“Power of shower”: Personal care, philosophy and neuroscience meet to unleash creativity

08 Aug 2024 --- As consumers crave holistic care and experiences to engage all senses, Personal Care Insights speaks to an expert who collaborated with Lush on “The Power of the Shower” to craft a research-driven shower routine with curated products.

Cognitive scientist and assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Virginia, Zachary Irving’s approach is designed to enhance creativity, revealing the unique benefits of personal care.

Can you describe the specific elements of the “Power of the Shower” routine that are designed to induce mind wandering?
Irving: My popular article on the campaign best describes how the routine was designed to induce mind-wandering.

At the heart of the campaign is a shower routine designed for mind-wandering. Like most science, the routine was a collaboration. I supplied the science, while the team at Lush provided wizard-tier product knowledge. We spent hours discussing and testing the products.

Our routine consists of three products, which you use in sequence to help you harness your wandering mind. It’s not a traditional shower routine but rather a mental exercise.

The overarching thematic metaphor is that you move from the darkness of night (Dark Angels Fresh Cleanser) through the freedom of sleep (Sleepy Shower Gel) to an insight that you experience when awakening to the morning sun (Not Sleepy Shower Bomb). Having a theme was important to activate distant, metaphorical associations (e.g., between insight and the sun). Distant associations are central to creative memory processes and provide a “grist for the mill” of creative showers.

Zachary Irving, cognitive scientist and assistant professor of philosophy at University of Virginia (Image credit: University of Virginia).Each step also had more specific goals, each based on the science of mind-wandering:

Step one aims to interrupt your daily worries. We began with a bit of a “shock” to free you from ruminative thought patterns that you were previously stuck in. Your mind can’t wander from topic to topic if it is stuck on a single thing. Dark Angels Fresh Cleanser is our shock: the darkness and grit of charcoal and rhassoul mud, mixed with herbal and woodsy fragrances of sandalwood and rosewood oil. These bold sensations are cut with cold-pressed avocado oil, so it’s still pleasant and soothing. It’s like rubbing night — or the forest floor — into your skin. Past research suggests that products like this, which induce intense positive emotions, can temporarily interrupt rumination. This may be why these emotions are correlated with high rates of mind-wandering in daily life.

Step two aims to let your mind wander. Now that you’re in the moment, we want you to relax, let go and allow your mind to drift from one thing to the next. To make you relax, we went with Sleepy Shower Gel, which might be my favorite Lush product. The silky, rich texture harmonizes with the lavender color and scent of the gel. You can just sink into it. Consistent with this, my lab found that neutral emotions reliably lead your mind to wander.

The transition from step one to two is important. Sleepy is the polar opposite of Dark Angels: it’s silky, rather than gritty, calming rather than intense. This rapid shift of sensations was partly meant to accentuate the relaxing qualities of sleep. Moreover, it encourages you to shift your mindset. This may help induce mind-wandering, whose defining characteristic is how it shifts between dramatically different ideas and experiences over time.

Step three aims to simulate a creative “aha!” moment, where you think about a problem in a new and unusual way. To accomplish this, we used the Not Sleepy Shower Bomb. Not Sleepy was meant to emulate two central characteristics of the “aha!” moment.

First, “aha!” moments lead you to approach a problem in a new way. Psychologists call this “breaking frame”: all of a sudden, you frame the problem differently, which allows you to overcome where you were stuck. Not Sleepy was meant to simulate this breaking frame because it changes forms. As you hold the solid shower bomb under the water, it explodes into a lather, wafting citrus all around you.

Not Sleepy Shower Bomb (Image credit: Lush).Second, “aha!” moments come upon you all at once. Rather than come to a solution gradually, you have a sudden insight, which immediately alters how you conceive of a problem. The dramatic shift from Sleepy to Not Sleepy was meant to emulate the suddenness of insight. All of a sudden, you are surrounded by lemon rather than lavender; you hold a solid rather than silk — you feel awake rather than restful.

What makes activities like showering effective at promoting creativity, and why would this be an important part of personal care?
Irving: Showers hit a sweet spot. They aren’t too engaging or difficult, so they don’t occupy all your attention. Your mind is, therefore, free to wander. 

But showers also aren’t mind-numbingly boring, unlike some of the tasks we give participants in a psychology laboratory. That’s important for two reasons. First, if you’re extremely bored, you might stop your mind from wandering and pick up a new task, such as checking your phone or trying to solve a work problem in your head. 

Second, moderately engaging tasks like showering or walking provide “grist for the mill” of thought. Showers involve a wide range of interesting experiences: water running down your back, silky or gritty textures, bright colors, rich scents. These experiences may spark associations in your memory and imagination, leading to novel insights. 

What are the potential broader implications of your research for the personal care industry?
Irving: One implication is that the personal care industry might be well positioned to counteract threats to mind-wandering from the tech industry. 

Tech companies have (often inadvertently) changed the way we are distracted. Our minds used to wander during idle times, such as waiting for a bus. Now we instead become engrossed in our phones. Although activists within the tech industry have raised the alarm about how smartphones sap our attention, there are powerful economic incentives for companies to make apps that continue to sap as much of our attention as possible. Such apps, I worry, may muscle out mind-wandering as well.

The personal care industry may not face the same kind of incentives to co-opt attention since idleness and mind-wandering complement self-care. That’s something that excites me about working with Lush, a company that took the brave stand to withdraw from social media platforms that cause youth anxiety. I see our campaign as completing that ethical stance. Not only can we speak up for the value of mind-wandering and spontaneity, but we can also help people experience that value in their own lives by using the Power of the Shower routine. 

By Venya Patel