Hacksaw
Thanks for the post ( The usual disclaimers apply )
I have that of which you speak of and It rocks!.
It works like this: Battery powered pump sends water through heat resistant tube. To a copper tube coil to more heat resistant tube and shower head thing. Below the copper tube coil sits a propane stove burner which heats the water up. tie this to a 20 lb tank and a river lots of showers. I think coleman come out with one with no heat, pump sends water to head type.

Lee

How about The Waterbaby (click on the picture to enlarge it):
http://www.atvconnection.com/Departments/Dune_Desert/waterbabysports.cfm

I can't seem to make the Waterbaby web page work. I don't know if that means that they are out of business or not. So if you are interested, keep trying since they might just be down at the moment. I would love to have a Waterbaby Sports pump! This is their website. I hope they haven't gone out of business: http://www.waterbabysports.com

If anyone has had experience with the Waterbaby, I would like to know what you think about it?.

I had a solar shower that I really liked. It was the Stearns brand. I think it was discontinued because I can't find it on the internet. The one I had had a pump and held 7 gallons. I will get a smaller one next.

Joy

You really don't have to make bathing or hair washing a major ordeal. The trick is not to use soap. Soap takes a lot of water to rinse out, esp out of long hair.

For a bird bath, pour about 2 quarts of warm water into a basin. Stir into it a heaping teaspoon (no more) of baking soda. This simple solution cuts through body oils and neutralizes odor wonderfully. You can use it on every part of your body. And you don't have to rinse it off, just wash with it and dry (or evaporate). Your skin will be clean and soft.

For hair washing (I've used it for waist-length hair), use a basin that you can immerse a good part of your scalp into. Use water that is as warm as you can stand, not just tepid, and add about three tablespoons of baking soda. Stick your scalp into the basin and work the soda water well into your hair. Massage your scalp gently while in the water, and use a comb to work it through your hair. Then take your container of warmish rinse water and a cup, and pour the rinse water through your hair.

That's it. Try the bath at home when you're sticky-sweaty-stinky for a real test. Try the hair washing with really dirty, greasy hair. You WILL be surprised.

And dry baking soda makes an excellent deodorant, too. It does wear off with heavy sweating, but it's all I've used since 1985, really. A recycled bath powder and puff is ideal.

I once saw a 'shower' in a campground: a pump garden sprayer, two cheap opaque shower curtains on rings, a hula-hoop, and some cord to hang it from three points from a tree. Tip: don't use it when the wind is blowing.

Sue

Here's a bunch of solar showers from expensive and complicated to simple and relatively cheap, including several Stearns.
preparedness.com solar showers

BTW, you can use a solar shower in winter on sunny days. Just insulate it well from the ground (I've used my sleeping pad folded in half) and protect it from the wind while waiting (half the day but you don't need to stand there watching it) for the water to warm up. Add a quart or so of hot (but not boiling) water and you're good to go. I probably wouldn't use it if I was winter camping but at home during an extended winter power outage back in the early 1980s, it worked well enough.

Thank you Spiritwalker for the link. I will probably get one of the 2 or 3 gallon Streans. I think they discontinued the one that pumps up, because they had a tendency to explode if pumped up too much.

For me the large 7 gal. size was too heavy to really deal with. But you could lay it in the tub or on the ground, pump it up and still take a shower.

Right now we mostly take sponge baths if the power goes out. I heat water, put it in a large bowl and take it to the bathtub. I also have body wipes that I got at REI for use away from home.

Joy

Quote from sue: "I once saw a 'shower' in a campground: a pump garden sprayer, two cheap opaque shower curtains on rings, a hula-hoop, and some cord to hang it from three points from a tree. Tip: don't use it when the wind is blowing."

Sue, I like that idea! I hate taking showers in a camp shower. This would be a nice alternative. A person could always clip the shower curtains closed if they were that worried about being seen!

The pump garden sprayer I have doesn't spray for very long before you have to pump it up again. Maybe there is a kind that works better than mine.

I love outdoor showers and bathtubs! I went on a garden tour once and 2 of the homes had outdoor bathtubs! One was on a back deck, built into the floor of the deck. The other one was out behind the garage. During the summer they put a large mosquito netting tent on top of the garage - turned it into a night time bedroom and the bathtub was right below them. The tub was surrounded by beautiful flowering bushes with a little side table and a book rack built over the tub so they could read! I loved it! It was an old clawfoot bathtub. At night they covered it with a board.

Thank you for the suggestions!

Joy

Hi Hacksaw,


The IDC Solarstore portable inflatable Solar Collector might be of interest.




http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/sciencetech/introducing-inflatable-solar-panels/1093

http://www.smartplanet.com/news/tech/10001234/photos-inflatable-solar-panels.htm

Hey,

About 25 years ago I was on an Initial Attack Forest Fire Crew and we accessed a lot of fires by helicopter. We used to keep a "Fog Nozzle" in the kit bag and ran it off the Wajax Mark 3 fire pump. We would tie the nozzle up in a tree, run the pump on low and shower under this, there was little need for soap as it blasted the dirt right off you (and maybe a little skin).

On one of the last fires I worked I saw a shower unit at a base camp that the staff called a "Demand Heater". A portable fire pump pushed water from a nearby pond in to this unit and supplied the pressure. The water circulated through piping that was heated off a 20 lb propane tank and the water sprayed out of 2 showerheads on either side of the unit. I do not think this was a commercial unit, just something the Fire Staff developed in the off-season.

Mike

"...Soap takes a lot of water to rinse out, esp out of long hair..."

Huh?

Quick update:

Despite camping at a camp ground with showers this weekend I convinced the DW that she didn't need them (the fact that it would have cost us 10 bucks to both shower helped...damn pay showers!). We tried to go as low tech as possible and washed in the basin/bag which came with my GSI Dualist kit and about 4 cups of hot soapy water for the both of us...plus a J-Cloth.

I think to make it work better in the future I'd have to take a 'bird bath' (thanks Susan, I like that term) twice a day and she'd definitely need something more for her long hair...if nothing else just to get it good and rinsed out.

It's a start and already I'm proud of her...I didn't think she'd go this far.

Thanks for the advice folks!