Shower solution -- cheap, simple, and effective?

[robgendreau]

About the only thing you'll need with the stream option is ecofriendly soap such as: https://www.oars.com/blog/5-best-eco-friendly-soaps/

But be sure to remember not to get that soap in the stream. As the URL you cited notes, "That said, it's important to remember that no soap, eco-friendly or not, should be used directly in the river. Biodegradable soaps need soil to be broken down, so follow LNT guidelines and do your bathing at least 200 yards away from any water source."

 

[PlacidWaters]

Yeah, all you gotta do is heat water and then dump it upon yourself.

What you need for a shower might depend on the climate and your activities. If you've been hiking or rolling in the mud all day, for sure nothing beats a real shower. But here's my simple system:

1. If you're at a campground where you can be seen by other campers, wash at night in the dark.
2. If it's cold, wash before bed because you're going to enjoy it even less the next morning, when it's colder.
3. Heat about a half a gallon of water on the stove. Mix it with a half gallon of cold water to get one gallon of warm water.
4. Soap up. Get as much soap off as you can with a washcloth before you rinse.
5. Rinse. If possible stand in a basin to catch the rinse water and reuse it.

I have a solar shower but the above works so well that I never bother with the solar shower. If no or not much water is available, hand sanitizer works quite well on the whole body.

 

[CCPAJeeper]

Cabellas has a nice battery powered shower head. I have one, good flow and nice waterproof switch. It was about $35. As many have stated, I just heat water on the stove, mix into some additional water in a 5 gal bucket and we can get two or three showers out of it, depending how dirty we are at the time.

 

[robert]

Thanks for the plug robert. As a reminder, the cap comes off the Simple Shower, leaving one with a funnel that makes the bottle easy to fill.

For those unaware, the Simple Shower fits most standard 1, 1.5, and 2 liter bottles, including most collapsible bottles (e.g., Platypus). Weighs less than an ounce, made in the USA, and hopefully will help me pay for my daughter's college tuition next year

Learn something new every day; I guess I should have looked more closely at the website bt I bought mine a while ago. Skimming the instructions it doesn't seem to be mentioned (yep, first time I pulled them out of the box) and I had never tried to unscrew the top part before. That does make it easier to fill.

I've actualy got one here with me in the Philippines that I brought over for rinsing after hiking or swiming/surfing in the ocean.

 

[slvyj]

Thanks for the replies. For those of you who mix boiling water with cold, can you give me an idea of the ratio and resulting temp? Obviously it depends on the temp of the cold water.

No ratio, test with your hand to get the right temperature.

 

[Trophycummins]

Thanks for the replies. For those of you who mix boiling water with cold, can you give me an idea of the ratio and resulting temp? Obviously it depends on the temp of the cold water.

I use a 1.5gallon bug sprayer. Ill fill it with one full tea kettle that just came off the burner, then fill to the top with cold. End result is a very warm shower.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

 

[grogie]

I've got a 2 gallon solar bag, but either the water isn't hot enough for way too hot. So I just boil about a 1/2 gallon of water and add in the rest from a jug and it's perfect. 2 gallons is enough water for both my wife and I to use. Just get wet, soap up, wash it off. Amazing!

I did have a nice privacy tent that the bottle actually hung from the center of it, but one of the tent poles snapped after after three years so I've ordered a different one, but we'll see if I can get the bag to hang in the new one? Even with the last tent, it had to be tied down to keep it from falling over with the weight up top in the center. (Almost happened to the wife once!)

 

[MANUCHAO]

Water fire extinguisher.....

Going to try it out for after the surf sessions...