Bath & Shower
Buy and sell bath and shower products in Costa Rica.
Most Costa Rican homes have a shower and no tub, often warmed by an electric shower head, so the everyday trade is in what gets used standing up: body wash in big bottles and refill pouches, bar soap by the pack, body scrubs, and the paste, the dried luffa gourd many people still prefer to a plastic pouf. Bath bombs, salts and bubble bath mostly arrive as gifts for a bath nobody has, and plenty of them pass on still wrapped. Listings can be new or second-hand, though with bathing products second-hand should nearly always mean unopened.
Body wash, bar soap and the shower steamer:
in a house with only a shower, these are the three worth telling apart. Body wash suits a family sharing one bottle, and most of it comes in large bottles with a refill pouch to top up a pump. Bar soap keeps well and packs easily for a weekend at the beach; clear glycerin bars are softer and wear down faster in a wet soap dish than ordinary opaque ones. Scented or fragrance-free is the choice that matters most when buying for a whole household, so go by the label rather than the colour. Two-in-one shampoo and body wash for children sits closer to hair care, and the lotion that goes on afterwards belongs with body creams and lotions. Bath bombs, bath salts and bubble bath need a tub, which is why so many sit unopened in a cupboard. A shower steamer is the version made for a shower: a scented tablet set on the floor, out of the direct spray, that gives off its scent as it fizzes. Body scrubs come with salt or sugar; salt is coarser, while sugar dissolves sooner and scratches less. Facial scrubs are finer and are found under skin care.
Paste, mesh pouf or long-handled brush:
the paste is the dried fibre of the luffa gourd, grown in Costa Rica and sold whole, in slices or sewn into mitts and pads. It is stiff when dry and softens under water, so it scrubs harder than a plastic mesh pouf. A long-handled brush reaches the back, and silicone scrubbers dry fastest and are the easiest to keep clean. None of these change hands once used, so a listing should be new and still in its packaging. A natural paste in good condition is pale, light and dry; grey or black patches and a musty smell mean it was kept somewhere damp.
A bath bomb that has started fizzing on the shelf:
has already spent part of itself. Bath bombs are mostly baking soda and citric acid, and moisture in the air sets the reaction off slowly, so one left for months in a steamy bathroom crumbles at the edges, cracks or turns soft and powdery, and barely fizzes in the water. A good one is hard, holds its shape and sits in an intact wrap. Bath salts that have caked into a single lump have let damp in the same way. Clear glycerin soaps sometimes bead with droplets when the air is humid. That dew is harmless and wipes off; a bar that has shrunk, cracked and lost its smell is simply old. With body wash, an opened bottle is a household leftover rather than a purchase, so look for the factory seal. Copies of popular imported shower gels tend to show themselves in a gel that pours like water, a cap that does not quite fit and label printing that is slightly blurred or off-colour.
Cases of rental soaps and unopened gift baskets:
sealed bath products tend to reach the second-hand market by two routes. Holiday-rental hosts in Tamarindo or Puerto Viejo who change supplier or stop renting are left with closed boxes of miniature soaps, gels and dispenser refills, and gift baskets of bombs and salts outlast the occasion they were bought for. Say how many units there are, the size of each, the scent and whether everything is still wrapped, and photograph the wrapping close up along with any printed date. Keep bath bombs in a sealed bag somewhere dry until the handover. Someone coming from Grecia for a box of them will press one gently through the wrapper, and it should feel like stone, not chalk.