Bathing in dettol

[Pinkerbells]

So I was chatting to my friend about what we were doing after work, (we work in a restaurant), and she said she was going home to have a dettol bath. I though she was kidding as she has a bug, but no. Turns out she has a 45 minute soak in dettol every night, then changes the water and has a 45 minute bath in 'normal' bathwater. Is this a thing??????? AIBU to think that's so bad for your skin and fufu. Dettol's website (of course) say it's fine, but surely your killing germs bad or good.

Omg yes!!! My mum used to put a couple of cap fulls into the bath if me or DB had cut or grazed our selves... Which was quite common actually! I was always falling out of trees or toppling over my bike and grazing my knees when I was a kid. That was in the 90's and if I've cut myself now as an adult, I do the same. Two or three capfulls into the bath and soak.

Wouldn't use it for a normal bath mind.

My Mum would give me & my sisters dettol baths when we had been poorly.
Bizarrely vinegar in the bath if we got sunburn.
Gargling with TCP when we had a sore throat.
Covered in Vicks when we had a heavy cold or flu.
Cuts/grazes cleaned with salt water when the dettol had run out.
Bizarrely butter on burns , I remember burning my hand on the stove at the age of 3 & my Mum rinsed my hand under the cold tap & then covered my palm with butter! Wtf!

Hahaha my DSis has commented on this thread- dad and his Saturday night dettol baths I hasten to add he showered daily, but the dettol baths were a weekly ritual. A few weeks ago the cleaners used it in work and suddenly I was transported back to mum and dad's house, watching dad hulk his ghettoblaster into the bathroom so he could listen to Elvis in the bath.

Reading this thread I was thinking of having more baths and adding a bit as I'm having some eczema flare ups, but according to the dettol website you're not supposed to use it on "eczematous conditions".

I remember having dettol baths when ill or had a scrape

I still have them sometimes

Didn’t realise not everyone did this!

I have never had a dettol bath and neither have my DC’s. I didn’t even realise they were a thing until I watched Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners and a lady on there mentioned that she gave her DC a dettol bath once a week, but I didn’t think it was something a lot of people do, I assumed it was something to do with her OCD.
When I had my DC the midwife recommended adding some mild Johnson’s baby soap to the bath water, or salt if ladyparts were particularly sore.
As a child if I grazed my knee my DM would dab some cotton wool in some TCP to clean the graze, but certainly there were never antiseptics in the bath and I’m hardly ever ill so this hasn’t harmed me. I think it would be totally unnecessary for someone in good general health.

It was recommended to me after I had DS. That was 2006.

Oh. My. Fucking. God. I had completely forgotten about Dettol baths! My mum did this regularly for us and I'm completely remembering the smell now too! As @StoorieHoose said, coupled with Imperial Leather soap, Vosene shampoo (get any of that fucker in your eyes and it was instant blindness....) and the smell of singing hair as you dried it at the electric fire...a 70s childhood in a nutshell.
Toddles off to phone mum to get her reasoning for bathing us in disinfectant and to see if you can still buy Vosene.

Ooh, can I bathe in Zoflora??? Same kind of stuff?!!!!

Singed hair ffs. Not singing....that's another tale altogether 😬

This is turning into a classic thread. Nostalgic and full of cleaning/beauty tips. Plus a Milton Salad

@ArtificialArctophile you can still buy Vosene but they have changed the formula and it doesn’t quite smell the same (or strip the dye out your hair like it used to)

@StoorieHoose thanks for the info. I'll need to have a look next time I'm in a supermarket! I hope they've removed the "burn the eyeballs aff ye" ingredient too 😃

Love a dettol bath.... Although it Did strip the skin off my feet

My Mum used to do this too when my sister and I where children, it is a really bad idea as kills off the good bacteria as well
as the bad and increases antibiotic resistance. She would be better to have some natural yogurt ( Good for your gut bacteria!)
90 mins in the bath though! She must go to bed like a prune!

As much as I love Zoflora, I'm not sure that I would want to bathe in it!

My brother uses Dettol to strip paint off his Warhammer models

Yeah I don't fancy it

there are two different types of dettol and one type can be used to add to a bath
That's Savlon.

We used to soak our feet in a basin of water with Dettol in. I love the smell.

So fortunate to have clean water.
It’s used in countries where acces to clean water is an issue
One of the reasons I stared donating to water aid.

I bought some Vosene last year. It comes in this weird bottle now If you like stinky, matted hair this is the product for you.

The midwife recommended Dettol baths and tea tree oil on sanitary towels when I had DD and that was only 3 years ago now.
She was old-school though, maybe that's why.

I was too scared to use the Dettol then, I remember the stinging knees - tea tree oil worked a treat though.

My Nan used to attempt to get me to gargle with TCP; always turned that little delight down.

Ollivander: that's 'cos Hibiscrub is lush!

I had an abscess a couple of years ago, and the GP told me to have a salt bath twice a day, as well as take kill-or-cure antibiotics) I shouldn't read the possible side effects on the info leaflet. I have continued having salt baths (though more like twice a week than twice a day,) as it seems to do my skin good. It's probably counter-balanced by soaking it in chlorinated swimming pool water two or three times a week, though.

I don't remember having Dettol baths, but we did always have a bottle of it in the cupboard, and I remember the water turning milky, so maybe that was a bath, or a small bowl. I do remember the mix of pain and satisfaction from picking embedded gravel out of a badly-grazed knee, though.

We didn't have Savlon at home, but they did have the cream at school, and the nurse would use it if you fell over in the playground. I find it a very comforting smell because of that memory association.

I thought liquid TCP was no longer available - I don't have much left, so occasionally I think about checking when I'm in a pharmacy. Usually I forget. You can get a cream though. I think.

chlorinated swimming pool water

Which is basically dilute bleach, as someone pointed out upthread.

Gives me cystitis just thinking about it

@EBearhug I bought liquid tcp recently - in the summer I think.