The case for not bathing (1 Viewer)

[superchuck500]

I read the other day that dermatologists and other public health experts believe that shampooing more than twice a week is overkill, not helpful to your hair, and environmentally damaging.

Then, by coincidence, I saw this:



<iframe width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" src="https://www.theatlantic.com/video/iframe/486161/"></iframe>

12,167 hours of washing our bodies.

That’s how much life you use, if you spend 20 minutes per day washing and moisturizing your skin and hair (and you live to be 100, as we all surely will).

That adds up to nearly two entire years of washing every waking hour.

Not to mention water usage and the cost of cosmetic products—which we need, because commercials tell us to remove the oil from our skin with soap, and then to moisturize with lotion. Other commercials tell us to remove the oils from our hair, and then moisturize with conditioner.

That’s four products—plus a lot of water and time— and few people question whether it’s anything short of necessary.

It’s not just the fault of advertising, but also because most of us know from personal experience that if we go a few days without showering, even one day, we become oily, smelly beasts.

But what if you push through the oiliness and smelliness, embrace it, and just go forward?

Out of curiosity—not laziness—I tried it.

At first, I was an oily, smelly beast. The odor of bodies is the product of bacteria that live on our skin and feed off of the oily secretions from the sweat and sebaceous glands at the base of our hair follicles. Applying detergents (soaps) to our skin and hair every day disrupts a sort of balance between skin oils and the bacteria that live on our skin. When you shower aggressively, you obliterate the ecosystems. They repopulate quickly, but the species are out of balance and tend to favor the kinds of microbes that produce odor.

But after a while, the idea goes, your ecosystem reaches a steady state, and you stop smelling bad. I mean, you don’t smell like rosewater or Axe Body Spray, but you don’t smell like B.O., either. You just smell like a person.

Because, evolutionarily, why would we be so disgusting that we need constant cleaning? And constant moisturizing and/or de-oiling? If we do more to allow our oil glands and bacteria to equilibrate, the theory goes, skin should stop fluctuating between oily and dry.

In our video series If Our Bodies Could Talk, we’ve been exploring the microbiome in a three-episode series. The final segment is out today, embedded below. In it, I talk with microbiologist Martin Blaser about the consequences of cleaning our bodies as avidly as many people do.
. . .
In the course of meeting these people and thinking more about skin microbes, I started using less soap, and less shampoo, and less deodorant, and showering less. I went from every day to every other day to every three. And now I’ve pretty much stopped altogether.

I still wash my hands, all the time, which remains an extremely important way to prevent communicable diseases.

I still rinse off elsewhere when I’m visibly dirty, like after a run when I have to wash gnats off my face, because there is still the matter of society. If I have bed head, I lean into the shower and wet it down. But I don’t use shampoo or body soap, and I almost never get into a shower.

At first I did smell bad, especially as I went without deodorant. I didn’t quit cold turkey, but transitioned from a traditional aluminum-based stick to Soapwalla, which is just some plant oils and starches. But I’ve lately stopped that, too.

And everything is fine. I wake up and get out the door in minutes. At times when I might’ve smelled bad before, like at the end of a long day or after working out, I just don’t. At least, to my nose. I’ve asked friends to smell me, and they insist that it’s all good. (Though they could be allied in an attempt to ruin me.)

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/06/i-stopped-showering-and-life-continued/486314/

 

[SystemShock]

Or, what we call it in America: France.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Or, what we call it in America: France.

actually Austria was even worse

i'm with the article in principle (plus i shave my head so shampoo is not a concern), BUT as a dancer who was in close contact with many people often, I will take over clean to under clean everyday
this is a subset of Modern Dance called "Contact Improvisation" - it uses the leverage of bodies and momentum to create some truly beautiful and unexpected moments - you are i constant contact with your partner
unfortunately it has been populated by stickin hippies since its inception - you'd come out of a "contact jam" and have someone else's smell on you for far too long
just got to a point that i couldn't take the smell anymore (like bars & cigarette smoke back in the day)

 

[Twenty]

And everything is fine. I wake up and get out the door in minutes. At times when I might’ve smelled bad before, like at the end of a long day or after working out, I just don’t. At least, to my nose. I’ve asked friends to smell me, and they insist that it’s all good.

 

[SWJJ]

I had a buddy that did this for a while. He showered every couple of days using just water, no soap. He works indoors and does nothing to sweat, I couldnt smell him.

I wasnt trying to either.

 

[saintmdterps]

I work at a nursing home as an OT so I&#8217;m kind of stuck with showering at the end of the day. After you&#8217;ve spent your morning helping bathe and clean those who cannot do it for themselves, then the rest of the day in the mid-summer mid-Atlantic heat which permeates the entire building, you&#8217;re begging for a shower.

For me it&#8217;s also the ritual of changing gears from work to home. The shower allows me to relax and unwind.

Plus there are those shared showers

 

[GW93]

people are gross

 

[Suavecito8]

I went without a shower for 30 days in a row in Iraq. If they came out and said bathing takes ten years off of your life I would be living ten less years. F that noise.

 

[Saintshizzle]

wow...lmao

 

[Krodwhodat]

I went without a shower for 30 days in a row in Iraq. If they came out and said bathing takes ten years off of your life I would be living ten less years. F that noise.

The old whore bath. Only way to keep the stincch from rotting a vehicle


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[guidomerkinsrules]

the real question is morning shower or before bed shower?

I'm morning all the way

 

[Suavecito8]

The old whore bath. Only way to keep the stincch from rotting a vehicle


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It was so bad I could not believe that it was me smelling like that. That did something to my psyche lol. I take two showers almost everyday and make sure I smell good.

 

[Twyst]

the real question is morning shower or before bed shower?

I'm morning all the way

After spending a ot of time in Thailand Ive turned into a 3 shower a day guy. They are pretty obsessive about hygiene there and it just kind of rubbed off on me

 

[Krodwhodat]

It was so bad I could not believe that it was me smelling like that. That did something to my psyche lol. I take two showers almost everyday and make sure I smell good.

As a cav scout I’ve done my share of time without showering and man I remember sitting in The TC chair of my humvee and the gunner stunk so bad behind me I wanted to gag. You’re humping through the woods a squat for a second and couldn’t believe you can stink that bad. Fun times. Getting to the rear and it would take days to get the stink off.


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[superchuck500]

I think it's worth noting that the point isn't necessarily that the act of showering is unnecessary - but more that we should think about the chemicals we're using at such frequency, and whether they're necessary. Dermatologists say that shampooing more than about twice a week (for most people) is overkill and not only bad for the environment but not optimal for your hair.

A good steamy rinse might get done 90% of what we shower for. Maybe all that soap, shampoo, and conditioner 5 to 14 times a week is overkill.