I still have all of those public service announcements running through my head every time I accidentally leave faucet on while brushing my teeth. They won't stop... they just won't stop *shudders*

[gardenvarietycitizen]

I'm OCD about saving paper, though. I have to use both sides, and always buy at least 2 notebooks each year even though I don't need them, just to write random shit down that I might be ineterested in looking up online/books I need to finish reading/want to buy. I love writing in script. I don't know why it's considered a lost art. And now I'm going OT... :D

I'll join the OT... I've known two people in my life that were just CRAZY about saving paper. One was a friend's mom who like others her age lived through WW2, she was always going on about how they had no paper and saved every little scrap, so she saved every little scrap, when things were wrapped at the department store she'd save the paper and write letters on it or use it to wrap lunches. To her writing big was a waste.

The other was another friend's mom this time in the US, she was Danish, with amazingly beautiful handwriting. She would write letters filling the paper with small script in one direction in one color, then turn the paper 90 degrees and write more lines the other way in another color. That one I think was just an attempt to save postage or fit as much as possible onto those "aerogram" things (does the post office even offer those anymore?). I'll admit I sometimes do this on postcards now.

If I write letters I too like to write in script, with a fountain pen. I just use boring old legal pad paper though.

[themadapple]

I love writing in cursive script. However, while I've been told that I have beautiful handwriting, I've also been told it's agony to read. I still do it anyway.

[Arete]

Gizmola, I think we were switched at birth. YOU are the true first born child of my father. :lol: He took an actual stand against recycling. He got busted by his township for not seperating his newspapers from his regular trash, and was pretty convinced it was a sign of impending fascism. :doh:

What is this about rinsing Coke can? No, no, no. Right to recycle bag or basket. When full out it goes. Whose gonna notice whether or not you rinsed the cans? Clean freaks. ;)

[Pretzel]

For me, shutting the water while washing myself is normal, letting the water run the whole time would be such a waste of water, do you all really do that ?

I get wet, then stop the water, soap up and rinse... and, how can you soap up properly with the water running over yourself...

This x10000. :clap:

ETA: This might be TMI for some...just a warning. However, I wonder how the Maxwells wash down there? If they are not supposed to touch themselves in that area how do they properly wash their genitals? You don't have to use soap, but you should rinse it with water to keep it clean. I'd suppose that without a healthy cleaning attitude you'd get infections, itches and the like. Especially as a woman with a regular period one would certainly desire regular washes. :oops:

ETA²: Not to mention that I think no Maxwell woman has had a pelvic exam and a pap smear prior to birthing in a hospital.

[OkToBeTakei]

Gizmola, I think we were switched at birth. YOU are the true first born child of my father. :lol: He took an actual stand against recycling. He got busted by his township for not seperating his newspapers from his regular trash, and was pretty convinced it was a sign of impending fascism. :doh:

What is this about rinsing Coke can? No, no, no. Right to recycle bag or basket. When full out it goes. Whose gonna notice whether or not you rinsed the cans? Clean freaks. ;)

Hehe totally agree. My LA provides all our bins. I have 5 for differing things. They can be quite militant about checking your stuff. I have learned (now shhhh) If I poke my unwashed containers to the bottom I can get away with it. I'm quite up for recycling, conservation etc. But like most things in life I genuinely feel it should not absolutely suck the fun out of it. I'll do my bit, but I draw the line at washing butter wrappers. Life is WAY too short :|

[dawbs]

I'll do my bit, but I draw the line at washing butter wrappers. Life is WAY too short :|

Grease

I always have a pile/baggie of butter wrappers in my fridge..I use them to grease pans. Actually easier (and I prefer butter) than paper towels and Crisco.

(that and...cheap :oops: )

[OkToBeTakei]

Grease

I always have a pile/baggie of butter wrappers in my fridge..I use them to grease pans. Actually easier (and I prefer butter) than paper towels and Crisco.

(that and...cheap :oops: )

Duly noted. What a great idea, especially as Little Miss OK bakes all the time. Thanks dawbs :D

[Peas n carrots]

I recall during the Uriah remodelling posts they mentioned putting a shower in, because it was one of the things I admired (we do have a hot water pump that can run from a propane tank to heat cold water that it sucks out of a bucket and then pump it through a nozzle, which is pretty cool I have to say, but not a full on shower).

The one family I recall that DOES (or at least did) require clothed showering (they leave their undies on) is the Buckhales - the same family that insists on swimming in business casual.

As for myself, I am not shy - visiting the neighborhood public bathhouse as a kid pretty much solved that problem. You quickly realize that everyone looks pretty darn plain when they're nekkid, we are not TV stars, and that's fine. The neighborhood bathhouses are sex-segregated usually (little kids excepted) but since then I've gone to vacation hot springs where it was NOT sex-segregated (and outside!) and in fact entered the hot springs with some of my coworkers who had gone with me on a trip. They were American, even. It's all about the atmosphere I guess!

Are the bath houses you speak of like Korean Spas? I like to go to the King Spa in Niles, which sounds like what you describe. Last time I was there I saw a mother/daughter who were surprised to find out that swim suits are not worn at Korean spas. They left in a hurry, which is too bad as I find it a a wonderful experience. There is not one ounce of body shame in that place and you see all shapes, sizes and weights.

[bananacat]

Gizmola, I think we were switched at birth. YOU are the true first born child of my father. :lol: He took an actual stand against recycling. He got busted by his township for not seperating his newspapers from his regular trash, and was pretty convinced it was a sign of impending fascism. :doh:

What is this about rinsing Coke can? No, no, no. Right to recycle bag or basket. When full out it goes. Whose gonna notice whether or not you rinsed the cans? Clean freaks. ;)

I rinse out milk jugs before putting them in my recycling can because I don't take it out until it's full and I don't want milk residue to give a sour smell while I'm waiting for the bin to fill up. Sometimes I wonder if the water I waste on rinsing negates the benefit of recycling, but it's probably still better to recycle. I don't rinse out cans though.

[Zoom]

I'm in Europe and I don't turn off the water in the shower, and I regularly take 20-30 minute showers a day. It helps me relax in the evenings. :?

I do however recycle, but not compost, I live in an apartment and my council doesn't provide composting for apartment buildings. I would like to however. Water isn't exactly scares around here but I do worry about the amount of stuff I just throw away.

[sparkles]

I take very efficient showers, generally around 2 minutes, and I keep my soap in a scrubby thingy so I soap up and wash at the same time--no need to turn the water off before I rinse since it's all so quick. (My hair is only about 1/2" long so no need for a lot of shampooing.) Also, our water heater is kind of tetchy and needs a bit of time to come up to proper heat. If I turned the water off and then back on again without checking the temp, I'd either get scalded or frozen and neither one bodes well for a good start to the day.

[MrsKay]

I'm guilty of never turning off the shower. However, it probably all adds up in the end - the reason I never turn it off is because it take forever to get it to that stage that's somewhere in between scalding my skin and freezing my ass off. I try to cut some time by washing my hair first, throwing the conditioner on, and then scrubbing up while it does its job. I also clean the bathroom in my undies. By the time I'm finished, I can just throw the cleaning supplies in the sink, the undies in the laundry, and jump in and wash off. Saves on laundry and time.

We recycle, and we compost - MrKay does superintendent work at our building, and my militant eco-warrior phases have rubbed off on him. There was no recycling or compost when we moved in, so he harassed the city until they brought out bins for both to shut him up. I'm also anal about rinsing my cans etc., but that's just because I've shared recycling facilities with neighbors who never did. I'm sure you can imagine what that looked like in the summer, when they threw in cat food cans that still had clumps of cat food in them. It was like a maternity ward for flies.

[pixydust]

Gizmola, I think we were switched at birth. YOU are the true first born child of my father. :lol: He took an actual stand against recycling. He got busted by his township for not seperating his newspapers from his regular trash, and was pretty convinced it was a sign of impending fascism. :doh:

What is this about rinsing Coke can? No, no, no. Right to recycle bag or basket. When full out it goes. Whose gonna notice whether or not you rinsed the cans? Clean freaks. ;)

I don't rinse soda bottles, either. I only rinse milk jugs regularly, other stuff I take a glance at it and decide if it is gross or not. I do recycle, because here it is as easy as trash (I have a trash can and a recycle can in my kitchen, i make my 12 year old take them out to the big trash and recycle cans, and they go out on Thursday (well, recycle is every other Thursday....most of the time I drag it out every week because i can't remember).

[freejoytoo]

I'm sorry, but it infuriates me when people deliberately don't recycle. How hard is it to squash some cardboard? Fair enough if you're in an area with poor recycling facilities but if you can I think you should. I'm by no means as environmentally friendly as I could be - I like to have a hot shower daily if I can and I don't turn off the water to soap, sometimes I forget to bring bags to the supermarket and I don't let anything 'mellow' in the toilet, but I try to recycle as best I can and not waste things. Maybe it was something to do with being raised in a household where we only turned on the heating if we were cold with layers on and had to reuse bags, but it infuriates me when people just toss cans in with ordinary rubbish because they can't be bothered to make the effort to just put it in a different bin. I had a housemate last year who would turn up the heating as high as he could because he was always complaining about being cold - no wonder as he was in a T-shirt and just couldn't be bothered to put a jumper on.

Frankly, I don't care if I am 'eco-shaming'. I think everyone should care about the environment and try not to fill landfills. Reminds me of a post on another forum where a woman declared she was furious about being forced into 'eco-culture' because she thought terrorists would blow up the world before we destroyed it. So we should just kill off wildlife and wreck the climate willy-nilly anyway. Ugh.

/rant.

[Knight of Ni]

The town i live in while attending college has pretty poor recycling services. If you have city trash service it's an extra $15 a month to get a recycling bin. (As a grad student I don't want to spend the money on it). I also don't have the time to drive to the recycling center to drop off my stuff every week (and no space to collect if for a longer period of time). If the city provided recycling services at no additional cost I would recycle but don't worry too much about it now. Two years ago a roommate was obsessive about recycling and made sure we all put recyclables in a separate place for her to take out. One day I opened a can and threw the top away without thinking about it. Everything else I used that day went in the recycling bin. She came into the kitchen later that night saw the little metal ring in the trash pulled it out and put it in the recycling bin.:lol: She was REALLY passionate about it.

[itsnikki05]

Goodness. It's a SHOWER. I don't see the problem in bathing? Anyways.

(Then again, when I did plays we had to RUN to the dressing room, fling off our clothes, change and RUN back downstairs to the stage sometimes, so I got over being shy very quickly. Some of the moms were shocked though! ROFL)

[Seven Severn]

I'm sorry, but it infuriates me when people deliberately don't recycle. How hard is it to squash some cardboard? Fair enough if you're in an area with poor recycling facilities but if you can I think you should. I'm by no means as environmentally friendly as I could be - I like to have a hot shower daily if I can and I don't turn off the water to soap, sometimes I forget to bring bags to the supermarket and I don't let anything 'mellow' in the toilet, but I try to recycle as best I can and not waste things. Maybe it was something to do with being raised in a household where we only turned on the heating if we were cold with layers on and had to reuse bags, but it infuriates me when people just toss cans in with ordinary rubbish because they can't be bothered to make the effort to just put it in a different bin. I had a housemate last year who would turn up the heating as high as he could because he was always complaining about being cold - no wonder as he was in a T-shirt and just couldn't be bothered to put a jumper on.

Frankly, I don't care if I am 'eco-shaming'. I think everyone should care about the environment and try not to fill landfills. Reminds me of a post on another forum where a woman declared she was furious about being forced into 'eco-culture' because she thought terrorists would blow up the world before we destroyed it. So we should just kill off wildlife and wreck the climate willy-nilly anyway. Ugh.

/rant.

Thank you for saying this.

The SO and I live in an apartment with no recycling facilities, but we found several big Dumpster-like recycling bins that exist on our grocery/Costco route and use those. We keep a compost container on our kitchen counter and all plant waste goes in there. We take this to a compost bin at a community garden about a mile away. I let the yellow mellow although the SO does not and I use the shut-off valve to hold back the water while I'm soaping in the shower. Potable water is a finite resource and landfills get full, eventually, and new ones have to be opened. Also, I volunteer at Habitat ReStore which sells used construction materials, appliances, and furniture that would normally wind up clogging landfills.

We both know that what we do is pointless, but we do it anyway and don't mind being inconvenienced for a few minutes once a week. To deliberately be wasteful is beyond my comprehension.

[contrary]

I have a logistical question, for those who turn the shower water off while soaping...how do you not get that shock of cold when you turn it back on? My shower water takes ages to warm up (even in the five minutes between when husband gets out and I get in).

If I could be sure it would be warm right away, I'd give this a whirl, but our well water must be crazy cold (or our water heater crazy-shitty), because i feel like I'd stand there waiting for it to warm up so i could rinse, longer than it actually takes me to lather.

[Coconut Flan]

I have a logistical question, for those who turn the shower water off while soaping...how do you not get that shock of cold when you turn it back on? My shower water takes ages to warm up (even in the five minutes between when husband gets out and I get in).

If I could be sure it would be warm right away, I'd give this a whirl, but our well water must be crazy cold (or our water heater crazy-shitty), because i feel like I'd stand there waiting for it to warm up so i could rinse, longer than it actually takes me to lather.

This is why I don't bother with messing with the water. My water heater (tank style) is almost as far from the shower as the builder could have put it in a long ranch style house - SW corner to NE corner. From one season to the next, the water temperature of hot water varies because of the temperature of the pipes. It takes me awhile every time to get the water right and it would take me longer for the water to reheat the pipes and me to fiddle with getting the temperature right again as to take a minute or two to wash.

[SpeshulTaterTot]

I have a logistical question, for those who turn the shower water off while soaping...how do you not get that shock of cold when you turn it back on? My shower water takes ages to warm up (even in the five minutes between when husband gets out and I get in).

If I could be sure it would be warm right away, I'd give this a whirl, but our well water must be crazy cold (or our water heater crazy-shitty), because i feel like I'd stand there waiting for it to warm up so i could rinse, longer than it actually takes me to lather.

My water stays warm for a couple of minutes after I turn it off. I wouldn't turn it off if it got cold during the time it takes me to lather up. I'd hate standing there with shampoo in my hair, waiting for the water to get warm.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Are the bath houses you speak of like Korean Spas? I like to go to the King Spa in Niles, which sounds like what you describe. Last time I was there I saw a mother/daughter who were surprised to find out that swim suits are not worn at Korean spas. They left in a hurry, which is too bad as I find it a a wonderful experience. There is not one ounce of body shame in that place and you see all shapes, sizes and weights.

Well, there's no spa services, but from pics I see of the bathing part it's maybe similar.

Usually there's a woman who takes your money at the entrance (fees are set by the city most places) and then you change clothes in a big room with baskets in bins along the wall, put your clothes in there, get nekkid. You can hang your towel by the entrance to the actual bath (which is behind a sliding glass door in another room) and you bring your own shampoo and washcloth in (you can buy these from the woman who takes your money, too, or sometimes there's vending). You pick up a bucket and a little stool on the way into the bath (usually they're plastic and have advertising on it) and often soap for washing your body is communally provided but of course if you want you can bring your own.

After you wash yourself, you put the stuff you brought with you into the bucket and set it aside when you sit and soak in the bath. You can't bring anything into the bath.

Then you rinse off maybe again when you get out, and go back into the main room to put your clothes back on. Often in the changing room there's a TV on and some comic books or whatever, people chatting in there, sometimes there's communal hair dryers. Also if it's a neighborhood bath people would go home in pajamas if their house is just a few blocks away so you can see people walking in pajamas on the street (probably only poor places now maybe).

Hotels usually have a communal bath like this built in for the guests to use, usually more upscale looking though and no comics :) Often the bath at a hotel will have a nice window out over the skyline if it's on a high floor.

[FaustianSlip]

Onsens are the best frigging thing ever, no lie. Especially if you play sports- a post-soccer onsen is fantastic. The first time I went to one, my Yankee Puritanism left me feeling a little weird, but I was with people from my soccer team, and it was no big deal. You just strip off, shower and st around in the hot bath. The ones I went to usually had different kinds of baths for different things- some with jets for massaging, some warm water ones, some cold water ones... it is kind of like a spa, but they're usually less than $10 to visit. There was one a five-minute drive from my house that I went to all the time after kendo practice, especially in winter. A lot of Japanese houses don't have any kind of central heating (and the insulation in mine was non-existent), so they're freezing, and you use kerosene space heaters to heat specific rooms. It's much more pleasant to take a leisurely bath at the onsen in that case than to freeze your butt off at home waiting for your tub to fill up (though my house did have a great tub- shorter in length than a Western-style one, but deep enough that when you climbed in and sat in it, the water was up to your chin).

Anyway in Japan you have to segregate your trash even if you don't recycle because it has to be "burnable" trash vs. "non-burnable" trash. They get picked up on different days and heaven forbid you put the wrong stuff out on the wrong day... this is true of everywhere too, so even in a fast food place you'll see the trash cans have two parts, one for paper/food trash and one for plastic.

Oh, Lord, the trash system in my town in Japan was the bane of my existence. You were required to use clear trash bags so that the garbage men would know if anyone was mis-sorting trash. The little old ladies in the neighborhood would totally look through your garbage to make sure you were sorting everything properly. That was all a bit 1984, but whatever. Except they only collected non-burnable stuff twice a month, which isn't much when you consider that meanwhile, everything in Japan is packaged in about seventeen layers of various kinds of plastic, so you'd end up with bags and bags of non-burnable trash waiting to be put out. A friend used to use the office area in her apartment to store them until pick-up day came.

As far as showers, I don't turn the water off in between soaping and rinsing, but my average shower time usually comes in at three minutes (maybe five if I have to shave my legs), so I'm not feeling terribly guilt-ridden about it.