Are we really disgusting?

[TransformersRobotsInDaSky]

I love to have deep, hot baths and DH and DS do too. To enable us to have them really deep and not feel too bad about wasting water, we share the water, one going in after the other (or sometimes one of us shares with DS). I happened to mention this to my DSis who thinks its absolutely disgusting.

Obviously if I'm shaving then I'll go in last or if anyone's particularly dirty they go to the back of the queue, but this is normal behaviour isn't it? Does everyone else share bath water or AIBU to share bath water with my family?

I don't think it's disgusting but equally I don't find it a very attractive thought to lie in someone else's dirty bathwater.

Yes, if you can't afford bath's otherwise it makes sense or if there is no water available but if I could I would always choose to have my own fresh bath water (and a clean towel)

BTW, there is a difference between sharing a bath and sharing bath water.
On the first, you can wash it all off with the shower at the end, by sharing bath water, one after the other, you can't rinse off, can you?

Those posters who defend sharing a bath are in denial.

No one is saying people are 'dirty' as in mud, coal dust and all the stuff that would be around if we all worked in fields or down pits. Those days are over.

But there is no getting away from the fact - as has been said over and over here- that everyone has dead skin that is sloughed off in the bath, some people have athletes foot, some people have thrush or other nasties, everyone will have some traces of faeces on their bum holes unless they have been very careful with wet wipes.

Lying in water that contains all of these things may not kill you, but it's certainly no good pretending that it's somehow okay.

I'm astonished to be honest. It was something that the poor did in the last century but I find it hard to believe that people who run cars, have holiday, buy clothes that aren't essential, find it necessary to skimp on something as basic as clean, hot water.

Zoobeedoo, so you don't like swimming where other people are despite cleansing agents in the water to kill off bacteria, but you're happy to swim in uncleaned water that's bound to be full of frog/newt/fish poo, general dirt and potentially dogs urine and poo? Interesting. Incidentally I happily swim outdoor too, and I'm sure the sea has just as much dirt in it but I don't care. Nor do I care about the 'dirt' in the pool. It's not like you're drinking the water is it, it's only on the outside of your skin.

You can. We have shower head attached to taps. Dh always rinses with shower head before getting out. I just get out, but I always get bath first.

Normal in my family. I tend not to have baths very often but don't understand the hysteria some folk are displaying at water-sharing with family.

The average adult sheds 0.003 ounces of skin a day, thats a really tiny amount, you're hardly going to be wading through it in a bath with around 150 litres of water in it. You sweat around 1 litre in a whole day so only a tiny proportion of that is going to be on your body when you get in the bath. (yes i googled all this i'm bored) Really, relax, have a nice hot bath with a friend glass of wine. :)

That was an unnecessarily unpleasant parting shot PollyPerky.

I'm sure even you aren't quite so thick as to have not noticed we have a housing and cost of living crisis in this country. There are plenty of us living without the mod cons that the rest of you take for granted, and there are plenty of others who are forced to choose between food and fuel on a weekly basis.

I wouldn't recommend losing your job or your partner if I were you. I think you'd find it a shock to see how real poverty is in the 21st century UK.

I have to say that unless it was an absolute neccesity, there's absolutely no way I'd be using anyone else's bath water - minging!

I assume all of the people who think this is disgusting have never been in a public swimming pool, or hot tub!

There's a trend on MN to get really shocked about really mundane things. It makes me wonder how these people cope with actual issues - you know, things that are more shocking than 0.003 ounces of skin cells or a tiny iota of sweat in a bath full of water.

I suppose this issue depends on what you're expecting from a bath. If you're expecting to be able to have a wash and to emerge smelling nice, then carry on sharing a nice bubbly bath. If, however, you're expecting to be able to examine every inch of your skin under a microscope and will be rendered unable to cope if you find miniscule evidence of a close family member's skin cells on you, then have a shower on your own. Preferably in an oxygen tent. Similarly, if you are a surgeon about to operate, don't just dip your hands in the communal family bath.

Lol to bath sharers are 'in denial'!!

I just don't see what it matters. You will smell as clean even allowing for the terrifying skin cells of others. What do you think is going to happen??

I call BS on all this hysterical MN household/washing standards. I think half of the 'fresh towel for each finger at every hand wash' are secretly sleeping on fortnight-old sheets and clipping their toenails onto the carpet.

You're right! I've not been in a public pool for over 30 years for the same reasons as I'd not share dirty bath water. In fact a public swimming pool is much worse. Have you seen all the rogue sticking plasters and hair floating around, let alone the bacteria you can't see? No thanks.

Merchant- your sarcasm is quite funny. Would you be happy to have your hair washed- for example- at the hairdressers in water already used for another client? I assume so, as what's a few dead skin cells and a bit of hair between friends?

And sweat doesn't get into a bath. Sweat is water that evaporates on our skin and leaves behind some innocuous salts from our tissues. That's a cooling process. Bacteria feed on sweat and this produces the smell. Sweat won't 'dissolve' in bath water.

No one is being hysterical . The point is, a bath is supposed to be relaxing. If you just want a quick wash, use the shower. I'd rather not relax in a bath full of other people's skin scales, pubic hair, vaginal secretions, smegma, and bits of poo. Don't care if they are in my family or not. A genetic connection doesn't make it more appealing you know!

If people want to live like that, fair enough. But don't try to defend it and make out you are somehow superior to other people who prefer to take advantage of first world living in the 21st C. My parents shared bath water at times- in fact as a child we didn't have an indoor bath - tin bath in front of the fire till I was three. Thank god I have a better standard of living now.

Pollyperky

How do you cope with being in a room and breathing the same air as other people... I mean that air has been inside them and they've possibly polluted it with germs and viruses, and you're actually breathing it in 😮.

Modern living has made some people way too neurotic imo.

I never go swimming in public pools either Polly. I was so happy when DC2 turned 8.

But I don't think bath water sharing is 'disgusting'. It's just something I wouldn't do but realise others do.

That's such a stupid question is doesn't warrant a reply.

We used to do this when I was growing up but I would never do it now. Gross.

But I tend to have showers.

I would imagine there's a fair few people like me that were made to do it growing up and decided that once they had a choice then it would stop.

What about footballers? Don't they apparently all share the same very big bath, at the same time, after a lot of running around and falling over in mud? I believe that they are all pretty fit people, notwithstanding this exposure to a microbial tsunami.

Perhaps, as my mother used to say, there is something in deliberately exposing yourself to dirt to bolster the immune system?

I think Polly is getting a hard time for saying what lots of us are saying. If you can afford not to and don't like the idea of it then why would you?

I wouldn't.

I also don't think we need to be consistent with what we think is truck and what we don't! I use fresh towels 90% of the time but don't change my sheets all the time (probably less than fortnightly) and am fine with it. Most of its not logical it's just about how we feel

AFAIK, footballers shower after a game. Even if they have a huge tub.

You can expose all you like, the problem here is what you do in the end. Do people wash off dirty bath water or not?
After 3 or 4 people in, do you still just walk out of the bath?

The OP asked the question. Yes, for quite a few people, it's considered disgusting. Surprise.

men's bodies are different to women's. If you'd noticed. There are cases of women picking up vaginal infections and similar by swimming in public swimming pools or anywhere where there is gunk and bacteria. If you research the health risks of sharing a hot tub you'd never go in one again. Baths are not that different. The only difference is it's your own family in them.

Do you share a bed with your partner? I imagine dead skin is shed and shared here too. No body is going to die !

I never understood why footballers would share a huge bath anyway.