Okay, I'm male, and on the whole I prefer baths, but it depends on the situation.

I get cold easily, being thin. Because of this, I have a hell of a time with showers, which are frequently undependable as to temperature. You adjust the damned thing so you think you've got it right (freezing to death all the while), then all of a sudden somebody turns on a tap somewhere, and you are alternately either boiled alive like a lobster or again frozen! You frantically struggle with the tap to correct the situation, but it keeps changing. This happens repeatedly. The only way to have a shower in peace is to be Adolf Hitler or Idi Amin or someone like that and pass a law that no one else is to use water when you are in the shower, on pain of death. Even then, the shower may deliver a pitiful stream of water, insufficient to wash even a hamster in less than half an hour (if you could get the hamster to cooperate, which I doubt).

Now baths...baths are totally controllable as to temperature and volume of water, and thus are a gloriously sensual and relaxing experience in every way, and they DO get you clean, but the long hair thing can be vexing...

Carol, here is my suggestion. You take a lengthy bath, wash your hair thoroughly, then let out the bath water. Then rinse your hair, using either the shower head or the bathtub tap. Use a little more shampoo, if needed. Works quite well, I think.

Now showers can be good, if they're fairly strong, but not so strong that they flay you alive. Such showers are not easy to find. When staying in a hot place like Trinidad, showers are great, and I found myself taking 3 or 4 of them a day. In this case, a quick refreshing shower was the perfect thing, and cool water not a problem.

But in Canada...it's baths, baby, baths! Unless you have a VERY efficient shower.

- LH