posted on 26 January 2012 | posted in Home and Garden
Many years ago, I lived in a small apartment in Japan, and loved everything about their interior decor - from the neat fold away tables to the tatami mats to the sliding doors. Most of all I love the Japanese style of bathing. While my current bathroom is perfectly functional, if I had the resources, I would rip it out completely and replace it with a Japanese-style bath, known as an ofuro. The Japanese bathe in two distinct steps. First, most of the actual soaping and body scrubbing occurs outside of the tub. You sit on a small stool with a plastic pan, soap and a rough-textured washcloth in front of a faucet. The faucet is unlike any that we use in the U.S. It lets you set the temperature once, and then turn the water off and on again, maintaining the temperature you have set. This means you don’t have to keep the water running constantly to maintain temperature. You sit on a bathing stool positioned above a drain in the floor, and take all the time you need to soap up, scrub, exfoliate and rinse. Once you have scrubbed every inch of your body outside of the tub, removing the day’s grime, dead skin cells and soap, you are ready for the best part – the soak. The Japanese soaking tub is a deep, square tub that is big enough for you to sit cross-legged and deep enough to sink up to your chin. The tub is heated, much like a western hot tub, so it is important to preheat the tub before bath time. Once you are in the tub, all of the cares of the day just melt away. The Japanese way of bathing not only feels much cleaner, but it saves on water and puts you in a deep state of relaxation before bedtime. Every time I climb into my perfectly functional American shower, I long for just one more good Japanese bath.