You're a sensible person. You know the score. What is it about baths?

(Dreamy look appears. Breathing slows. Shoulders settle. Steamy smile comes out of hiding, runs across face, stops to pull eyes to half-mast and settles in, having found a reason to stay).

"It's not necessarily a cleansing activity," Myers says. Not physically, that is. But mentally ...

"I can't tell you for how many years, probably my whole adult life, I couldn't wait to get in the doorway and fill the bathtub with water. You light the candles, and you just slide into that scented heat. My muscles would all - aaaaaaaahhhhhh - relax. They would all warm up. It's such a relaxing thing."

A healing way

From hot springs to the Roman baths, there is a tradition, a culture, surrounding bathing-as-healing. Modern life put a big-time dent in that action. Why spend an hour in a vat of hot water when you can sprinkle yourself and in seven minutes be off hammering at something much more serious and pressing?

But from New York, a city not known as a leader in hygiene or relaxation, comes word that bathing for relaxation may be a trend, again. A survey says 23 percent of American women bathed within the past 24 hours, up from 17 percent last year.

However, the survey was commissioned by a company that sells bath and shower-care products, which raises validity flags. So The Press conducted a random and entirely unscientific survey of its own. The questions: Are you a bath person, and are you taking more baths these days? The answers stacked up two ways:

1) Ohhhhhhhhhyesssssssssss!

2)Areyoukidding?????Whatfantasylandareyoufrom???? Whohastimeforthatwithkids???

Showers? What showers?

And so it is with baths. Either you're a member of the Order of the Ritualistic Bathers or you shower and get on with life.

"I would be a bath person if I had the time," one woman said before her aerobics workout. "When you work, you're in a hurry - in and out."

But another woman started murmuring the Bath Mantra: "candles .... music ... a glass of wine ... flowers."

Added another, who admitted she often bathes twice a day: "Scented water seems to help the experience. "

(It should be noted that many men enjoy a good bath, but the numbers seemed to overwhelmingly favor women).

For Myers, there was never any question.

"I'm a water person," she said. "Even when I was a little girl, I loved the sensation of swirling my head from side to side and feeling my hair get heavy with the water.

"A bath is just a... ohhhhhhhh, it's like that sigh. It's the body sighing, the weight and the warmth of the water, it just feels great. I love the feeling of gravity on me in a supine position. "

So. It's not a bath, it's a spiritual experience that happens to include hot water. And more.

"It's always kind of a very glamorous experience, the bubbles, being partially covered and not really covered, that whole silly thing that girls do and women do," Myers said. "Putting your hair up in a bow, stepping into the hot bubbles ... it's a pampering, spoil-yourself experience. "

There you have it, one woman's testimony. Myers, an Ocean City resident who is a public school learning consultant in Cape May County, eventually gave in and bought a hot tub. But it was baths that "wetted" her appetite, so to speak.

Built for business

Bath and Body Works, a national chain, opened for business in 1990. It now has 750 stores. Spokeswoman Barbara Jorgensen said the company is, yes, cleaning up with bathing.

"Kitchens are the heart of the home, and the bathroom is a progression from the kitchen," she said. And now, "instead of shrinks and bars and drugs, people are looking for a natural and accessible and affordable way to remedy whatever is going on in their life."

While there can be no argument that a good bath is relaxing, the companies that sell bath products are coming close to making medical claims for their products. According to Jorgensen and others in the industry, for example:

- "Essential oils" aid in stress relief.

- Citrus can bring an "in-home attitude adjustment.

- Eucalyptus is calming and eases muscle aches.

- Geranium closes pores and stimulates circulation.

- Nutmeg stimulates the mind and emotions and relieves nervousness and mental fatigue.

Sweet dreams

In the Bath and Body Works store in the Hamilton Mall, there were bottles of "Tranquil Sleep Body Lotion," which, according to the information on the back of the bottle, would bring a "relaxing way to ease into peaceful dreams. "

There was something called "A Little Romance Body Lotion."

The store also has "Stress Relief'' in a bottle - no, not that kind of bottle. This one contains "a soothing answer to a stressful day," thanks, apparently, to its "eucalyptus and spearmint essential oil beads."

Sometimes it's tough to figure out whether you're supposed to bathe in the stuff or drink it. What do you do with "Sun-Ripened Raspberry Body Splash?"

Does Bath and Body Works have any evidence that this stuff can help us sleep or improve our sex lives or help us relax?

"There is a strong correlation between your senses and smells and your emotions," Jorgensen said. "Some of this stuff has been around for so long, it's just kind of accepted.

"Freud used to tell his patients, 'Go take a bath."' It very definitely has therapeutic benefits, she said.

In other words, no. She could cite no scientific evidence.

So The Press contacted Dr. Sandy Milgraum, a dermatologist and assistant professor at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in East Brunswick. Milgraum couldn't address most of the claims, but when asked about possible benefits to the skin, he said, "There is no scientific evidence that taking a bath, as opposed to a shower, is any more healthy for your skin."

But it's only fair to point out that mainstream medicine is only now embracing herbal medicine, after many, many years of rejection. The fact that big science hasn't proved something exists doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

"The stuff is probably not going to hurt you," Milgraum said. "It's just that there's no scientific evidence that it's going to help."

Which isn't entirely true. Just look at that woman slumped over in the corner, the one who left work ready to punch some bureaucrat, the one who now - after merely talking about a bath - is smiling. The woman named Lynn Myers, who knows the score. Try telling her baths don't work.

-The Press of Atlantic City