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You can't take it with you - so splash out on the ultimate bathtime experience
Why settle for tap water and buble bath, when you could be luxuriating in 300 gallons of Evian, nudging rose petals aside as you reach for another sip of Champagne, asks Julian Champkin, in our light-hearted series You Can't Take it With You
At the end of a long hard day treat yourself to one of life’s little luxuries. A nice, hot bath. Run it, to just the temperature you like it: not too hot, not too cold, just right.
Go for that extra touch that makes the difference: pour in a pack of your favourite bath salts, maybe, if that’s what you fancy; or bubbles, to feel slightly childish and decadent. Turn off the lights and do it by candle-power. And soak. Get you partner to bring you a glass of something bubbly. If you fancy it, and if the bath is big enough, get the aforesaid partner to get in with you, unless you’d prefer him or her gently massaging your back with the loofah...
Alternatively, have a real luxury bath. Go off to Florida, to the Hotel Victor on Miami Beach, and book one of their Evian baths.
It is just what it says it is: you bathe not in ordinary water but Evian water. The stuff that fell long ago as snow on French Alpine peaks, and emerged, slightly naturally sparkling, and with just that magic touch of minerals in it, from a natural spring in the spa town of Evian-les-Bains, where they bottle it just for you.
In Britain it sells for around 90 pence a bottle and you are meant to drink it, not bathe in it. In Miami they open the bottle and pour it in the tub. Then they open another bottle and pour it is, then another... You bathe in 300 gallons, a thousand litres and more, of the stuff, so a thousand bottles of Evian go into the tub. You do the sum: a thousand times 90 pence is £900. But still: it is much more relaxing, no doubt, than ordinary tap. They heat it of course, to your specified temperature, and fill your bath right to the brim, so it overflows a little as you get in it.
They give you the candles, naturally, just as you can do for yourself at home. And you get flowers. Orange and red fuschias surround your tub; red Gerber daisies float in it. Push a few of them aside with your delicate foot as you enter. You could specify rose-petals instead, if you prefer.
And you get bubbles in your bath. Evian is naturally slightly sparkling, but we are talking Krug Grande Cuvee champagne here. And no, you don’t have to pour that into the water, unless you really don’t like the taste of it. It comes in a glass, for drinking, with strawberries and sliced mango.
And they bring you other food, culinary creations from their chef. I nearly said ‘proper food’, but since one of those chef’s creations is Smoked Salmon Lollipops I am not sure that the word ‘proper’ strictly applies. (I assume it comes on a stick. That, I am afraid, is all I know about it at present, though I may be better informed after bath-time tonight.) But you can have his potted Cru of Foie Gras as well, and, to finish, a pudding plate called the Seven Sins of Chocolate.
You will emerge from your bath feeling, I hope, an awful lot more relaxed, and also £2,500 poorer. There is, though, something I should warn you about: one small but important thing may have been left out. Nowhere in the literature is this most necessary of bath requisites mentioned. So if you are packing for your bath-flight to Miami don’t forget your rubber duck. Embarassingly, you may have to supply your own.
