Men’s bath range launches to highlight mental health benefits of Japanese-style bathing

Leeds-based Sento is filling the gap in the UK market for bath bombs and gift-boxed, natural ingredient bathing products designed specifically for men to encourage the regular enjoyment of luxuriating in the bath as a slow-moment, self-care practice.

Alongside the aforementioned bath bombs, Sento features, bath salts, body wash, soaps and other essential grooming items. The range is skillfully curated to aid in creating optimal relaxation and help transform perceptions of taking baths as a run-of-the-mill practicality into a memorable part of unwinding, with added luxury to maximise the time spent.

Key all-natural ingredients include essential oils, dried herbs, botanicals, activated charcoal, Moroccan lava, kaolin and white clay, and coconut oil, lauded for their healing properties, mood-lifting capabilities and revitalising scents.

The entire range is UK-made, vegan, cruelty free and uses responsibly sourced palm oil. Great lengths have also been taken to ensure that sustainable packaging and labelling is used, where possible.

The products have been designed to create a multi-sensory soak, with quietly building masculine scents that arrive gradually to enhance the moment of letting go of the day.

Warm-water immersion bathing is known to help alleviate stress and anxiety as serotonin, which is responsible for mood, can see its level of stabilisation improve. It’s a great option to relieve muscular tension, soaking quietens the mind, deeper breathing occurs – the mental and physical benefits are numerous.

The product range includes the new Post-workout Box which retails for £42. It offers a great introduction to the brand, and is pre-selected with five products most suited for use after exercising:

Rosemary & Clary Sage Bath Bomb

Sea Salt & Moss Natural Soap

Eucalyptus & Rosemary Bath Salts

Post-bath Moisturiser

Sandalwood Body Wash

The Energising Box priced at £42, contains items with refreshing scents:

Lemon & Avocado Bath Bomb

Coffee & Coconut Natural Soap

Juniper & Lemon Bath Salts 

Charcoal Face Mask Bar

Sandalwood Body Wash

For more personalised requirements, a ‘curate your own’ option is available also for £42, with products intended to nourish, energise, soothe, cleanse and refresh. The Bath Bomb Only Box is a brand-new addition, priced at £30, with a choice of up to six bath bombs. The new collections are available now.

Daniel Tiffany, co-founder of Sento, explains that the origins of the brand’s existence came about when becoming a new dad, searching for natural bath products with well-rounded credentials resulted in limited choice.

“As all parents know, there’s very little opportunity to relax especially when a newborn arrives, and I believe more so for men that having a bath wouldn’t be one of the ways to spend that time, but I really enjoy a good soak,” Daniel says. “For me personally, heavy synthetic fragrances and bright colours aren’t to my taste and don’t give that ‘chilled out’ feeling, yet all the products I found at the time in the marketplace were a combination of those things.”

This encouraged Daniel, and his wife and co-founder Lorna Tiffany, to take experiences and observations from their travels in Japan to create the brand as a vehicle for showcasing bathtime to men as a highly advantageous part of their day.

Sento is inspired by Japan’s elevated reimagining of ‘sento’ public bathhouses, which are reconnecting a new generation to the rich heritage and wholesome goodness of ritual-esque bathing.

The origins of the public bathhouses can be traced back hundreds of years, coming into prominence from the 1950s when bathing facilities in residential homes were scarce. While the intention was to offer an essential and practical resource, Japan’s sento and communal bathing scene remains hugely popular and has given rise to numerous upscale iterations coming to the fore.

Daniel continues: “We’re seeing a more diverse view of what suggested men’s health and wellbeing activity looks like in the UK but there’s still work to be done on embracing slower, gentler, quieter forms of self-care.

“Sento has items for one-time application as well as longer-lasting products made to make wind-down time that bit more special. Our suggestion for getting the most out of an at-home re-creation of Japanese methods of bathing is to shower first with the body wash and then select the salts or bath bombs to enhance the soak and to finish with the grooming items such as the face mask bar and moisturiser.”

Daniel ends: “Japanese culture has mindfulness seamlessly woven into everyday life that it’s second nature for people and we respect and admire that greatly. Sento hopefully captures the sentiment of how the simplest pleasure can be rewarding on a much deeper level.”

Sento can be purchased online at www.sentobathing.co.uk. Dive in for more on Instagram and Facebook.