Question of the day: Heroes, heroines, tubs, the washing of the hair

I've seen this type of scene a few times, most memorably in Lara Adrian's Kiss of Midnight, where the heroine is taking a bath, and the hero comes in and he washes her hair while she is in the bathtub. I know I've come across it in other books, too, and I've always sort of liked it.

So recently, I thought of a fun and cool twist on such a scene in a book I'm working on (fun and cool to me, anyway! LOL) and as I was writing it out, I started thinking, gosh, after he lovingly shampoos her hair, she is going to have to rinse it, and the tub will be full of shampoo water. And what about conditioner? It will be like a tub of shampoo and conditioner, not to mention hair product and whatever grime was in her hair that made the hero think it was a good idea to wash it.

I think that a heroine's skin would feel really slimy when she got out of a bath like that. (Not to mention that her hair would not be all that clean, because let's face it, do you really think a typical hero is all that thorough in the hair washing department? Especially a vampire.)

Though, probably a vampire's technique would be superior to a werewolf's. A werewolf would probably just smush the shampoo around a little bit and think he was done.

Or maybe these heroines have sprayers and they rinse off. Maybe that is the technique and I've never lived in a house with a sprayer.

But, it seems yucky even just to sit in a tub of lukewarm water that is full of shampoo and conditioner for any amount of time. If I had a bath tub and no shower, I would simply wash my hair under the spigot; I would not submerge myself in the rinse water. I have heard that it is a Japanese custom to take showers before they bathe; it's not the worst idea in the world.

Is that fastidious of me? Am I hygiene clueless? Am I going to feel slightly naive after asking this question? Is this something people really do? Or it is a cleaning technique reserved for characters in books? And then writers like me say, I want to have my own damn bathtub-hero-heroine hair washing scene! And then it spreads from there?

Is tub hair washing a common thing? a thing that I have managed to get to adulthood not knowing about? Please Advise!

Photo: From Wikimedia Commons: Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 102-09247

Random updates & question of the day: Regarding Roarke

Writerly update

Okay thanks for all the wonderful, thoughtful feedback on my last post! I felt a lot better after writing that, and even more so getting words of wisdom and such kindness.

I was thinking today how in my day job, I'm constantly cranking out creative ideas to actual harsh feedback, and I either use it to make my stuff better, or I ignore it, but it never bothers me. Clearly I need to put my fiction writer hat on that mode. Also, today I got a wonderful blurb from a writer I greatly admire. Oh, I was so thankful. However, Oblio is still a softness loser.

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Question of the day:

I'm only in the early stages of my In Death addiction process - one read, one on the TBR for ages. But I was wondering if Roarke is at all inspired by Howard Roark in Fountainhead (a book I actually DNFed, but it is an important and influential book for a number of people I like and respect, including my mom.)

Anyway, Fountainhead Roark is all about individualism and forging his own code. Eve's Roarke does seem to have his own code, too, and he is indeed successful and seems full of integrity. Is this something everybody knows and has discussed extensively? Oh well, color me late to the party!

• Is this a known thing that one Roark(e) is patterned on the other?
• Does Nora Roberts frequently give her characters names that have meaning? Names that relate to their character? If that's a Roberts habit, I think it would be a strong indication that Roarke was inspired by Roark.
• How about this theory: Ayn Rand time travelled forward to the 1990's, using that Stonehenge thing from Outlander, read some In Death books, then returned to her era, and based Howard Roark on Eve's Roarke.