Some spa facilities provide bathing in various other liquids such as chocolate or mud. There have been examples of bathing in champagne, baked beans and all manner of other substances. The intentional exposure of the body to any agent may be considered bathing, for example to sunlight (sunbathing).

Reasons for bathing

Bathing serves several purposes:

• Hygiene, and the physical appearance of cleanliness
• Decontamination from chemical, biological, nuclear or other exposure-type hazards.
• Recreation
• Therapy (e.g. hydrotherapy), healing, rehabilitation from injury or addiction, relaxation (e.g. Blessed Rainy Day)
• Religious, or, less frequently, other ceremonial rites (e.g. Baptism, Mikvah)
• Celebration and socialization, e.g. running through fountains after winning the World Series, or jumping through a hole cut in the ice over a lake on New Year's Eve.
• Ensuring people are free of certain items such as weapons or other contraband: In Chicago, Russian baths were a safe meeting place for rival gang leaders. Weapons are difficult to conceal on a nearly naked body. If the meeting resulted in reconciliation, the gangs would meet upstairs for bagels, cream cheese and borscht. Many homeless shelters, and almost all prisons have an intake facility or intake process that includes a supervised shower with change of clothes to ensure that no contraband or contamination enters the facility.

Bathing is usually done in a bath (i.e. a place designed for bathing), but may also be done in places not specifically designed for the purpose, such as rooftops (sunbathing), a lake or river.

One town known for its baths is Bath (known during ancient Roman times as Aquae Sulis), a Roman city in England famous for healing hydrothermal springs. It was a popular resort town for the wealthy from Elizabethan to Georgian times.

History

Before the late 19th Century BC, water to individual places of residence was rare. Droughts would bring difficult times to people, and water usage was prioritized according to necessity, i.e., for personal consumption, agriculture, and other industrial endeavors such as hydro-power for mills, in the cloth and dye trades, and for livestock.

Cultural attitudes also determined the use of water. In the middle ages, public bathhouses were common in larger villages and cities. The appearance of the body - of cleanliness - was believed to reflect one's soul (i.e., the common phrase 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness') and most of the townspeople and aristocrats bathed frequently. This, however, required public nudity, which was frowned upon by liturgical factions of the period. The public baths were also havens for prostitution, thus much opposition to the public baths was to be found. Additionally, during the Renaissance and Protestant Reformation, the quality and condition of the clothing (as opposed to the actual cleanliness of the body itself) were thought to reflect the soul of an individual. Clean clothing also reflected one's social status; clothes made the man or woman. This fact still is reflected today in the industry of fashion.