Removing makeup before entering the hot springs bath increases the beautifying effect.

Make-up prevents the pores of your skin from absorbing the beneficial minerals that help to remove impurities and soften old keratoid skin. Removing your make-up before entering the bath enables the special characteristics of the bath to leave your skin with a creamy glow.

Reasons for applying warm tap water before bathing.

Applying warm water before entering the bathtub sends a message to your body that you are going to enter the bath.
If you enter the bath without applying water, then your blood vessels will suddenly expand, causing your blood pressure to drop. To allow the blood vessels to slowly expand and significantly lighten the burden to the body, apply water first to places furthermost from your heart such as the hands and feet.
Also, warm water is important for cleansing the body. To avoid splashing water on others, apply warm water while sitting.

Slowly warm your body by first submerging only the lower half.

The ideal style of taking a bath would be submerging half of your body into the water at first.
The water pressure of the hot springs bath is greater than you think, and if you submerge yourself to your shoulders, then the pressure will be felt on your lungs, making it difficult to breathe and causing you to suddenly feel woozy. By submerging only half of your body in the water at first, you might initially feel dissatisfied, but you will soon begin to feel warm as the blood steadily circulates through your body.

The appropriate length of time for total submersion is a key point to maximizing the beautifying effect

The typical number of times for submerging the entire body is 1-2 times with the ideal submersion time being no more than 10 minutes when the water temperature is 42 degrees Celsius or higher. When the water is a tepid temperature between 37 and 39 degrees Celsius, then you should spend no more than 20 minutes in the bath. In either case, it is important not to overdo it. While in the bath, try massaging the central arch of each foot and the middle area of the palm of each hand. This will help your body to relax and maintain a balance in the secretion of hormones.

Don't rinse off when getting out of the bath and only pour water on the area below the knees.

You should rise slowly from the bath and allow the body to soak in the minerals by not rinsing off. If you are a person with sensitive skin or you feel a prickly sensation from the mineral water, then you should quickly rinse off your body with warm tap water. Finally, pour cold water from the knees on down to feel refreshed.
Note) Be careful to keep clothes from coming in contact with the mineral water of the golden bath since it will stain your clothes with a deep red color.

Replace the fluids lost during the bath

While in the bath, the ability of the minerals in the water to force out bad elements is strong and can cause body fluids to become depleted due to perspiration and the diuretic properties of the minerals. When replenishing the lost fluids, be sure to drink light Japanese tea or mineral water to avoid causing the blood to thicken.
You can promote soft skin by applying lotion after perspiration has abated and the keratin portions of the skin are still moist.

Onsen is Japanese word describing Hot Springs, and hot water gush out from the grand with several kinds of minerals. So when you take an Onsen, you would take several good effects. There are more than three thousand Onsen in Japan and a lot of Japanese love taking it.

There are a lot of reasons that Onsen is loved by Japanese aren't only comfortable, but also a lot of Samurais went for a hot-spring cure at the middle ages and some famous ancient literatures had the information about it.

On this page, I would like to write about Onsen (Hot-Spring), please check it out.

Taking Onsen has several kinds of good effect for our body. Especially, the hot-spring cure has been so famous since old ages in Japan, and the effects depend on the minerals and the quantities. Formerly some Samurais took the effects of the Onsen for their cures, therefore we can gets same effects of Onsen as them. Some of the Onsen has good effects for our skins keeping beauty and it makes women feel glad. So it's a one of the way to research the effects of the Onsen before your visit.

I hope the below table might help you to check the effects. When you'll check your Onsen, please refer it that is written by kinds of the effects.

Kinds	Effects	Comments
Chloride Spring	Chronic skin disease, Skin burn, Incised wound, Anemia, Menstrual disorder, Chronic women's disease	The salt sticks on our skin and it stops our sweet from evaporating, it affects our body keeping heat in.
Chloride Hydrogen Carbonate Spring	Chronic skin disease, Diabetes, Gout, Skin burn, Incised wound,	The spring clean up our grease and secretions on our skin, it makes our smooth skin. So, we call it "Beauty's Spring".
Sulfate Spring	Chronic skin disease, High blood pressures, Diabetes, Gout, Skin burn, Incised wound, Menstrual disorder, Chronic women's disease	This Onsen usually affects our incised wounds and skin bourns, so we call it "Incised Wound Spring".
Simple spring	Arteriosclerosis, High blood pressure, Chronic skin disease, Diabetes, Skin burn, incised wound, Menstrual Disorder, Chronic women's disease	The springs are general hot springs and don't stimulate our body so strong.
Sulfur spring	Arteriosclerosis, High blood pressure, Chronic skin disease, Diabetes, Gout, Menstrual Disorder, Chronic women's disease	We can smell the hydrogen sulfide that is special smell likes rotten egg at the spring. After oxidized we can fine some yellow or white precipitates in the spring.
Spring including iron	Chronic skin disease, Anemia, Menstrual Disorder, Chronic women's disease	The color of water is transparent and colorless at gushing out, but finally the color changes to dark brown after oxidized.
Acid spring	Chronic skin disease, Diabetes, Incised wound, Anemia, Chronic women's disease	The spring is so uncommon in other countries except Japan, but we can find a lot of the acid springs all over Japan.
Carbon dioxide spring	Arteriosclerosis, High blood pressure, Skin burn, Incised wound	We would get some comfortable stimulus by the carbon dioxide gas during taking the Onsen, so we call it "Bubble spring".
Radioactive spring	Arteriosclerosis, High blood pressure, Chronic skin disease, Diabetes, Gout, Chronic women's disease	We call the spring "Gout Spring" from since early time, because the Onsen affects urine and uric acid would be reduced in our body. And don't worry about the radioactivity in the spring, they vaporizes into the air after gushing out.

In additionally, recovering from our Fatigue, Lumbago, Muscle pain, Neuralgia, Arthralgia, Shoulder pain, Sensitivity to the cold, Hemorrhoids, Bruise and Sprain are the effects by every Onsen.

How do you think about Onsen? Onsen have a lot of effects, so I hope that you agree the fact that some wounded Samurai visited there since old ages. If you have any problems on your body, please try any Onsen like the Samurais.

What items should we bring to go Onsen with? Japanese usually bring big towel, small towel, soap, shampoo and rinse to Onsen. But at some Onsen attached with Ryokan, which is Japanese inn, we might borrow them.

And the most important item is the small towel in all of the items. We use it to wash our body before taking Onsen, to wipe away our water after taking Onsen, and more than anything else it would hide our important part of our body.

At this part, I would like to write the way to take Onsen. Please read the below with the information of manners taking Onsen that I wrote next.

1. After arrive at Onsen, it's important to take a rest for one hour except something to eat and drink. Especially some alcohol is so dangerous.

2. At dressing room. We are required to take off our every clothes and put our clothes into the locker. If the locker has any keys, we have to bring the key to Onsen.

3. And then we just bring our shampoo and rinse and soap and small towel to Onsen from the dressing room. The time, it's better to hide our body by the small towels.

4. At first, wash our head and body. If there are some showers, we can use it. But if there are no showers, we need to use a pail to wash our body with the hot water of the spring.

5. Before taking an Onsen, we need to pour the hot water over our body. It's very important to accustom our body temperature to the hot spring's one and it also cleans our body. We call it "Kake-Yu". At beginning, we could pour on from our foots to our body. It would be enough warming up to pour from ten times to twenty times. Please don't forget our head especially winter season and/or really hot spring.

6. After pouring, we could take the Onsen slowly without our towel. At that time, Hanshin-Yoku is the best way. Hanshin-Yoku is one of the reasonable ways to have a bath and we just bathe the half part of our body in the bath. It's necessary for somebody who has some problem on his/her heart or lungs.

7. After taking Onsen, we would be required to wipe away our water on our body with our small towel. After Finished dripping, we can go the dressing room.

8. Don't forget to drink something after putting on our clothes. It's good for our body.

I would like to the bad manners on the below list to take an Onsen. Please read it and enjoy with everybody.

・ Taking an Onsen after drinking the alcohol. (it makes the anemia of the brain and arhythmia)

Noboribetsu, Beppu, Kusatsu, Arima and Dogo would be the best five Onsen by their history and name recognitions.

The locations of the Onsen are drawn on the below Japanese map. If you'll visit any places close to the Onsens, please try the Onsen. At that time, you wouldn't only enjoy the Japanese cultures but also your strains of your long journey would be relieved your fatigue.