Meaning and politics in your bathtub

Fancy bath stuff has a strange fascination. When I was little I’d open my aunt’s cabinets and smell all the different kinds of shampoo and conditioner; so exciting and mysterious compared to our own house with its unrelenting Johnson & Johnson No More Tears Shampoo, Wella Balsam conditioner, and plain yellow bars of Dial soap. My dad would bring back tiny bottles of hotel bath stuff from business trips, which Laurakeet and I would fight over.

At Christmas we would buy my mom these bath beads that we did not realize were really disgusting. They were oil, encapsulated in jewel-like round, rubbery casings. When they got wet their textural changes were endlessly bizarre.We’d steal them or beg for them, more for hoarding and gloating than for use.

Even now, when I go to Laurakeet’s house, I check out all her bath junk and feel super jealous of it and complain bitterly until she buys me the best of it for Christmas. Our sibling rivalry continues, as we reproach each other: How could you have bought this for yourself and not for me, too?

Beyond its actual use, I wonder if the fancy bath stuff has a meaning to us. It’s luxury, abundance, wealth, power. We gloat over having a variety of things to choose from, so it’s an illusion of choice and control available to us as consumers in a capitalist society. It might hold meaning to us for femininity and adulthood, or sexual power. And it also might give a feeling of respect for and control over the body.

Deep thoughts! Now if only my bathtub were equally deep, I’d be very happy.

Leave me alone, I am in the bath!

We love fancy bath stuff!