BATHING BEAUTY PET BATHING SYSTEM

Groomers who know me from the email groups know that I am a huge advocate of recirculating bathings systems, especially the Hanvey Bathing Beauty. I've been using this type of system for over 10 years. The main rationale for the system:

• Saves time. (small dogs = 2-5 minutes/giant dogs = 15-20 minutes, incl. conditioning)
  
• Uses way less product. (1/2-1 oz. shampoo/2-4 ounces of conditioner per bath)
  
• Mixes fresh shampoo/conditioner for each bath. (no product spoilage or cold baths)
  
• Saves bathers hands. (very little scrubbing & no squeezing product through hair)
  
• Uses less water. (1-2 gallons for bath & much less rinsing needed.)
• Greatly reduces possibility of shampoo irritation. (Highly diluted product with much less contact time.)

Let's look at the Bathing Beauty in action, so you can get an idea of how it fits in the tub and see that it is not at all cumbersome.

Here is my tub. Don't scoff! This tub has served me well for over 28 years. It was used when I got it. It is a regular sized people tub.

The tub was installed backwards, with the drain on the left, and the plumbing on the right. The tub is slightly tilted towards the drain. This works especially well for the bathing system, as I do not have to cover the entire bottom of the tub with shampoo solution.

This is what the bathing system looks like with shampoo solution ready to go.

You can notice the shampoo hose on the left and the rinse hose on the right. There is plenty of room for many dogs in between. You may also notice the funky bath mat. I replaced it the day after taking these pictures. Ick! This bath is using about 1.5 gallons of water and less than an ounce of shampoo.


A toy poodle in the bath is hardly even standing in the shampoo solution. You can clearly see that the bathing pump is not in the way. Time: 9:33 a.m.

Bathing commences. 9:34 a.m. Not much suds comes through the nozzle onto the dog, mostly the suds sits on top of the solution in the tub, and just a little foam makes its way through the pump and hose. What contacts the dog is the functional part of the shampoo.

9:35 - Clean Poodle! Now for the rinse.
Following the bath, we have suds in the tub that need to be broken down before we can mix anything else, such as conditioner. For this particular dog, I combined shampoo and conditioner by using Show Season Amino Flex shampoo, a product with conditioning ingredients and added a 1/2 squirt of Absorbine Show Sheen, a silicone de-tangler spray (for horses). This enabled me to condition with the bath instead of separately in another step. For most of my products, I have them in gallons with one-ounce dispenser pumps. Here is what is left in the tub after the bath.

To break down the suds, we hit them with a few spritz of fabric softener kept in a spray bottle next to the tub. Two seconds later, voila! Suds are disappearing.

By the time I finish rinsing the dog, the suds will be nearly gone.

9:36 a.m. Dog is rinsed, suds have nearly disappeared. Total bathing time: 3 minutes.
Now you can really see the old bath mat. Forgive me, I really DID replace it.

Here is a picture of an ancient Standard Poodle in the tub, so you can see the relation to the pump and hose. It is not at all in the way.

Want to see a REALLY BIG dog? Here is Dookie, my Akita boy. There is still room for the bathing system.

Here, let me turn him around.

The pump is still not being stepped on.
How long would it take you to hand bathe this dog? He gets two baths and a conditioning application. Then he gets dried with the High Velocity forced air dryer to about 90% dry. We can look at some of my times by the times on the pictures. Sadly, I did not take any shots of the bath itself, but I have the beginning and end of the process.

10:15 a.m. Bathing Begins

Dookie likes his bath, can you tell? Can you tell how grateful I am?
10:45 Drying in Process!

Where would I be a half hour later if I had bathed this dog by hand, the "old way"? Probably still bathing him. Here I am, drying the SECOND SIDE.

11:11 a.m Dookie says, "Are we done already, Mom?"

That's right. Less than an hour later and this 90 lb bundle of hair is nearly finished. This is about 90% dry, all that I do in the tub. He will get another 15-20 minutes of drying and brushing on the table. Dookie is not too fond of the brushing. I am grateful for the time and labor that my Bathing Beauty (and K9II dryer) saves.

For further information about the Bathing Beauty and answers to many of the most common questions about using a recirculating bathing system, I have an article on the BBirdbiz.com website. Click here to go to the Bathing System FAQ article. The Hanvey Bathing Beauty system is available for purchase at the BBird Shopping Cart. My price is the best available.