BushcraftAndSurvival
22-02-2012, 02:37 PM
Not showering has become synonymous with bushcraft in recent years. The thing is, you do not need to go unwashed when spending time in the wilderness. There are many options available to keep clean, my preferred option has always been to take a plunge in a river or loch and get it over with as quickly as possible. However, the benefit's of a hot shower should not be underestimated .
Being clean is not just a matter of hygiene, it's a psychological thing as well. Being tucked up around a nice camp fire is one thing, being tucked up around a nice camp fire after a hot shower is quite another.
I, like most men, will go for up to a week without showering in the outdoors while teaching bushcraft or on expeditions without really giving it too much though, as long as I brush my teeth, wash my face, hands and other sweaty areas then I'm pretty much happy. However, if you have your wife / partner / girlfriend along then spare her a thought and understand that she has higher standards of cleanlinesses than you do, she has to sleep next to you and probably does not want to cuddle with a stinking, yeasty smelling man who smells like a tramp.
You owe it to her to keep yourself clean and she will love you more for it.
So with that in mind, do camping showers work? Are they any good and do they make girls love you more?
Let's see.
http://bushcraftandsurvival.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1040179-1024x576.jpg
As with most of my equipment, the requirement is something small, light, reasonably priced and reliable.
There are some very good canvas bag showers with water can head attachments that make pretty good showers. Unfortunately they are very heavy and impracticable to carry on foot. I was looking for something similar but without the weight and size penalty for a 4 week canoe expedition in northern Scandinavia. After a bit of looking around it became apparent that Australia are the market leaders in camping showers. Who would have thought it?
I came across the Sea To Summit Pocket Shower and was impressed by the specs.
At 119 grams it is very light, almost negligible in a rucksack, it is about the size of a small digital camera and holds 10 litres of water.
http://bushcraftandsurvival.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1040183-1024x576.jpg
It also doubles up as a dry bag which in my view is brilliant as i like all of my equipment to serve at least 2 purposes. Add to that the ability to carry water and the shower can be used for 3 different things.
The shower itself is a very simple design. It is a simple dry bag with a shower head on the bottom. Nothing more. It is elegant in it's simplicity and therefore very easy to use. Being a dry bag, it is quite tough and can stand up to some abuse. 10ft of thin nylon cord is provided to help you hang it from something so that you can stand under it.
This is not a "solar shower". That means that you will have to have a means to heat water and another container to heat it up in. My preference is to 1/3 fill the shower with cold water and then top up with hot water from billy cans. In theory, if it was hot enough, you could let it sit in the sun for a while for a luke warm shower since it's black colour will help soak up some of the sun.
Inside the bag there is a white line marked at the 10lt mark. This is the maximum that you should fill it to. You should trap as much air in to the bag as possible when closing the lid in order to increase the pressure within. It is the pressure created from the weight of the water that forces the water out of the shower head. Once the water gets to about the half full mark then the pressure is not quite enough to force the water through to give you that nice shower, sprinkler effect. Instead you get a steady stream of water which gradually gets weaker and weaker until you are left with a 1/4 full bag and no longer enough pressure to push it through the shower head. For those not familiar with Dry bags, they close and seal by rolling up the top and then securing with the fastex plastic buckles.
http://bushcraftandsurvival.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1040184-1024x576.jpg
There are 2 D-rings on the buckles and these should be used to carry and hoist up the filled shower. 10 litres of water is heavy and the buckles will not stand up to that kind of weight for long, especially when very cold. Thread the hoisting cord through the D rings and it will hold.
This brings me onto the cordage itself. The supplied stuff is tiny, 2 or 3mm diameter nylon cord and will cut through your hands like butter if your not careful. When wet, it is next to impossible to comfortably hold the full to the brim shower by the supplied cordage. Once secured i found that it was biting into the oak tree that i was using as well. The best thing to do with the supplied cordage is to take it off and replace it with some paracord, which you will probably have with you anyway. This is a much better cordage, saves you hands and the tree and means you carry less as your paracord can be used to many other things.
Your water must be free from turbidity before you put it into the bag, there is no filter over the shower head and something as innocuous as a leaf can easily block it up and cause you a bit of a problem as you stand naked in the freezing cold trying to unblock the shower! This can be solved by adding you own filter, a piece of foam pushed into the bottom will do the trick.
http://bushcraftandsurvival.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1040186-1024x576.jpg
I had a nice 5 minute shower under this, which when your outside seems like much longer, it was powerful enough to wash off the soap and dirt. After 5 minutes the shower effect became a stream of water instead, which was still fine and not really a problem and i felt clean and comfy afterwards. The whole shower lasted about ten minutes including me turning it off while i was soaping up. I decided to spare you all from pictures of me actually using it, you can use your imaginations for that.
http://bushcraftandsurvival.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1040188-e1329923400882-576x1024.jpg
At around £15 you cant really fault the Sea to Summit Pocket Shower, there are a few improvements that i would make, namely a filter inside to prevent blockages and some better cordage to hang it from. I would feel more optimistic about it's like span if it were made of a heavier material but it shows no signs of wear and tear after quite a few uses.
If you focus on the job at hand you can get two showers out of one filling, in order to answer one of the first questions in this review, will it make my girlfriend love me more?, let her go first.
In fact, i found that after i got into the habit of showering outdoors, women were inexplicably attracted to me when compared with my greasy and smelly male counterparts. So yes, i think that the pocket shower may well improve your love life.
It's a decent bit of kit for a low price. Recommended for short and long term camping trips and expeditions. Consider taking two in case one should fail which at the price, size and weight is no hardship.
Some technical information
Super compact and light: zips into a pouch that measures only 3” x 6” and weighs just 4.25 ounces
Gives about an 8 and a half minute shower with shower head fully open
Contoured shower head with graduated apertures for equal spray dispersion
Simple and easy-to-use twist mechanism for turning on/off and for flow adjustment
Bar tack attached Delrin™ D rings
20 foot cord included
For multi-function, the Pocket Shower can also be used as a regular dry sack to transport clothes or sleeping bag
Matt @ http://BushcraftandSurvival.com
Being clean is not just a matter of hygiene, it's a psychological thing as well. Being tucked up around a nice camp fire is one thing, being tucked up around a nice camp fire after a hot shower is quite another.
I, like most men, will go for up to a week without showering in the outdoors while teaching bushcraft or on expeditions without really giving it too much though, as long as I brush my teeth, wash my face, hands and other sweaty areas then I'm pretty much happy. However, if you have your wife / partner / girlfriend along then spare her a thought and understand that she has higher standards of cleanlinesses than you do, she has to sleep next to you and probably does not want to cuddle with a stinking, yeasty smelling man who smells like a tramp.
You owe it to her to keep yourself clean and she will love you more for it.
So with that in mind, do camping showers work? Are they any good and do they make girls love you more?
Let's see.
http://bushcraftandsurvival.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1040179-1024x576.jpg
As with most of my equipment, the requirement is something small, light, reasonably priced and reliable.
There are some very good canvas bag showers with water can head attachments that make pretty good showers. Unfortunately they are very heavy and impracticable to carry on foot. I was looking for something similar but without the weight and size penalty for a 4 week canoe expedition in northern Scandinavia. After a bit of looking around it became apparent that Australia are the market leaders in camping showers. Who would have thought it?
I came across the Sea To Summit Pocket Shower and was impressed by the specs.
At 119 grams it is very light, almost negligible in a rucksack, it is about the size of a small digital camera and holds 10 litres of water.
http://bushcraftandsurvival.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1040183-1024x576.jpg
It also doubles up as a dry bag which in my view is brilliant as i like all of my equipment to serve at least 2 purposes. Add to that the ability to carry water and the shower can be used for 3 different things.
The shower itself is a very simple design. It is a simple dry bag with a shower head on the bottom. Nothing more. It is elegant in it's simplicity and therefore very easy to use. Being a dry bag, it is quite tough and can stand up to some abuse. 10ft of thin nylon cord is provided to help you hang it from something so that you can stand under it.
This is not a "solar shower". That means that you will have to have a means to heat water and another container to heat it up in. My preference is to 1/3 fill the shower with cold water and then top up with hot water from billy cans. In theory, if it was hot enough, you could let it sit in the sun for a while for a luke warm shower since it's black colour will help soak up some of the sun.
Inside the bag there is a white line marked at the 10lt mark. This is the maximum that you should fill it to. You should trap as much air in to the bag as possible when closing the lid in order to increase the pressure within. It is the pressure created from the weight of the water that forces the water out of the shower head. Once the water gets to about the half full mark then the pressure is not quite enough to force the water through to give you that nice shower, sprinkler effect. Instead you get a steady stream of water which gradually gets weaker and weaker until you are left with a 1/4 full bag and no longer enough pressure to push it through the shower head. For those not familiar with Dry bags, they close and seal by rolling up the top and then securing with the fastex plastic buckles.
http://bushcraftandsurvival.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1040184-1024x576.jpg
There are 2 D-rings on the buckles and these should be used to carry and hoist up the filled shower. 10 litres of water is heavy and the buckles will not stand up to that kind of weight for long, especially when very cold. Thread the hoisting cord through the D rings and it will hold.
This brings me onto the cordage itself. The supplied stuff is tiny, 2 or 3mm diameter nylon cord and will cut through your hands like butter if your not careful. When wet, it is next to impossible to comfortably hold the full to the brim shower by the supplied cordage. Once secured i found that it was biting into the oak tree that i was using as well. The best thing to do with the supplied cordage is to take it off and replace it with some paracord, which you will probably have with you anyway. This is a much better cordage, saves you hands and the tree and means you carry less as your paracord can be used to many other things.
Your water must be free from turbidity before you put it into the bag, there is no filter over the shower head and something as innocuous as a leaf can easily block it up and cause you a bit of a problem as you stand naked in the freezing cold trying to unblock the shower! This can be solved by adding you own filter, a piece of foam pushed into the bottom will do the trick.
http://bushcraftandsurvival.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1040186-1024x576.jpg
I had a nice 5 minute shower under this, which when your outside seems like much longer, it was powerful enough to wash off the soap and dirt. After 5 minutes the shower effect became a stream of water instead, which was still fine and not really a problem and i felt clean and comfy afterwards. The whole shower lasted about ten minutes including me turning it off while i was soaping up. I decided to spare you all from pictures of me actually using it, you can use your imaginations for that.
http://bushcraftandsurvival.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/P1040188-e1329923400882-576x1024.jpg
At around £15 you cant really fault the Sea to Summit Pocket Shower, there are a few improvements that i would make, namely a filter inside to prevent blockages and some better cordage to hang it from. I would feel more optimistic about it's like span if it were made of a heavier material but it shows no signs of wear and tear after quite a few uses.
If you focus on the job at hand you can get two showers out of one filling, in order to answer one of the first questions in this review, will it make my girlfriend love me more?, let her go first.
In fact, i found that after i got into the habit of showering outdoors, women were inexplicably attracted to me when compared with my greasy and smelly male counterparts. So yes, i think that the pocket shower may well improve your love life.
It's a decent bit of kit for a low price. Recommended for short and long term camping trips and expeditions. Consider taking two in case one should fail which at the price, size and weight is no hardship.
Some technical information
Super compact and light: zips into a pouch that measures only 3” x 6” and weighs just 4.25 ounces
Gives about an 8 and a half minute shower with shower head fully open
Contoured shower head with graduated apertures for equal spray dispersion
Simple and easy-to-use twist mechanism for turning on/off and for flow adjustment
Bar tack attached Delrin™ D rings
20 foot cord included
For multi-function, the Pocket Shower can also be used as a regular dry sack to transport clothes or sleeping bag
Matt @ http://BushcraftandSurvival.com