Whilst not always the case, for many people their home is an extension of themselves and is an opportunity to express themselves on a larger scale, with bathrooms often seeing a great deal of experimentation.
Because certain features, fittings and bathing solutions are required to be in each bathroom, there is a lot of artistic freedom and room to experiment around the required elements.
This was something that actress Jayne Mansfield took to perhaps its most logical extreme, and whilst there are a lot of extreme design decisions that are very much of their era and could only work with someone as over-the-top as Mrs Mansfield, there are also lessons to be learned alongside the warnings.
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Working Class Monroe
Born Vera Jayne Palmer, Jayne Mansfield has a purported IQ of 163, spoke five languages and had an incredible knack for publicity and branding, all of which belies the “ditzy blonde” stereotype she played up in film and in a huge number of column inches.
One of the greatest and most notable monuments to this openness to publicity came in 1957, shortly before her second marriage to Mickey Hargitay, when she bought 10100 Sunset Boulevard and painted it her signature colour of bright pink, later dubbing it the Pink Palace.
Intended to be a landmark to everything pink, lavish and outlandish, the 40-room Mediterranean-styled mansion was styled like it came out of a Barbie playset redolent in pink and hearts.
The exterior was bright pink, with a heart-shaped swimming pool, cupids and pink fluorescent lights, with a running undercurrent of gold throughout the property as well.
The decoration was largely funded by furniture and building suppliers, who would provide over $150,000 ($1.5m adjusted for inflation) in freebies, including inside the infamous hot pink bathroom, in exchange for the almost endless publicity that being part of the Pink Palace would provide.
This included the infamous heart-shaped Jacuzzi bath, as Mrs Mansfield was one of the first celebrities to endorse what would become an essential part of many hydrotherapy rooms and relaxation spas alike.
This was the centrepiece of a room that also featured a pink marble sink, unusual bright pink light fittings and, most infamously, floor-to-ceiling pink shag carpeting, which in a bathroom would be an exceptionally bad idea given the potential for the development of mould and damp.
With that said, the cavernous space does manage to offset the potentially claustrophobic nature of rich pink walls,
Whilst not the first lavishly designed celebrity home by any stretch of the imagination, it was one of the first to be completely open to the press, allowing for a lot of publicity about its sheer strangeness.
Unfortunately, the Pink Palace was demolished in 2002. After Mrs Mansfield’s shocking death in 1967, several celebrities bought and lived in the house at various points.
Ringo Starr noted that no matter how much he painted the walls, the pink still bled through, and singer Englebert Humperdink sold the building to developers who knocked the building down, ending the legacy of one of the most shocking bathrooms and houses in celebrity history.