Bath Culture

A better soak, curated.

The board keeps a book dry and a screen at the right angle, so a bath becomes twenty quiet minutes you look forward to. A few things worth bringing to the water: books, streams, and playlists.

Books

The 12″ groove and backstand hold a book open and dry at eye level. A few ideas for what to bring to the water.

All 24 books →

The Women

By Kristin Hannah

Frankie McGrath signs up as an army nurse in Vietnam at twenty, and comes home to a country that would rather not hear about it. It is a long, heavy, absorbing novel, the kind you want a full tub and no interruptions for, not a quick ten minutes.

Publishers Weekly's number-one bestselling book of 2024, with close to 1.5 million copies sold that year, per Vietnam Veterans of America

On the board: It is a substantial hardcover. The 12″ groove and backstand hold it open at eye level, which matters more than it sounds when you are trying to keep both hands out of the water.

Buy The Women (opens in a new tab)

The Housemaid's Secret

By Frieda McFadden

The second Housemaid book, and the one people tend to finish in a sitting. Millie takes a cleaning job for a couple whose apartment has one room she is told never to enter. Chapters are short and end on a hook.

On the board: Short chapters are the practical advantage in a bath. You get a clean place to stop when the water cools, rather than abandoning a scene halfway through.

Buy The Housemaid's Secret (opens in a new tab)

Book Lovers

By Emily Henry

A cutthroat literary agent gets dragged to a small town for a month and keeps running into an editor she cannot stand. It is funny, well-observed, and knows exactly what it is doing with the small-town-romance formula.

On the board: A trade paperback sits flat and light on the rack, and the pages stay put, so no hand is needed to hold it open while the other one stays warm.

Buy Book Lovers (opens in a new tab)

Streams

The digital tablet groove holds a screen at a comfortable viewing angle, hands-free. Set something on and let the water do the rest.

All 5 streams →

Nobody Wants This

Netflix · ~30 minutes per episode — availability in Canada

A short, funny episode when you only have half an hour of hot water.

On the board: Half-hour episodes are the practical sweet spot: one fits comfortably inside a bath, propped in the tablet groove, with no decision to make about whether to start another.

The Diplomat

Netflix · ~50–60 minutes per episode — availability in Canada

A long soak when you want something with real plot to follow.

On the board: Episodes run close to an hour, so this is a top-up-the-hot-water watch. The tablet groove holds a screen at eye level for the whole of it, which your neck will notice.

The Handmaid's Tale

Crave and Prime Video · ~45–60 minutes per episode — availability in Canada

A watch you want to give full attention to, not a wind-down.

On the board: Worth being honest: this is not relaxing television. If you watch it in the bath, the tablet groove keeps the screen steady, but pick a different night if you wanted to unwind.

Playlists

Sound sets the room. A few moods for a longer soak. Build your own, or start here.

All 4 playlists →

Arms resting in a milky bath scattered with dried flower petals

Sunday Afternoon Bath Jazz

Spotify · 15 songs · about 1 hour

Our own playlist, and the one we reach for most. Slow, warm, mostly instrumental, the kind of thing that fills a room without asking anything of you.

About an hour, which is not an accident.

On the board: Roughly the length of a bath before the water turns. Put the phone face-down on a side tray and leave it there.

Listen on Spotify — Sunday Afternoon Bath Jazz (opens in a new tab)

A woman in a denim shirt leaning against a plain white wall

Sade Adu Radio

Spotify · 50 songs · about 3 hours

Made by Spotify, not by us

Sade and everything adjacent to her: smooth, unhurried, low in the mix. One of Spotify’s own radio playlists rather than ours, but it is the right texture for a long soak and we are not going to pretend we could build a better one.

Because Spotify maintains it, the track list shifts over time.

On the board: Long enough that you will not reach the end of it. Start it, put the phone down, and stop thinking about the music.

Listen on Spotify — Sade Adu Radio (opens in a new tab)

A person lying back in a bath wearing large over-ear headphones

Decompression Bath Bliss

Spotify · 16 songs · about 1 hour 20 minutes

For the end of a bad Tuesday. Vocal-led, slower than it starts, and meant to be played from the top without skipping, because the sequence does most of the work.

Dim the lights if you are going to bother dimming anything.

On the board: Best heard in order, which means not touching the phone. Face-down on a side tray, screen off.

Listen on Spotify — Decompression Bath Bliss (opens in a new tab)

What the research says

What a warm bath does, and what it doesn’t

A systematic review of thirteen studies found that a warm bath one to two hours before bed helped people fall asleep faster and rate their sleep as better.^{1
Source 1: Haghayegh S, Khoshnevis S, Smolensky MH, Diller KR, Castriotta RJ, Sleep Medicine Reviews 2019} It looked at showers as well as baths, and the authors are clear the research base is still small.

In a small Japanese crossover trial, two weeks of ten-minute warm baths left people reporting less fatigue and stress than two weeks of showers.^{2
Source 2: Goto Y, Hayasaka S, Kurihara S, Nakamura Y, Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2018} Thirty-three people, all self-reported, which is worth knowing before anyone calls it proof.

That is the honest extent of it. You will see bath products claim percentage improvements in circulation, muscle soreness, and flexibility. We went looking for the studies behind those and could not support them, so we do not make them.

Sources

Haghayegh S, Khoshnevis S, Smolensky MH, Diller KR, Castriotta RJ (2019). Before-bedtime passive body heating by warm shower or bath to improve sleep: A systematic review and meta-analysis (opens in a new tab) . Sleep Medicine Reviews.

Pooled thirteen studies of warm baths and showers before bed and found improved self-rated sleep quality and a shorter time to fall asleep. The authors note the research base is small, and the studies cover showers as well as baths.

Back to reference 1 in the text
Goto Y, Hayasaka S, Kurihara S, Nakamura Y (2018). Physical and Mental Effects of Bathing: A Randomized Intervention Study (opens in a new tab) . Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

A crossover trial of 33 adults in Japan: two weeks of ten-minute warm baths produced lower self-reported fatigue and stress than two weeks of showers. Small, single-season, self-reported, and the authors caution the result may not transfer outside Japan.

Back to reference 2 in the text