A confession: For the first 22 years of my life, I swam competitively–basically a twice-a-day, 365-day-a-year habit. Which should give you some indication of my infatuation with water. Nowadays, sadly, you’ll find me freestyling quite rarely; New York City pools, with few exceptions, are mostly crap and I can no longer tolerate the havoc chlorine wreaks on my skin and hair. Basically, the only chance I get to splash around is when my mom coerces me into her flume-style watering hole.

Thus I must indulge my fondness for aquatic immersion elsewhere–i.e. superlong, searingly hot showers and the occasional soak. So you can only imagine my excitement when my friends at Kohler called with a tempting offer: would I be interested in taking their new Fountainhead VibrAcoustic Bath for a spin? Um, YES PLEASE!

The gist: Designed to coordinate with the company’s curvaceous Fountainhead suite of products, the tub has a series of vibrating transponders below its intriguingly swooping acrylic form. These give off an oh-so-slight massage directly to your body, but also ripple through the water, too, so you get a double dose of pulsating waves. The system is paired with chromatherapy and music–so you can “feel” your tunes while you’re chilling out. (You can even hear them underwater!)

The verdict? I’m a convert. Because despite my love of water, I’m usually not so keen on bathing–all you do is sit there, fidgeting, wanting to read a book or something. Not with this cool unit; the waves and soothing tunes and massaging vibrations conspire to encourage full-on bliss. It didn’t fully undo the effects of two recent all-nighters, but it came real close.

The product launches this summer, so you may have to wait a bit to check it online. In the meantime, visit Gizmodo for another take. I apologize that I’m not as uninhibited as those crazy kids, who posted a (nekkid!) video of their own try-out session, but they have much better abs than I do. –Jen Renzi

Technorati Tags: Kohler Fountainhead VibrAcoustic Bath, at-home spa tubs, chromatherapy bathing, high-tech bathrooms

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