• The great debate. What uses less water? A shower or a bath? This will depend on how long you shower for and how big your bathtub is.

But overall, a shower wins this one. A 10 minute shower under a standard showerhead uses approximately 25 gallons (94.6 litres) of water. If your showerhead is WaterSense certified, you will use less water.

Bathtub sizes vary but on average they hold 80 gallons (303 litres) of water. If you only fill your tub halfway for your bath, you will use 40 gallons (152 litres) of water. Most baths will likely use more water because who only fills their bathtub halfway when having a bath?

• Americans take on average 6.7 showers a week and men take more showers a week than women. 

• Showering is the second largest usage of water in a household. Second only to flushing the toilet. Showering accounts for 19 percent of indoor water usage.

• The EPA says the average shower is about eight minutes long and uses approximately 16 gallons (60 litres) of water.

• Americans use around one trillion gallons of water a year showering. That’s almost four trillion litres.

• Standard showerheads have a flowrate of 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm). For those of us in Canada that’s 9.46 litres per minute (lpm).

A WaterSense certified showerhead uses less water, a maximum of 2.0 gpm (7.56 lpm), Some WaterSense showerheads use as little as 1.0 gpm (3.79 lpm).

• Legend has it that Marilyn Monroe once had a bath but she substituted the water with champagne. It took 350 bottles of champagne to fill her tub. That’s one expensive bath.

• Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, also liked extravagant baths. It is said that she took her daily bath in donkey’s milk. She believed bathing in the milk would help preserve the beauty of her skin and keep her looking young.

She supposedly had a herd of 700 donkeys to provide the amount of milk needed to support her bathing habits.

• The oldest surviving bathtub is from 1,500 BC. It was found in a Queen’s bathroom in the Minoan Palace of Knossos on the island of Crete. It was a five foot long pedestal tub made from pottery. 

• The ancient Greeks didn’t use soap to clean their bodies. They used blocks of pumice, ash, sand, and clay. Some accounts suggested they rinsed this off and rubbed oil into their skin. Other accounts say they didn’t rinse off before adding the oil and they used a scraper called a “stigil” to remove the oil and dirt.

• Tony Galento, a boxer in the 1930s and 1940s, reportedly did not shower as a fight tactic. He hoped to distract his opponent with his body odour.

• Have you ever heard of Ablutophobia? It is an anxiety disorder and is the extreme fear of bathing and washing.

• Tub games. The longest Monopoly game to be played in a bathtub lasted 99 hours.

• In 2019, a Guinness World Record was awarded to Huis Ten Bosch Co., LTD. of Japan for the largest gold bathtub. It weighed 154.2 kg (339 lbs 15 oz).

• In 2009, a world record was awarded to PertPlus and the Chicago Firefighters for the world’s largest shower. It measured 30.47 m (100 ft) long by 12.9 m (40 ft) wide by 3.04 m (10 ft) high. They also tried for the world record of the most people showering at the same time but were unsuccessful.

• The most people showering at the same time is currently 396. This was achieved by Irish Springs at the Firefly Music Festival in 2018.

• During World War II in London, a woman was taking a bath when a bomb hit her house. The force of the blast flung the bathtub out of the house with the poor woman still inside it. The tub was found outside, upside down with the naked woman underneath it unhurt.

• Bathtubs are not just another place to read your favourite novel. Apparently several famous authors liked writing in their bathtubs. Edmund Rostand — Cyrano de Bergerac, Agatha Christie — famous mystery author, Vladimir Nabokov — Lolita, Rod McKuen — poet, and Dalton Trumbo — screenwriter are all rumoured to write in their bathtubs. How about you?

• Benjamin Franklin is credited with bringing the bathtub to America. It’s also rumoured he enjoyed writing in the tub too.

• On the Titanic, the 709 third-class passengers had to share two bathtubs for what was supposed to be a seven day voyage from Southampton to New York City.

• December 5th is Bathtub Party Day and October 5th is National Bathtub Day. Yes, there are two days a year commemorating baths. Both days encourage people to skip their shower and have a relaxing bath instead.

• In Canada and the United States there are a few weird laws concerning bathtubs. Not sure if these laws are still on or were ever on the books, but urban legend says:
  • Etobicoke, Ontario has a bylaw stating one cannot fill a bathtub with more than 3.5 inches of water.
  • In Pennsylvania it is illegal to sing in the shower.
  • Kansas City, Missouri has an old law forbidding feet that resemble animal paws on clawfoot bathtubs. A potential reason for this law is the city wanted to stop the use of real animal paws.
  • In 1924, Arizona instituted a law that a donkey cannot sleep in a bathtub.
  • In Kentucky, citizens are required by law to have a bath (or shower) at least once a year.
  • In Barre, Vermont residents were required to have a bath every Saturday night.