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So You Elect the Path of Pain

Back in the Vietnamese-American War, apparently soldiers bathed not at all frequently. For one thing, the rains yonder will bathe you anyway. And if you were a Vietcong or NVA soldier you might spend heaps of time underground where you were crawling with muck and mire; the question was hence rather moot. (The Vietcong learnt that underground tunnel trick from the PRC PLA, as Chinese liberation guerrillas had similarly hid underground to fight the Japanese.)

When USA soldiers were to take a bath, they would take a GI shower. The procedure is as follows, as I’ve been told by them as did it.

GI Shower

1. Fill your brain bucket (helmet) with some more or less clean water.

2. Use a bandanna to get moist on your naked body.

3. Soap off your dirty bits, especially your unmentionable areas.

4. Sponge off the soap with the rest of the brain bucket water.

5. Put your kit on.

Japanese Scrubby

Simple, eh? If you scrub hard enough, you can get nicely clean this way, I shall heartily attest. Of course, your favourite Shufei uses a small pink tub and a nice Japanese scrubby rather than a bandanna, usually.

And on that last point, I must enthusiastically reaffirm as a recommendation! Go to a Japantown and find one of these scrub cloths. Make sure it is a quality Japanese product. I admit to feel awkward recommending it, and will deny it if asked to my face, but you want a Japanese scrubby, not a Chinese one which is likely to be of lesser quality plastic. Taiwanese ones will do, natch, but good luck finding one in NorthAm. There are Japanese resellers online who might fetch you one.

You think I’m kidding, I intuit. I’m not. If you spend anything more than weekend warrior time in the great wilds of North America, you want a Japanese scrubby. You might make do with a scrubby for pots from a five-and-dime shop, for a spell. But a Japanese scrubby is just as abrasive at quickly abrading skin and grime. It also can last many years if kept well in kit. (Don’t let it get UV damage.) Also, it is handy for scrubbing one’s back, natch, as one sees in ribald old cartoons.

More Compliations

It’s pretty moist out Vietnam way, and warm to boot. It smells delightful, with the flowers incensing the breezes. But let’s say you are in a colder clime? Let’s say you are an average Joe, Molson in hand, nude as a sparrow save for a tuque, keen to prove your Canadian-American grit to the ice fishing lads? You can bathe with snow. A bit of top crust snow is almost as good as a Japanese scrubby for dermabrasion.

Surely, one better hop fast and get dry double time if one goes the snow route. And the lads or cowgirls will be impressed. But it must needs be done with an eye to thermostatting oneself if one doesn’t want a fun pneumonia.

I’ve no ego on the line, nor boozy ice fishing mates, so do not usually take a full body snow bath. (It does feel good right after a brisk hike!) But thermostatting oneself, keeping a keen eye on body temperature, is worth underscoring, worth understanding in a visceral sense. And a snow bath certainly can teach that art. Knowing thyself means knowing thy limits, and how reasonably fungible they are. For myself, I shan’t bathe with standing water colder than 5°C (40° F) usually. And if ambiently cold, I wait to say howdy to our good friend Sun as he passes from behind a cloud. Hello Sun! Hello clouds! Likewise, wind chill is no scoffing matter. All good data to throw in the mix.

Don’t Bathe?

Let’s say it’s too plum cold. I heartily recommend lugging some astringent and rubbing alcohol on any excursion. Sadly, they don’t seem to make my favourite brand of astringent anymore! It was bright yellow, and might be had anywhere in drugstore or market cosmetics sections. It could strip paint (literally) and left the skin a deliciously taut, clean plasticine.

The next best I’ve found is some orange stuff, likely a reformulation of the same: Clean & Clear. It’s got salicylic acid in it, which I believe the yellow stuff had. Probably some doddering, unacommpanied urchin drank a bottle down and the company got sued. It’s not as good as the old yellow astringent, but it will do with a bit of rubbing alcohol afterward. It has some kind of cosmetic residue I don’t care for. The astringent will strip oils, the alcohol will wash off the residue.

It should go without saying to be careful of anything besides dry skin when cleaning this way. But for anyone who demands a nice clean feeling slipping in bed, it will do.

In Hot Water

Few joys compare to a bath in a hot spring on a cold winter morning. If one is canny with the gab at the local haunts, one can find nice hot springs wherein buckaroos have set a pipe to fill a cattle water pan. Delightful. Watch the ecology, natch, with any soaps: bathe afield from the spring and its vicinity, then remove back to soak in the cowgirl onsen.

There’s also heating a bit of snow or cold water on a fire to try. To stand in the altogether under a cold winter day washed by a warm tub of hot water mixed with snow will soothe any body. Remember to wait for sunlight, calm air, and keep the towel handy!

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

For those of us with, shall we say, further complications to cleaning, the above regimens can suffice to assure a reasonably clean self in almost any extremity where water and fuel are available. Naturally, one wants feminine hygiene items on hand. I’m not a fan of the more exotic of these, the more “industrial” solutions. (Sometimes literally; apparently American women in the 70’s would douche with Lysol. Ouch!) But some lady wet wipes do come in handy, especially on days when cleaning with astringent; it would be a bad idea to confuse the two products!

Chin Chin

Truly, there is no valour to be had as a stinky outdoorswoman or -man. It isn’t really needed. One can indeed often maintain better than a bare modicum of hygiene even in very remote locations of much duration. To this I can attest. So briskly pleasing can be embracing the human right of bathing au naturale, with naught but trees for shade. And what a joy there is in melting snow for both a bath and a delicate brew of tea.

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