Where on earth do you dry your hair?

[ynkee0107]

Okay. So I'm American and while I love my adopted home, one thing that really really annoys me about this country is the lack of real plug sockets in bathrooms. (Honestly I could just as easily fill the kitchen sink with water and drop my hairdryer in it if I wanted to off myself... the "safety" issue is a bunch of bs... rant over).

Anyway. Where do you dry your hair?!?

I wash and dry mine every morning. And right now my hair dryer lives in the kitchen (yuck).

I desperately want to use the bathroom mirror but would have to run extension cords through the house.

Suggestions please! :-)

"but then the concept of electrical items being sold int he UK without plugs (???Dear God why????) was an even greater unfathomable mystery to me"

It was to me as well, and I'm British. They stopped this practice years ago. I wonder how many mumsnetters are old enough to remember this?

I remember buying an electrical item without a plug! It was a very dusty small independent shop and it was clearly "old" stock. I just wanted to support a local shop rather than a chain. When did that stop? I think this must have been 1997 or thereabouts.

Even John Lewis used to sell toasters and irons without plugs...I was sure there must be a connection between not allowing the British public to have sockets in their bathrooms and not allowing them to have plugs on their appliances!???

You could get a built-in hair dryer installed in the bathroom (I.e. no socket) - e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Terratek-Mounted-Electric-Bathroom-Settings/dp/B01II8CE40/ref=pdsbss3643??encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=WJ3WFHATFZMPRCP2VC2X

No all electrical items used to be sold without plugs janin, much like today when you only get a lead for items and need to provide a plug. The only difference is no wiring.

Sitting room, it just works best.

Bedroom :)

Using a hairdryer in a bathroom is completely different from using an appliance in the kitchen. A hairdryer could cause serious injury if dropped in water.

I know this having managed (like a complete muppet) to blow up my hairdryer in florida by dropping it. I've never in my life dropped my hairdryer whilst drying my hair but do it the one time I'm in a bathroom near water. It promptly went bang and caught fire. Luckily, nobody was hurt but it was a bit scary.

UK has higher voltage electricity supply than many other countries - thus it is a bit more dangerous to have our mains electricity around water. Plus we like our safety standards. I think combination of those two facts is reason why no plugs (or flat plate light switches) in bathrooms.

In Russia voltage is the same as here, and everyone has sockets in bathrooms, washing machines are nearly always in bathrooms. Light switches are not pull cords, but they are usually positioned right outside the door. My Spanish friends complained about no sockets in bathrooms too, it might well be that UK IS the only country in the world which doesn't allow normal sockets in bathrooms.

However I've long stopped being bothered by the absence of sockets in bathrooms, but what makes my jaw drop, we are looking at rentals right now and there are plenty of houses built in the 90s and all the sinks have two taps and plenty have just baths(with two taps or one of those fake mixer taps with separate holes for hot and cold water inside the spout), AND NO SHOWER AT ALL. I just don't understand how they expect people to live without a shower, and it's not like you could install it yourself in a rental.😮
Surely it's unique to UK as well...

They used to sell appliances without plugs, but otherwise there was no point learning to wire a plug at Brownies.

Why do hotels have those weird crap hair dryers in the bathroom rather than normal ones in the bedroom on the dressing table? And come to that, why are hotel dressing tables always lit by a crappy 8 watt bulb that you can't do makeup in? It's the one thing that every woman ever says is wrong with hotel rooms, and they all do it. Why???

I don't understand why mixer taps aren't the norm here either. Only one of our basins has two taps and everything else is a mixer. I don't get what the problem is with having a fake mixer tap on the bath because the water gets swished around and mixed in anyway.

I'm surprised that the new builds don't have showers as well. We have two showers and a bath, and 99% of the time we shower, but I would never get rid of the bath. I had a nice long soak in it last night. I also find it easier to shave my legs in the bath than the shower.

It was to me as well, and I'm British. They stopped this practice years ago. I wonder how many mumsnetters are old enough to remember this?

This is surely linked to the uniquely British statement that someone is hopeless if they 'don't even know how to wire a plug!'

To which the response from the rest of the world is invariably 'why the fuck would you need to wire a plug?'

Doobigetta I find lighting in hotels inadequate anyway. I have crap eyesight and the last thing I need is dim lighting. I need to be able see what I am doing.

Oh gosh, yy to washing machine and tumble dryer in bathroom - logical place for those appliances IMO
And do NOT get me started on taps...

The voltage argument does not carry - 240V in Germany too....

I had my Brownie badge for plug wiring too!

Bedroom, or if DH is asleep living room. Anywhere except the kitchen really, because I (possibly irrationally) find that gross.

When we did work on our house 2 years ago, we took out the bath and replaced it with a shower, which meant we had room for our washing machine (didn't seem an issue having that plugged in near water). I'd wanted it there ever since seeing it like that at a friend's house in are Netherlands 20 years before! So logical, much nicer not having to traipse downstairs with dirty washing. Yes, I still have to take it down in a basket to hang out in summer but you'd be doing that anyway to take washing down to the kitchen. And if anything falls out when unloading the machine, at least it's on a fairly clean bathroom floor and not the kitchen floor. Made space for extra corner carousel in the kitchen as well.

I'm not sure a country where anyone is trusted to wire a plug, or do any number of other "minor" electrical repairs around the house, can really say its our great concern for electrical safety that stops us from having outlets in bathrooms.....??

Isn't the lack of mixer taps to do with dead pigeons in water tanks.....or something (demonstrates total lack of comprehension about this)...

I posted on an American interior design site a few months ago when we were re-doing our bathrooms. The shock and handwringing I got about the lack of mixer taps was quite amusing. Apparently my children are going to be seriously scalded every time a bath is run and it was completely irresponsible and a serious health and safety hazzard to install a bath without a mixer tap.

DH is Italian and after 6 years in the U.K. the lack of mixer taps became too much! That and the fact many English houses have carpet in the bathrooms

I don't get what the problem is with having a fake mixer tap on the bath because the water gets swished around and mixed in anyway.
Iamastonished

Kids, especially toddlers, (and sometimes adults) love to play with water while the bath is being filled, and that stupid type of tap it is impossible, what is the point of it? just do two taps then so that at least people are not caught out being scalded and frozen at the same time

I dry my hair in the bedroom here, but before I moved to this country I did dry it in the bathroom, not just because there were sockets there, but also because there was space there, and I didn't have condensation all over the walls or water dripping off the ceiling after a long shower! With a bathroom door open mirrors would unsteam within a couple of minutes. There was no question of drying myself in the wet bathroom, because ventilation and heating in bathrooms(and the rest of the house!) in most other countries is far more efficient.

When I first moved to the UK I couldn't understand why there were so many adverts on TV of air fresheners, dehumidifiers and the like. Took living here for a bit and attempting to fry something in the kitchen (even with the cooker hood on full blast) to understand why.

Obviously I only have experience of houses I lived in or stayed with family, friends or on holidays. Never stayed in a house bulit after 2000, maybe they now do use the experience of housebuilding from abroad, or in general UK building industry has moved forward? So no condensation or poor ventilation issues any more. Though I'd ban separate taps. Surely with combi boilers and no need for a hot water tank the issue of dead pigeons has disappeared?