For most of human history, bathing wasn’t just hygiene - it was cultural and spiritual. From the Roman thermae to Japanese onsen to hammams, bathing was where people gathered, talked, rested, and reset their bodies. It was architecture designed around the idea that water restores you or prepares you for spiritual experience. Modern life became very fast and very individual. Showers replaced baths because they’re efficient. But I think people are realising that efficiency isn’t always wellness. Bathing is the opposite of efficiency. It forces you to stop. You cant really take a two minute bath. So the resurgence we’re seeing is really people remembering something ancient - that water is one of the oldest forms of restoration we have and hot and cold therapy which is trending now, has been around for millennia.

Bathing was something I inherited from my mother. When I was growing up, she always had very elaborate baths - candles, oils, music, the door closed. It was her way of claiming a little space for herself. As a child you don’t fully understand it, but you recognise the atmosphere. The bath was where she went to exhale. So bathing always felt like more than hygiene to me. It was a ritual. Years later, when I started thinking about fragrance more seriously, I realised something strange: luxury perfumery had built this incredibly sophisticated culture around scent, but almost all of it lived in bottles you spray on your body. Meanwhile the bath - which is one of the most sensual environments imaginable - had been left behind. Mostly cheap bubble bath, salts, very little attention to fragrance. It felt like a huge creative gap. 39BC really began with a simple idea: What if fragrance started in the water instead of on the skin?

Absolutely. Historically, bathhouses were social infrastructure - places where ideas circulated as much as water. In ancient Rome, the baths were not quiet sanctuaries but lively public spaces where people talked, debated, exercised, and conducted everyday life. The philosopher Seneca the Younger even complained about the chaos of the baths in one of his letters, describing the shouting of athletes, splashing water, and vendors calling out around him. As he wrote, “Imagine every kind of noise that can make one hate one’s ears.” That tells you something important: bathhouses were social places first and places of relaxation second. They were environments where people were physically relaxed and socially open at the same time. I think modern bath culture could absolutely reclaim that role, though probably in a slightly different form. We’re already seeing it with sauna clubs and new urban bathhouses opening in cities. People clearly want spaces that feel intimate but communal - places where conversation can happen without the pressure of a restaurant or a bar. There’s something about water that lowers the armour we usually wear in public. You’re warm, you’re still, and you’re not performing in the same way you do in other social settings. And of course, in many bath traditions, you’re also completely naked. That combination tends to produce very honest conversation.

My dream bath ritual is probably a Japanese winter solstice onsen. In Japan there’s a beautiful tradition on the winter solstice called yuzu-yu, where whole yuzu fruits are floated in the bath. The citrus oils release into the hot water and fill the air with this bright, uplifting scent. It’s meant to protect your health through the winter and bring warmth back into the body. In my mind it’s always outside - a stone bath, very hot water, snow falling lightly around you. The yuzu fruits are bobbing on the surface, releasing their scent into the steam. There’s something very calming about being warm while the air around you is cold. I usually sit quietly for the first few minutes and just let the heat settle into the body. No phone, no music - just the sound of the water and the cold air. A good bath, for me, is a small private ceremony. It’s the moment where you stop being productive and just return to your body for a while. Bathing outdoors is always special.

Yes, I think people are exhausted by optimisation culture. Everything in modern life is about productivity and efficiency, and even wellness has started to feel like something you’re supposed to perfect. You see these elaborate “everything bath” routines online with ten different products, timers, exfoliation schedules, masks and treatments layered one after the other. It turns something that should be restful into another kind of performance. That, to me, is separate to what I think of as “bathing”. For me, the bath is one of the few places that shouldn’t be optimised at all. It isn’t about completing a routine or getting through a checklist. You fill the water, you step in, and you sit. The heat does most of the work. The scent opens in the steam, your body softens, and your nervous system slowly begins to settle. I think that’s why bathing is resonating again. People aren’t necessarily looking for more elaborate rituals - they’re looking for spaces where nothing is required of them for a little while. The bath gives you permission to simply stop.

If someone hasn’t had a proper bath in years, I’d keep it very simple. Turn the lights down, make the water a little hotter than usual, and add something fragrant. Then just sit for twenty minutes and breathe. The bath doesn’t need to be complicated to work - the heat, the water, and a beautiful scent are usually enough. If I were introducing someone to 39BC for the first time, I’d start them with Silk Veil. It’s our cleansing shower oil inspired by Cleopatra’s bathing rituals. When it meets hot water it disperses into the steam and creates this soft, perfumed atmosphere around the bath. It feels immediately luxurious, which is important if you’re rediscovering the pleasure of bathing.

At 39BC I always start with a story. Each fragrance begins with a character - someone living in a particular moment, with a particular energy. I imagine who they are, where they are bathing, and what the air around them smells like. From there the scent begins to reveal itself. For example, one character might be a queen bathing by candlelight, surrounded by flowers and oils. Another might be a soldier returning from battle, washing away the dust of the road. Another might be a mystic withdrawing from the world, bathing somewhere quiet after rain. Once I understand the character, the scent becomes much clearer. I start to imagine what materials belong in their world - resins, flowers, woods, herbs, rain, milk, stone. The fragrances are also designed specifically for hot water. When scent rises with heat and steam it behaves very differently than a traditional perfume. It fills the room and becomes part of the atmosphere around you rather than sitting directly on the skin. So when someone chooses a 39BC scent, they’re really choosing a mood - or stepping into a particular character for that moment.

Absolutely! I tend to think about scent almost seasonally. In spring, I’m drawn to something green and alive like FIG MILK - wild fig, violet leaf and lily. It feels like the first warm days of the year, when everything is beginning to open again. In summer, I reach for SILK VEIL. It’s tuberose, jasmine and musk - lush white florals that feel warm and sensual on the skin, like evening air in a garden when the flowers release their scent. In autumn, I move toward deeper, richer notes like DENARII - frankincense, patchouli and sandalwood. Resinous, earthy scents that feel grounding as the air turns cooler. And in winter, I’m drawn to something crisp and clearing like SAGE WATER, with its petrichor, moss and mineral notes. It smells like rain on stone and cold morning air, which always feels mentally refreshing. Those shifts happen quite naturally. Scent has always been connected to seasons and rituals, and I think our bodies instinctively respond to that rhythm.

I want them to feel reconnected - to themselves, to pleasure, to ceremony, to memory. Our customer is not looking for another product to slot into a routine. They are looking for a portal. They want the ordinary to become meaningful again. They want to feel like time has slowed down just for them. That’s really at the heart of 39BC. Time is the ultimate luxury, and bathing is one of the few places where time can still feel wholly your own - unobserved, uncommodified, not owed to anyone else. I want them to feel a deeper intimacy with themselves. Not glossy self-care, but self-return. A chance to use scent, oil, and water to come back to their body, their desire, their own interior world. I also want them to feel like they are stepping into a story. 39BC is about more than cleansing. It’s about entering a world, a mythology, a character, a mood. The customer should feel held inside something larger than themselves, but also reflected by it. And finally, I want them to feel beauty in a way that resonates, not just impresses. Not something performative, but something they can actually feel - in the texture, in the steam, in the memory a scent unlocks. At its best, 39BC should make you feel that bathing is not a task. It is a return.

Material and light. Stone, wood, marble, natural textures - things that feel timeless. And lighting that’s soft, not clinical. I actually prefer sunlight only. I think the best bathrooms feel slightly like small temples. They create a psychological shift when you enter

If I designed my own contemporary bathhouse, it would be very different from the typical luxury spa. Most spas are organised around treatment - massage, facials, appointments, therapists. You move through the space as a customer being serviced. What interests me much more is ritual. I imagine a bathhouse where the architecture itself creates the experience, where people come simply to spend time in water. I’m very inspired by the installations of Carsten Höller. His work creates environments where you step through a doorway and suddenly feel like you’ve entered another reality. That’s the feeling I would want to recreate. You might open one door and suddenly you’re in a Japanese onsen - stone baths, steam rising, the quiet atmosphere of winter bathing. Another door might lead to a hammam-inspired space, filled with warm marble and echoing water. Another room might evoke West Africa or Ghana, with herbal infusions, darker pools, and the scent of plants rising in the heat. The idea would be that each room feels like entering a different bathing culture - almost like travelling the world through water. There would still be communal baths, steam rooms, and places to sit and talk, but the focus would be on total transformation. It would be about atmosphere, immersion, and the feeling that you’ve stepped out of the ordinary world for a while.

A perfect slow day for me begins in the bath with a book. I love starting the morning in hot water, reading quietly while the steam fills the room and the day is still untouched. Afterwards I’ll put on something soft and cosy and watch a film before midday - which always feels like the ultimate luxury. Most people save films for the evening, so doing it in the morning feels slightly rebellious, like you’ve given yourself a day off from the normal rhythm of life. I love eating a simple lunch outside in my garden, in the sun. In the afternoon I’d go to an exhibition, somewhere calm where you can wander slowly and let your mind open up a bit. Afterwards I’d have an early supper, around five, somewhere chic but traditional - the kind of place with beautiful lighting, proper tablecloths, and a sense of quiet elegance. From there the evening might continue with a cocktail somewhere intimate, before finishing the day the way it started: in water. Ideally I’d end the night with a visit to a bathhouse - steam, hot pools, the body unwinding before sleep. To me that’s a perfect day. It moves slowly between culture, beauty, and water, without ever feeling rushed.