On the bathroom shelf

It used to be, when I was a child, that there would be a bar of soap for the hand basin and one for the bath (no shower) Thee would be shampoo, and toothpaste, in a tin, and it was like a compressed powder. There was zinc and castor oil cream when we were babies, and there was talcum powder. My mum had Nivea face cream, and there was a medicine cabinet with various ointments, plasters, cough linctus, and Germolene ointment. Sometimes for Christmas or birthdays we might receive bath salts, or bath cubes, which were as the name suggests a cube of something which smelled nice which dissolved in the warm bath water.

Now in our bathroom the shelves are groaning under the weight of all the different products we have – and that isn’t even counting what my daughter has in her room! We have soap on the basin, we have shower gel in the shower, we have not only shampoo but conditioner – oh and we each have our own different ones of all these, me, my husband and my son. There are face washes, body washes, body scrubs, exfoliating lotions, sanitizing hand gel. There is not only shampoo but conditioner ( and my daughter has about a gazillion different conditioners) Once we are out of the shower, there is no talcum powder, but there is face cream of many different sorts, body lotion, body butter, body cream, foot cream, hand cream, cuticle cream, cream for the bits round your eyes, rough skin cream… Then there are all the sprays, for feet, body, hair… And then there are all the different things needed for shaving; my husband just has some sort of foamy stuff, my son has several different things, sprays, foams, creams, oils, oh and then there are all the hair products…

We no longer have a bath, just a shower… maybe it’s just as well when I see all the different things which are apparently needed for bathing, bubbles, creams, bombs… sprays, mists…

Bathrooms used to be such simple rooms!