How to Take Showers in the Winter
When the weather is cold, and rain and snow are falling, we all feel the temptation to start taking longer showers and baths just to stave off the chill. As much as you think those hot showers are keeping the cold at bay, however, there’s a good chance that the way you are showering is making winter conditions that much worse. If you want to improve the quality of your winter showers, save some water, and stay warm, check out the following winter showering tips.
Keep It Short (and Under 99 Degrees)
Do you feel your skin drying out and itching the minute winter rolls around? It might not be the cold alone that’s causing you irritation; your hot showers are contributing to the problem, too. The longer one stays in the shower and the hotter the water, the more of the essential oils that protect your skin and keep it moisturized get stripped away. As such, experts recommend showering for no longer than 5 to 7 minutes at a time, keeping the water temperature under 99 degrees.
Switch Out the Soap
Another way to keep your skin from becoming dry and irritated during the winter is to switch to moisturizing body wash, instead of using bar soap. Despite the fact that most people use bar soap to bathe, studies have shown again and again that it is harmful to the skin, as it strips away the body’s natural protective coating, leaving skin vulnerable to the elements (like, say, extreme cold and dryness).
Replacing bar soap with body wash with moisturizers is an easy way to improve the quality of your shower without having to change any of your bathing habits.
Keep Your Towels and Robes Close
One of the worst parts of showering during the winter is the moment you have to step out of the warm, steamy shower and into the cold bathroom to reach for your towel or bathrobe. No one likes having to go from the relative warmth and comfort of a hot shower to stand on the barren and frigid bathroom floor just to be able to dry themselves off.
Fortunately, there’s a rather easy solution to this problem. Instead of keeping your towel or bathrobe positioned away from the shower, simply hang them over the bar or stall wall of your shower enclosure. That way, you’ll be able to reach for them without leaving the comfortable environs of the shower.
Obviously, you’ll want to position them so that the portion that falls inside the shower doesn’t get hit by water while you’re bathing. This shouldn’t be too difficult, however, since the downward trajectory of most shower heads means that a towel or robe hung on the opposite end of the shower can easily be positioned so that it stays in place without getting soaked.
Looking for a new shower enclosure? American Bath Enterprises, Inc. specializes in shower and bath supplies and installations; for more information, contact us today at 888-228-4925.