Bathing

Most bathing is done in hot water or hot steam. However, splash baths function like a cold shower to help people cool off on hot days. A jogger is shown, in this multiple exposure picture, running through the Dundas Square splash pad to cool down.

Bathing a baby in Mozambique.

Bathing is putting the body into a fluid, most often water, or a solution with water. Usually it is done for hygiene or for religious purposes, or for fun. Sometimes bathing is also done as a form of therapy.

When people talk about bathing, they most often mean being immersed in water. But people have also "bathed" in other substances. Some therapies involve bathing in mud. People have also bathed in other substances, like Champagne, beans, or chocolate. A form of bathing quite common is bathing in sunlight.

Reasons for bathing

Wild Japanese Macaque (Snow Monkey) come down from mountain in day time, having learned to bathe in winter at Jigokudani Onsen Nagano prefecture, Japan. Habit of bathing and warming body by Japanese Macaque is believed to be done only in this particular area and being taught to succeeding generations.

Bathing serves several purposes:

• Hygiene, and the physical appearance of cleanliness
• Decontamination from chemical, biological, nuclear or other exposure-type hazards.
• Recreation
• Therapy (e.g. hydrotherapy), healing, rehabilitation from injury or addiction, relaxation (e.g. Blessed Rainy Day)
• Religious, or, less frequently, other ceremonial rites (e.g. Baptism, Mikvah)
• Celebration and socialization, e.g. running through fountains after winning the World Series, or jumping through a hole cut in the ice over a lake on New Year's Eve.
• Ensuring people are free of certain items such as weapons or other contraband: In Chicago, Russian baths were a safe meeting place for rival gang leaders. Weapons are difficult to conceal on a nearly naked body. If the meeting resulted in reconciliation, the gangs would meet upstairs for bagels, cream cheese and borscht. Many homeless shelters, and almost all prisons have an intake facility or intake process that includes a supervised shower with change of clothes to ensure that no contraband or contamination enters the facility.

Other websites

• A virtual exhibition about bathing in art, from Cranach to Fellini