Once again, for the week leading up to Hallowe'en, your intrepid bloggers are holding the Bathroom Blogfest. A full list of participating bloggers is shown below.
Bathrooms and culture
I've been thinking how much bathrooms -- our rituals around them -- tell us about who we are and what we think about things.
The bathrooms I wrote about earlier in the Third World represent the basic fundamental beginning of our "cleanliness = godliness" orientation.
But most of the bathrooms in modern homes go far beyond this. They are the place we prepare ourselves to face the world.
I look at the master bathrooms in new homes which are often palatial -- the master suite is practically self-contained, lacking only a kitchen. These make me wonder -- are parents no longer welcome in the rest of the house? Is family life so focused on children now that parents need a place to escape? Any thoughts on this?
The bathroom stuff -- lots of goop required to face the world
I look at the stripped down elegance of many of the bathrooms in decorating magazines and wonder where these people will put all their bathroom "stuff". Pick any single category, and you will find you have quite a lot of "stuff" to store in the bathroom. Shower products alone in my house fill every corner of the space in the shower-tub: multiple shampoos, conditioners, shines and glazes, plus body wash (for me) and soap (for him), as well as razors and buffers. The hair care category extends to dryers and brushes, gels and styling aids stored elsewhere.
Then there's the oral hygiene stuff -- ranging from mouthwash to tooth whitening preparations, toothbrushes, flossers, waterpicks for the committed...
There are the products we keep for days we are sick, becoming sick, worried about becoming sick, or recovering from being sick.
I haven't even started on cosmetics and skin preparations. I have a little drawer that just contains nail polish and related goop.
If we walked into an aboriginal encampment in the deepest Amazon jungle, and found there in their tents dozens of gourds containing different types of goop to slather on the body and hair in highly specific sequences, we would probably laugh. But we are no different, really, are we?
With our creams, gels and rituals we arm ourselves to face the world.
Bathroom Blogfest participating bloggers
| Name | Blog Name | Blog URL |
|---|---|---|
| Susan Abbott | Customer Experience Crossroads | http://www.customercrossroads.com/customercrossroads/ |
| Paul Anater | Kitchen and Residential Design | http://www.kitchenandresidentialdesign.com |
| Shannon Bilby | From the Floors Up | http://fromthefloorsup.com/ |
| Toby Bloomberg | Diva Marketing | http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/bloomberg_marketing/ |
| Laurence Borel | Blog Till You Drop | http://www.laurenceborel.com/ |
| Bill Buyok | Avente Tile Talk | http://tiletalk.blogspot.com |
| Jeanne Byington | The Importance of Earnest Service | http://blog.jmbyington.com/ |
| Becky Carroll | Customers Rock! | http://customersrock.net |
| Katie Clark | Practical Katie | http://practicalkatie.blogspot.com/ |
| Nora DePalma | O'Reilly DePalma: The Blog | http://www.oreilly-depalma.com/blog/ |
| Paul Friederichsen | The BrandBiz Blog | http://brandbizblog.com/ |
| Tish Grier | The Constant Observer | http://spap-oop.blogspot.com/ |
| Elizabeth Hise | Flooring The Consumer | http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com |
| Emily Hooper | Floor Covering News Blog | http://www.fcnews.net/category/blog/ |
| Diane Kazan | Urban Design Renovation | http://blog.urbandesignrenovation.com |
| Joseph Michelli | Dr. Joseph Michelli’s Blog | http://www.josephmichelli.com/blog |
| Veronika Miller | Modenus Blog | http://www.modenus.com/blog |
| Arpi Nalbandian | Tile Magazine Editors' Blog | http://www.tilemagonline.com/Articles/Blog_Nalbandian |
| David Polinchock | Polinchock's Ponderings | http://blog.polinchock.com/ |
| Professor Toilet | American Standard's Professor Toilet | http://www.professortoilet.com |
| David Reich | my 2 cents | http://reichcomm.typepad.com |
| Victoria Redshaw & Shelley Pond | Scarlet Opus Trends Blog | http://www.trendsblog.co.uk |
| Sandy Renshaw | Purple Wren | http://www.PurpleWren.com |
| Bethany Richmond | Carpet and Rug Institute Blog | http://www.carpet-and-rug-institute-blog.com/ |
| Bruce D. Sanders | RIMtailing | http://www.rimtailing.blogspot.com |
| Paige Smith | Neuse Tile Service blog | http://neusetile.wordpress.com/ |
| Stephanie Weaver | Experienceology | http://experienceology.blogspot.com/ |
| Christine B. Whittemore | Content Talks Business Blog | http://simplemarketingnow.com/content-talks-business-blog/ |
| Christine B. Whittemore | Smoke Rise & Kinnelon Blog | http://smokerise-nj.blogspot.com/ |
| Christine B. Whittemore | Simple Marketing Blog | http://www.simplemarketingblog.com/ |
| Ted Whittemore | Working Computers | http://www.kinneloncomputers.com/ |
| Chris Woelfel | Artcraft Granite, Marble & Tile Co. | http://www.artcraftgmt.com |
| Patty Woodland | Broken Teepee | http://www.brokenteepee.com/ |
| Denise Lee Yohn | brand as business bites | http://deniseleeyohn.com/bites/ |
