Showers may have a monopoly on everyday cleansing, but bathtubs own luxury. Aside from good water pressure, attractive tiles, and walk-in enclosures, there have long been few better ways to upgrade the shower than there are the bathroom tub: Moisturizing bombs, salt soaks, whirlpool jets, “bath menus,” candles, and even expertly positioned TVs that let you stay watch game shows feel like the pinnacle of hotel luxury—plus, you get to lie down. But now, in a surprising twist, it might be the humble shower’s turn in the spotlight: High-end hotels around Italy are harnessing the power of the bathtub’s lesser sibling to offer something new and immerse guests in carefully designed temperatures, colors, water pressures, and aromatherapies.
“Emotional showers” are an increasingly common fixture of luxury Italian spas—and they are not what they sound like. I’ve experienced a lifetime of emotional showers (read: sobbing under running water), but here the term is a somewhat odd translation of “una doccia emozionale,” which might more aptly be called a “sensory shower.”
Most emotional showers offer different modes of water pressure, from hard rainfall to fine mists that correspond to specific lights and sounds. The intention is to engineer an emotional state, whether invigoration, serenity, or something in between, and to increase blood circulation. (It should be noted that most emotions, for example jealousy, disdain, and hilarity, are not on the menu.) Paramount to the experience is chromotherapy—the idea that colors offer different health and emotional benefits; here, colored light illuminates around you in an almost discoteca-like fashion.
Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni, a luxurious 150-year-old estate perched on the edge of Lake Como in Bellagio, recently unveiled a newly renovated spa. Anointed “Luce del Lago,” or light of the lake, the tranquil new facilities are bathed in hues reflecting the water, shore, and sky of the surrounding landscape. There’s a focus on hydrotherapy, the centerpiece of which is a dreamy indoor pool with bubbles and currents that evoke the gently rolling lake, right beside a sauna and…an emotional shower.
The sensory shower offers two settings that are controlled by a button: a refreshing cool mist perfumed with oceanic oak moss and white musk, and an invigorating mango-fragranced “tropical rain,” both released from overhead. When I tried it the cool-mist setting bathed me in soft blue light, while the tropical rain paired with a stimulating red. I alternated back and forth between the two, relieved that neither temperature was scalding nor icily akin to the trendiness of cold-plunge circuits. I felt at once serene and energized.
