Every culture with a serious bathing tradition agrees on one principle: the bath was never about getting clean. Across history, from Rome to Japan to Morocco, water was a sacred vessel. The act of scrubbing happened before the bath, leaving the plunge itself free for ceremony, conversation, and release.

The Romans understood this well. Before entering the caldarium, bathers would oil their bodies, exercise, and scrape away sweat and dust with a bronze strigil. Only when the body was prepared and purified did they step into the steam. Japan continues this ritual today. At an onsen or sentō, one washes thoroughly on a small stool, rinsing away soap and shampoo before lowering into the spring. The water is communal and holy, not a vessel for dirt.

The same can be said of Morocco and Turkey, where the hammam tradition uses the kese glove to exfoliate on warm stone. Once the skin is softened, the plunge into water is not labour but renewal. These cultures understood what has been forgotten in much of modern life: the bath was not for scrubbing, but for softening — a place for stillness, for ceremony, and for allowing the body to exhale.

Seen this way, the bath is not a transaction but a temple. Modern routines often reduce it to hygiene, yet history shows us it was always intended as something more profound. The purpose of bathing was to prepare the mind and spirit as much as the body.

This philosophy lives at the heart of 39BC. The brand’s oils are designed to let the skin drink deeply, transforming water into ritual. Rather than stripping, they replenish, allowing the bath to return to its original meaning: a sacred pause in the day. With textures inspired by ancient practices and scents drawn from natural elements, each formula restores bathing as a ceremony of presence.

For those who want to reclaim this tradition, the 39BC Silk Veil Shower Oil offers a modern expression of ancient ritual. It softens, nourishes, and transforms bathing into what it was always meant to be: ritual, not routine.