The Lost Art of the Everything Shower

Scarlett Column No.001 | 3 min read

There are showers you take because you have somewhere to be. And then there are the ones for which you cancel everything else.

There was a time, before we gave everything a name, when showertime was simply what happened when you realised you needed cleaning up. You know the evening: you catch sight of your dirty hair, or a whiff of your own armpit, and decide things can no longer continue like this. Your hairy legs need attention, your skin feels rough in places it shouldn't, and there is still a trace of liner and mascara from two days ago that really ought to be removed properly. Somewhere between deciding to wash your hair and reaching for the body scrub, an ordinary shower quietly becomes an undertaking. The bathroom door closes, and you resolve that nobody should need you for the foreseeable future.

Now we call it the “everything shower”, a phrase that has travelled enthusiastically through TikTok, beauty pages and bathroom shelves. There are everything-shower routines, checklists and elaborate diagrams explaining what to do before, during and after. The internet, being the internet, has managed to organise even this. But women have been disappearing into bathrooms for long, uninterrupted sessions of washing, conditioning, shaving, scrubbing and moisturising for much longer than social media has been around. We just didn't think it required documentation.

Perhaps that is why I have such affection for the everything shower. Beneath all the products, glamour and seven-step routines is something wonderfully old-fashioned: the decision to give yourself more time than is strictly necessary.

The shower that is not really a shower

A normal shower is functional. Water on, wash, rinse, leave. Twelve minutes if you are being leisurely; five if somebody is waiting. An everything shower operates according to entirely different laws, beginning before the water even comes on. Hair needs detangling; makeup comes off; perhaps the face and body get a scrub, some steam or a mask. Products begin appearing beside the bath as though summoned for a meeting: shampoo, conditioner, hair mask, cleanser, exfoliator, soap, razor and invariably something you bought months ago and have been “meaning to try”.

Then comes the water. There is something deeply satisfying about washing your hair when you have nowhere to rush to afterwards. The first shampoo removes the week's accumulation; the second finally gives you that extravagant lather you were hoping for. Conditioner goes in and, instead of immediately rinsing it out because you are late, you leave it alone to do what the bottle has been asking you to let it do all along.

This is when the good soap comes out. I have always thought soap tells you quite a lot about a person's relationship with bathing. There is soap purchased purely to make the body clean, and then there is soap chosen because you actually enjoy using it: the scent when water hits it, the creaminess of the lather, the way your hands move more slowly over your skin because the experience itself feels good. A bar of Esteem Royale Goat Milk Soap belongs to that second category. It cleans, certainly, but this is precisely the sort of shower in which utility is allowed a little pleasure.

Then the exfoliation begins: elbows, knees, heels, the back of the arms, all those territories that receive considerably less attention during the Monday-to-Friday morning rush. Perhaps there is shaving. Perhaps there isn't. The everything shower has no universal rules, despite what the checklists suggest. Its extravagance lies in doing your everything, not somebody else's.

When did bathing become another thing to optimise?

We have become extraordinarily efficient at beauty. There are sixty-second cleansing routines, overnight treatments, multitasking formulas and products promising to remove entire steps from our lives. Most mornings, this is exactly what we need; I doubt many of us want to wake at five simply to prove our commitment to skincare. But our obsession with saving time can make us forget that some things are enjoyable precisely because they take time.

That's what long baths have always understood. Nobody runs a bath because it is the fastest available method of getting clean. The bath announces, by its very existence, that we have decided not to hurry. The everything shower deserves the same generosity.

And then there is the pleasure of what comes afterwards. Freshly washed hair wrapped in a towel, body lotion smoothed over skin while it is still slightly damp, oil worked into shins and shoulders. Toner, serum, face cream. Something for the feet if we are feeling especially virtuous. Deodorant, then a body mist or fragrance because merely smelling clean isn't quite the same as smelling wonderful. Hair dried and tended to. A silk nightie, pyjamas or an old nightshirt you refuse to throw away.

By the time you finish, every available inch has been washed, polished, softened, conditioned or moisturised. Perhaps that is also why the everything shower feels disproportionately satisfying after a difficult week. Women are so accustomed to being reachable that even our quiet moments are routinely interrupted. Phones follow us from room to room, work follows us home, and family group chats have no concept of business hours. The bathroom remains one of the few places where disappearing for forty-five minutes is still socially defensible. For that little while, the radius of your attention becomes wonderfully small.

I remember the women I grew up around treating bathing with a seriousness that had nothing to do with trends. There was always a distinction between having a quick wash and bathing properly. The latter took time. Skin was scrubbed. Certain areas received stern attention. Cream followed. Hair was tended to. You didn't simply become clean; you emerged groomed.

Across cultures, the particulars change: the hammam, the sauna, the bathhouse, the long soak, the bucket and sponge, the Sunday hair-washing ritual, but we have always found ways to make getting clean more ceremonial than hygiene strictly requires. The everything shower is simply our modern version, complete with a waterproof playlist and an alarming number of bottles.

Bring back the unnecessary hour

So have the efficient shower tomorrow morning. Use the multitasking serum. Buy the product that saves you ten minutes. There is no virtue in making ordinary life unnecessarily difficult. But every so often, take the long way. Light the candle. Wash your hair twice. Let the mask sit. Use the scrub you keep forgetting you own. Pay attention to your heels. Open the expensive soap. Stand beneath the water for a little longer after there is absolutely no practical reason to remain there.

Then moisturise properly, put on something clean and soft and, if you have the energy, change the sheets. Few combinations in adult life are as reliably magnificent as an everything shower followed by fresh bedding. And try not to schedule anything afterwards.

Some pleasures are improved by having nowhere else to be.

Discover the Esteem Royale body-care collection.

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