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Kneipp Bath Oils

By Jesse Kornbluth
Published: Apr 22, 2015
Category: Gifts and Gadgets

“Who takes a bath these days?” Molly Young asked recently in The New York Times Magazine. “Raise the subject with friends or family, and you’ll hear the standard objection: ‘Why would I want to soak in my own filth?’ This is a fair point to raise if your job results in actual defilement — scrubbing crime scenes, mining bauxite, running Goldman Sachs.”

Who takes a bath? In our home, although none of us is involved in actual defilement, three people raise their hands.

And it’s all because of the product Young goes on to praise: Kneipp Bath Oils.

Kneipp isn’t a product flying off the shelves at the drug store on the next corner or the drug store on the corner after that, but it’s a venerable brand in Europe and a cherished friend in the Smart Set in America. Is it “bath therapy,” as is often claimed? In our home, although none of us is currently involved in actual therapy, three people again raise their hands.

The Kneipp story is a humdinger, and if you’re ever at a party with a bunch of Smarties and conversation hits a wall, you can trot it out and score points.

Sebastian Kneipp, born in 1821 in Bavaria, planned to be a priest but had his hopes dashed when he contracted pulmonary tuberculosis. Eager not to die, he searched for a cure — and found it, he believed, in a book on hydrotherapy. He started dunking himself briefly in the Danube River. His disease vanished.

In 1886, Kneipp wrote a book, “My Water Cure.” Dick Cheney bought it, thinking it was about waterboarding. (No. He didn’t. Just goofing.) The book had enormous appeal to Europeans who sensed that our daily stresses can accumulate and cause physical and spiritual disease — and the way back to health was not Freud’s “talking cure” but lifestyle changes. “Inactivity weakens, exercise strengthens, excess harms,” he said. And so he proposed a three-pronged road to health: a healthy diet, fresh air and physical activity, rest.

The book was an instant bestseller. In 1891, products followed. Pure, of course. Bath oils, of course, used in water at exact temperatures — Kneipp was so German — in baths that lasted no more than 20 minutes. Each has a specific purpose, though we, being Americans, choose whatever colored bottle appeals that day. [To buy Eucalyptus bath oil to “relieve physical fatigue” from Amazon, click here. To buy Juniper bath oil to “counter stress,” click here. To buy Lavender oil to “soothe the skin and restore calm,” click here.]

Kneipp died in 1896, aged 77. By then he was, I’ve read, “one of the three most famous people in the German empire.” (The others: Emperor Wilhelm II and Bismarck.) His recipe for whole wheat bread — Kneippbrød — is still used in Norway. And his bath oils? Those who use them swear by them.

In a Kneipp bath, Molly Young writes, “The body is occupied just enough to mute the mind.” In our home, where noisy minds are the daily reality, three people again raise their hands.