# Using bath robe



## cfu507

Would you say that a bath robe is an American thing? Is using a bath robe common in some cultures and less in others?


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## ewie

Hello CFU. They're pretty common in the UK. Maybe they're commoner in colder climates, or places which have cold winters, at least.


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## Outsider

I always see bathrobes for sale at the largest supermarkets. My father wears one.


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## federicoft

They are very common in Italy as well. (Almost) everybody has one and they are not perceived as an "American" thing.


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## Nunty

Here's a stupid question: When do people wear bathrobes? I mean, like getting up in the morning in your own home, do you put on a bathrobe to go to the kitchen to make coffee?


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## cfu507

Nun-Translator said:


> Here's a stupid question: When do people wear bathrobes? I mean, like getting up in the morning in your own home, do you put on a bathrobe to go to the kitchen to make coffee?


 
NUN, your question is not a stupid question. I've seen what you described in an American movie and that's why I thought it was an American thing.


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## Nunty

cfu507 said:


> It is not a stupid questions. I've seen it in an American movie and that's why I thought it was an American thing.


I meant that _*my*_ question is stupid. I don't know about bathrobe habits, and I am asking if people wear them in their own home and so on. Sorry. I wasn't directing that at you at all! 

I've seen it in movies, too, but lots of things in movies real people don't do. I hope someone who wears a bathrobe will tell us when they wear it. And why?


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## federicoft

Nun-Translator said:


> I mean, like getting up in the morning in your own home, do you put on a bathrobe to go to the kitchen to make coffee?



Yes, some people do that, especially during the winter.

It is generally used to dry off after a shower and keep warm until you are fully dressed. Of course if you don't have any immediate need to fully dress and don't expect to leave home, you can keep it on.


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## Bilma

Nun-Translator said:


> Here's a stupid question: When do people wear bathrobes? I mean, like getting up in the morning in your own home, do you put on a bathrobe to go to the kitchen to make coffee?


 

Exactly that is what people do, but those are called robes. Bath robes are used after  taking a shower. I do not have either, but my dad who is from Spain has always had one.


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## Topsie

Nun-Translator said:


> ... I hope someone who wears a bathrobe will tell us when they wear it. And why?


Only in hotels, so unfortunately not that often!
(At home I'm either fully clothed or wearing a paréo! )


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## JamesM

Bilma said:


> Exactly that is what people do, but those are called robes. Bath robes are used after taking a shower. I do not have either, but my dad who is from Spain has always had one.


 
I don't have a separate robe for after a shower or bath and for going out to the kitchen.    I use one robe for both.  

If it's a cool winter morning, I'll put my robe on to go to the kitchen and start coffee, or I'll wear it most of the day if I'm sick and feeling chilly.  Otherwise it doesn't get much use.


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## Hakro

I think that practically every Finn has a bath robe. Even kids have one. It's used especially after sauna. Some people (mostly women) wear bath robe in the morning before dressing up.


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## JamesM

I should have answered in general, rather than personally.

I think it's quite common in the U.S. to have a bathrobe.


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## WestSideGal

I must run with a weird bunch because no one I know ever actually USES a bathrobe, or even a regular robe, for that matter.  I myself own both a bathrobe and a regular morning robe and have used neither.  The only time I found it came in handy was when I had the rare and unusual ringing of the doorbell in the morning when I wasn't dressed in street clothes!

Cheers!


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## cuchuflete

I don't make a point of showing up at others' doors early in the morning as a rule, so I
can only speak for my own household and that of a neighbor.  Bathrobes are worn early in the morning on cold days, which is about 8 to 9 months a year in this region.  I wear one while shaving after a shower in winter (And if I let the beard grow again...would I still wear a bathrobe after showering?  I can't remember whether I did or not last time I did the "Fidel look".).  I don't check up on what others do or don't wear after a shower, so you may take me as a single data point among some 300 million U.S. residents.


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## Sepia

I percieve the use of bathrobes as a bit old-fashioned. My parents use them.

I find cotton jogging pants and sweat shirt just as practical - and a lot more comfortable.


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## danielfranco

Look, guys: bathrobes. Yes. Everyone has one. Most people wear them. All the girls I've ever known always wear their bathrobes because they usually do their make-up and their hair first, and they will take their time doing those things. Usually an hour or so after the actual bath scrubbing they will still be wearing them. Dressing up is the last thing done before getting out of the house.

In contrast, since we live in Texas and it's over 100º F for over 100 days a year, I wander around the house only wearing my briefs (full or bikini, whatever is clean at the moment).

This is not working well now that the children are almost "growed-up", and feel personally affronted every time they wake up and find their father buttering his toast in his skivvies. They have threatened to send me the bill of their therapist, in the future.

So, maybe I will also begin wearing a bathrobe (which I do own, but lives hanging in the bathroom, lonely, neglected, and mothridden.)

The End.

D


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## chics

When I was a child and I took swimming classes, I was asked to wear a bath robe in order to not getting ill the time to go from the swimming pool to the changing room. I think that they thought that for little children it was easier than using a towel.

I've never had one since that time, and I've never seen anybody with one, neither hanged it the bathroom, neither (of course!) at the beach. I use a towel and, yes, sometines I'm rolled in a towel pendant few minutes if I absolutely need to do something before getting dress.

However, I see bath robes in shops and stores so I imagine that that's because somebody use them. In any case, we don't see it as an American thing. And in some spa places I see that people are asked to put in one, offered by the center, I suppose in order to hide cellulite in an homogeneus and subtile way, rather than pareos, djellabas, skirts or other things.



> I percieve the use of bathrobes as a bit old-fashioned. I find cotton jogging pants and sweat shirt just as practical - and a lot more comfortable.


Ah, yes! I think it may be the same here.


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## Nunty

Ah that reminded me of a photo I saw in the newspaper a few weeks ago. This summer there was an unusually large number of French tourists in Israel. The photo showed four young men on the beach, all wrapped in long, white bathrobes (from the hotel, I suppose).

I'd never seen anyone in a bathrobe at the beach before, including during an adolescence and young adulthood in Southern California. Is this a French custom?


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## chics

I don't think so but I guess that the French thought (did someone in the hotel tell them?) that it is a custom in Israel.


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## mirx

They are not very common in México but they wouldn't be perceived as strange. In my house only my sister has one and I find it logical that she wears it since usually she stays in it for a long time after the shower, fixing her nails, shaving her legs, choosing the clothes she is going to wear, etc. I know one of my uncles and wife and all his kids have them and wear them. My aunts wear them too. 



chics said:


> they thought that for little children it was easier than using a towel.


 
That's it, at least in some cases people use bathrobes for drying off, the same they would with a towel, except you don't rub it up and down, you just wrap yourself in it and let it do the rest. These are what I called "bathrobes",  normal robes which are "a-must-have" for older generations of laides in México, wouldn't work for drying off and are more to keep the body warm or to wear as pijamas.


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## berndf

Nun-Translator said:


> Here's a stupid question: When do people wear bathrobes? I mean, like getting up in the morning in your own home, do you put on a bathrobe to go to the kitchen to make coffee?


 
I do! I take a shower, put on by bath-robe, make coffee and while the coffee brews I dress. Never actually thought you would do it any other way.


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## sokol

Nun-Translator said:


> Here's a stupid question: When do people wear bathrobes? I mean, like getting up in the morning in your own home, do you put on a bathrobe to go to the kitchen to make coffee?


Personally I never had a bathrobe and I never wear one.

My father had (has?) one but I haven't seen him wearing it for a long time (probably he still does - it's only that I don't get to see him early in the morning anymore); and that was the only person I ever saw in a bathrobe.

Anyway, it is really difficult to tell for me if bathrobes still are rather common in Austria; I think that they once were, and that they aren't anymore really. One sign for that could be that I can't remember when last time I've seen a bathrobe of any kind in a shop.

(Well ... true, I don't go shopping that often, and when I do I head straigth for what I need and leave a.s.a.p. Typical male behaviour, I know. )


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## Chaska Ñawi

I cannot speak for all Canadians, not being on such intimate terms with anyone outside my family.

My father's side of the family (English) have breakfast in their bathrobes and then get dressed.  They constantly give me bathrobes (which we call dressing gowns, by the way) for Christmas.

My mother's side of the family, along with my in-laws, believe in getting dressed when you get out of bed.

All but one of my dressing gowns have gone to the Salvation Army.  One hangs in my closet, and comes out once a year for Pyjama Day at the school.  This is only because the femals teachers would prefer not to wear our pyjamas in public after a few months of use.


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## gurseal

Based on my experiences with female relatives whose homes I have visited over night and the morning after, "house coat"-wearing is common. However, I am not informed enough about their using a bath robe. Everyone else dresses before making an appearance. Ditto for "close" neighbors.


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## Topsie

Chaska Ñawi said:


> ...They constantly give me bathrobes (which we call dressing gowns, by the way) for Christmas.


Are dressing-gowns and bathrobes the same thing? (Should this be another thread?) I thought bathrobes were only made of towelling (and kimono-style), whereas dressing-gowns can be anything from silk to cashmere (and any style - with or without buttons)!


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## PABLO DE SOTO

I thought bathrobes were very common here in Spain, but according to what Chics has told, I am not so sure now.
I do wear a bathrobe every morning after the shower, except in the hottest months of the year, namely July and August. I have different bathrobes,some "thicker" ones for the winter and another two for the not so cold days.
When I have shared my home with other people, everyone has had a bathrobe.
I love bathrobes.


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## pyan

Nun-Translator said:


> Ah that reminded me of a photo I saw in the newspaper a few weeks ago. This summer there was an unusually large number of French tourists in Israel. The photo showed four young men on the beach, all wrapped in long, white bathrobes (from the hotel, I suppose).
> 
> I'd never seen anyone in a bathrobe at the beach before, including during an adolescence and young adulthood in Southern California. Is this a French custom?


It is not a French custom to wear bathrobes on the beach on this part of the Atlantic coast.  

The part of the village where I live is mainly second homes.  In the summer I often see other mature women (over 50, say) wearing towelling or other fabric robes opening the shutters, having breakfast on their terraces or watering plants.  Younger women (under 30, say) seem to appear outside in normal outside clothes. 

People are on holiday, so their habits may be different at home.


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## Darina

An American thing?
I have three bathrobes.


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## Etcetera

Nun-Translator said:


> Here's a stupid question: When do people wear bathrobes? I mean, like getting up in the morning in your own home, do you put on a bathrobe to go to the kitchen to make coffee?


Most Russians do wear bathrobes at home. It's considered the handiest home clothes possible. At least, bethrobes are normally worn in the morning and after the evening bath.


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## Porteño

I'm curious to know whether a bathrobe is the same thing as a dressing gown, something that I think everybody in the UK has, or at least used to. I wear one every morning to go about the house before taking a shower and getting dressed (in fact I'm wearing it at this very moment) and that seems to be pretty general in these parts (except perhaps in Summer!).


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## Terry Morti

Topsie said:


> Are dressing-gowns and bathrobes the same thing? (Should this be another thread?) I thought bathrobes were only made of towelling (and kimono-style), whereas dressing-gowns can be anything from silk to cashmere (and any style - with or without buttons)!



Bath robes are towelling dressing gowns!


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## Cheesee = Madness

Chaska Ñawi said:


> I cannot speak for all Canadians, not being on such intimate terms with anyone outside my family.
> 
> My father's side of the family (English) have breakfast in their bathrobes and then get dressed.  They constantly give me bathrobes (which we call dressing gowns, by the way) for Christmas.
> 
> My mother's side of the family, along with my in-laws, believe in getting dressed when you get out of bed.




Just reverse the parents, and remove the in-laws up top and thats my family. (Strangly enough including the ancestry)



Chaska Ñawi said:


> All but one of my dressing gowns have gone to the Salvation Army.  One hangs in my closet, and comes out once a year for Pyjama Day at the school.  This is only because the femals teachers would prefer not to wear our pyjamas in public after a few months of use.



Strangly enough people bring brand new PJs to our parties, as they often get ones they don't use from less-than-creative relatives.


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## Lugubert

I (and several neighbours) often don a morning coat/bathrobe when fetching the morning paper rather than first getting fully dressed at 5-6 o'clock.

A bathrobe comes in handy on beaches when switching from streetwear to swimwear and then back to dry clothes, if you're extremely modest.


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## HUMBERT0

I don’t know how popular they are elsewhere, I don’t perceive them as American but being so close to the US the cultural divide gets fussy. My family does use them especially in the colder months of the year. I use it when I get up in the morning, after I shower I’ll put it again to go out and turn on the car while I go and change to go to work. On the weekends I’ll used it to go downstairs and have breakfast before I get in shower and start the day.


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## Xiroi

Topsie said:


> I thought bathrobes were only made of towelling (and kimono-style), whereas dressing-gowns can be anything from silk to cashmere (and any style - with or without buttons)!


That's how I see it. In Spanish we have different words for that: albornoz and bata.

Bathrobes are common in Spain, but not very practical in summer, when it's too hot. I don't think it's common to use them to be around the house. Maybe while drying your hair. And I've never seen them on beaches. I have in indoor swimming  pools, this is where you go to swim, not to splash around, and again, because it's warmer and more comfortable than a towel.

Dressing gowns: they're some kind of "granma" thing, except nice luxurious ones (silk). I'm not so sure these are so commonly used.


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