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Our bathrooms should be a welcoming and calming environment for all users. But, this room can be overwhelming for both children and adults who are highly sensitive. This is especially so if the bathroom isn't designed with them in mind.
Yet, with just a few adjustments, your bathroom can become sensory-friendly. This ensures that everyone can enjoy using this space.
Here, The Bathroom Showroom shows you how to design your bathroom to make it more sensory-friendly.
What Is a Sensory Friendly Bathroom?
A sensory-friendly bathroom is a space designed to accommodate users who are highly sensitive. Specific fixtures and fittings used here will help eliminate tension, anxiety, and stress. This involves paying attention to items that can reduce noise, glares, and coldness. Such a design is used to encourage users to feel more in control of their surroundings.
How Can I Make My Bathroom Sensory Friendly?
There are several areas you can work on to keep your bathroom looking fabulous while making the environment less harsh to sensitive users.
- Install a light choice that allows you to control the brightness
Bright, harsh lighting can cause discomfort and overstimulate sensitive people. So, selecting bathroom mood lighting can eliminate this. A dimmable light like the Hib Rhythm is colour temperature changing. Boasting 12 RGB colour options, it provides fabulous sensory bath lights. Accessed via remote control, the Hib Rhythm also plays music.
- Select a flooring design that is soft and cushioned
Hard flooring surfaces in the bathroom, like tiled floors, enhance echoes and sounds. These are cold and harsh on the feet when stepping out of the bath or shower. Vinyl Click Flooring is a soft-cushioned choice that feels soothing underfoot. It's also a quiet, absorbing surface.
- Add a soothing shower option
The sound and sensation of water can be unsettling for sensitive people. A trigger point for many, water touching the skin can be a shock. Likewise, running water can make people feel disorientated. A sensory showerhead like the Grohe Rainshower Smart Control offers a gentle flow to combat this. This shower has a stimulating TrioMassage spray. So, it emulates a gentle and relaxing rainwater effect and sound.
- Include a good-sized heated rail for comfort
Getting out of a soothing warm bath or shower can often be disorientating for sensitive people. Feeling cold and shivering while trying to dry off will raise discomfort levels. A heated towel rail like the iflo Santorini provides multiple towel space. This allows users to immerse themselves in warm, soft, and fluffy towels and a comforting bathrobe.
- Consider soft-closing fixtures and fittings for units and toilets
Soft closing fixtures and fittings can reduce loud sounds and bangs. Units like those in the iflo Serino collection offer a push to open feature. This encourages a smoother and gentle opening and closing action with reduced sound.
Toilets, like those in the VitrA Collection, featuring soft-close seats, are also good quieter choices for younger members.
- Position mirrors away from windows to reduce glare
Positioned opposite or adjacent to a window, mirrors increase light as it bounces off the surfaces. This stark bright light can be visually overwhelming and distressing for sensitive users. Eliminating this glare provides instant comfort. Being mindful and placing mirrors away from natural and artificial lighting reduces glare and shine. It also helps to keep bathroom lighting balanced.
Simple But Effective Sensory Friendly Bathroom Ideas For All Ages
Much of creating a sensory-friendly bathroom often relies on reducing and softening this space as much as possible. With just a few additions and adaptations, you can create a thoroughly calm and peaceful environment.
If this article has proved helpful and you’d like further bathroom inspiration, take a look at our Rest & Relaxation section. From articles looking at calming bathroom colours to ambient scents, we can help you design better-improved bathrooms for everyone to enjoy.
For further help in creating a sensory-friendly bathroom, book an appointment with The Bathroom Showroom. Experts in all things bathrooms, we can help turn your dream bathroom into a reality.