A shower is a place in which a person bathes under a spray of typically warm or hot water. Indoors, there is a drain in the floor. Most showers have temperature, spray pressure and adjustable showerhead nozzle. The simplest showers have a swivelling nozzle aiming down on the user, while more complex showers have a showerhead connected to a hose that has a mounting bracket. This allows the showerer to hold the showerhead by hand to spray the water onto different parts of their body. A shower can be installed in a small shower stall or bathtub with a plastic shower curtain or door. Showering is common due to the efficiency of using it compared with a bathtub. Its use in hygiene is, therefore, common practice.
A typical stall shower with height-adjustable nozzle and folding doors
A combination shower and bathtub, with movable screen
Illustration of showers from Traité sur l'aliénation mentale et sur les hospices des aliénés (Treatise on insanity and on the hospices of the insane) by Joseph Guislain (1826). At the time it was thought cold water showers could alleviate mental illness
Public shower room
Bathing is the act of washing the body, usually with water, or the immersion of the body in water. It may be for personal hygiene, religious ritual or therapeutic purposes. By analogy, especially as a recreational activity, the term is also applied to sun bathing and sea bathing.
Detail of Jean-Pierre Norblin de La Gourdaine's Bath in the Park (1785)
Astronaut Jack R. Lousma taking a shower in space, 1973
A woman preparing to bathe
Three young women bathing. Side B from an Ancient Greek Attic red-figure stamnos
