I run a few small hotels here in Japan. Which means I’ve probably seen more bathrooms than any one person reasonably should.
Tiled ones from decades ago. Sleek little jacuzzi rooms. Plain, modern unit baths that look almost identical to what most Japanese families actually have at home. They all look completely different.
But every single one is built around the exact same rule. It took a guest asking me a very confused question to realize most people outside Japan have no idea this rule exists.
She’d just found out that in a Japanese home, the whole family uses the same bathwater. Not fresh water each time — the same tub, reheated, for everyone. Her face was somewhere between horrified and fascinated. I don’t blame her.
Here’s the part nobody explains: you’re not supposed to wash in the tub at all. You wash and rinse completely first — sitting on a little stool, using a handheld shower, scrubbing with a nylon towel until you actually lather up. Only once you’re clean do you get in the tub.
At that point, the water isn’t washing anything off you. It’s just for soaking. Warming up. Sitting still for a minute after a long day.
Once you see it that way, sharing the water stops being strange. Everyone who gets in is already clean. That’s the whole trick.
It’s also why, no matter which of my bathrooms I walk into — fancy, plain, or a little old — the setup is always the same. A stool. A bowl. A shower low enough to sit under. And a towel by the tub that’s done more scrubbing than soaking.
I use the same kind at home, for what it’s worth. Linked below, if you’re curious.
Which part surprised you more — the shared bathwater, or the fact that the tub was never for washing in the first place?
I use the same kind at home, for what it’s worth — a GOSHI exfoliating shower towel, gray.
Funny enough, it’s not even a traditional Japanese brand. It’s made by a company in Los Angeles, working with textile manufacturers in Gunma. A very specific kind of cross-Pacific relationship, for something that’s just a piece of fabric.
Which part surprised you more — the shared bathwater, the fact that the tub was never for washing in the first place, or the towel’s passport?
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