BAINA Bathe
Vol 41.
Marta Weronika Orlikowsa

Marta Weronika Orlikowska is a Warsaw-based cook and knitwear designer. Each piece under her label Celestina Mode — a name drawn from her partner's grandmother's pasmanteria — is hand-felted and knitted from Polish wool.

Seeking baths where she can, Marta reflects on bathing at friend's places, and in Hammams in Morocco and Georgia. Her experience of bathing has evolved from a place to watch a favoured television show, to now quiet moments away from a screen.

"I loved playing in the bathtub since I was a child, making delicious cocktails and potions with my mum’s shampoos and conditioners. As a teenager I used to read all my books in the bathtub, constantly adding more and more hot water until my skin wrinkled like an elderly lady. It was always a moment of comfort to me, and a source of deep relaxation that lasts until now.

Currently I do not have a bathtub, but the love to bathing is so strong, that I regularly bathe at my friend’s apartments. I still love to read my books in there. When we go to holidays, I always try to find a room with a bathtub, and I cherish it deeply."

"When setting the atmosphere for bathing I love the classic clichés – candles, essential oils and lots and lots of foam. I rarely play music, as the book requires a lot of focus.

A book I enjoy when bathing is Orlando by Virginia Woolf. A good playlist is NTS: Time is Away and a bathing tool is an exfoliating glove.

When I was a child, my grandmother used to boil the water in the pots to make a hot bath. She would put me in the bathtub with my cousins and I vividly remember her pouring boiling water in between us kids. We used to jump and laugh so much! Now I love bathing with my partner. I try to introduce him to all my rituals."