“I didn’t find flowers sticking to my body like leeches all that soothing”

Any wellness or beauty product that comes in one of those ye olde brown apothecary jars, with a cork and a label that looks like it was made on a pirate’s typewriter, is topshelf stuff. I was lucky enough to be gifted a jar of these very bath salts this week.

A further giveaway that I had a jar of elegant bath salts on my hands was that I hadn’t heard of at least one of the ingredients. In this case, I was about to soak my tired carcass in whatever the heck sea buckthorn is. I’ve watched my fair share of Gardening Australia, but I still had to Google sea buckthorn – it’s nothing to do with the ocean, it’s a shrub.

This gift adhered to the rule of three, all grandiose wellness and beauty products have three ingredients in the title, these bath salts were mandarin, sea buckthorn and macadamia. Ooh la la. It was a boring Wednesday night, dinner was had, TV was mediocre so I thought a bath might be in order. Apparently baths can be relaxing before bedtime, I see them as a high risk location to play on my phone, but my stress has been sky high since the dog worked out how to open doors with her face, so I found myself on my hands and knees doing the pre-bath rinse out before I got in.

That’s a key sign you’re an adult I think, you take the time to swish a bit of water around the bottom of the bath to remove those sesame seed size bugs and the five-strand clump of hair that no one will own up to. I didn’t even see those things in the bottom of the bath until I was old enough to start making involuntary sounds when getting up and down from the couch; it’s like your eyes can’t see mess of that nature until your age starts with at least a three.

I filled my bath to what I thought was the perfect temperature, it wasn’t though. It was that annoying temperature that’s perfect for the first 30 seconds, then it’s too cold. As I flicked the hot tap back on with my foot, the pangs of environmental guilt hit me about this indulgent experience, not to mention the water bill. I remember the bliss that was not caring about the water bill, those were the days. Back then I thought One Direction were geniuses and that salted caramel was the best invention since the ipod nano.

I undid the jar of bath salts and tipped in a good amount. How much sea buckthorn would be needed to relax me? With the week I’ve had, I thought it best to go hard, in went a third of the jar. The batteries have gone flat in the fan remote and I can’t find a shop that sells replacements, the dog ate a rib fillet steak

off the kitchen bench and my car makes a noise like Adele warming up. Godspeed sea buckthorn. I didn’t see this coming … in with the bath salts was what my 80’s sensibility would call potpourri. Dried flowers tumbled into the bath, and upon hitting the water they bloomed open. I suppose this high-end touch was meant to add extra relaxation; call me weird, but I didn’t find flowers sticking to my body like leeches all that soothing. But then again, I make lists of things to do in my head during a massage.

Here’s something they need to teach in schools: if you have a bath with dried flowers in it, and immediately following the bath you do not rinse them all down the drain, the next time you walk into the bathroom your brain will have forgotten all about your luxurious bath and instead you will wonder how your bath became filled with maggots. And all the good work the sea buckthorn did will be rapidly undone as you scream, “What the hell happened in here?”.