Daily showers are purely ‘performative’ and have no real health benefit, experts insist

[disykat]

Another who has oily hair here. Finally now that I'm in my 60's I can skip a day washing. I still like to pop in for a quick shower to freshen up most days I'm going out and about though. (Our handheld shower head sits lower and I don't turn on the overhead so I don't soak my head.) I don't take long hot showers often though, as I agree those can be hard on the skin. I was definitely careful about the frequency of bathing when my kids were tiny. They would get dry skin if they bathed too often.

 

[Skippy918]

Ewwww. No shower for 12 years??? Did he wash his hair at least?
I shower daily, sometimes twice a day if I am doing yard work. I don’t like going to bed sweaty and gross.

 

[Genie+]

If I only showered once a week I’d be in there 2 hours. Once a month would = all day Sunday

We are hairless mammals and embedded in our genes is requirement of water in large quantities.

 

[Moliphino]

During covid when I wasn't going anywhere, I'd go about 3 days between showers. My hair did get much less oily after a couple weeks of that. I shower on any day I go out in public or get particularly dirty. If I'm just hanging around at home I often don't.

 

[Mokat76]

I don’t shower everyday unless I’m doing things that gets me all sweaty/dirty. Every 2-3 days has become the norm as I’ve gotten older and less active.

 

[kanerf]

More Green BS if you ask me. They want to take our stoves, our AC and now our water heaters. It is all nonsense as China builds another coal fired electric plant every few days. The environment got along just fine for 4.5 Billion years without humans and it will get along just fine when we are gone. Remind me not to sit next to these no-shower people.

 

[tvguy]

More Green BS if you ask me. They want to take our stoves, our AC and now our water heaters. It is all nonsense as China builds another coal fired electric plant every few days. The environment got along just fine for 4.5 Billion years without humans and it will get along just fine when we are gone. Remind me not to sit next to these no-shower people.

You can still have your stove and water heater, they just have to be electric now. And looking at the toxics those put off in your house, I am surprised it took this long to ban them. The power of the Natural Gas Industry I guess.

 

[John VN]

I don’t get crud from sitting at a desk all day.

Sorry, I should have defined *crud* as dead skin cells, perspiration, dirt from particles in the air, any contact with surfaces will have crud ....

 

[longboard55]

Not sure if it is coincidence, but I love showers and shower everyday and scrub my head pretty hard. Out of 4 brothers I am the least bald by far.

On another topic, what is happening with the instant hot water heaters, neighbor just installed one and indicated no gas line change was required, looked at the prices and seemed like almost free with rebates.

 

[CdnCarrie]

Sorry, I should have defined *crud* as dead skin cells, perspiration, dirt from particles in the air, any contact with surfaces will have crud ....

Meh. I don't feel dirty at the end of the day unless I was working out or it was very hot. Maybe after a long day in WDW if it's hot.
And no I don't change my sheets daily. I shower in the morning and change my sheets weekly.

 

[Diznygrl]

I have very fine and thin hair, it gets greasy REALLY fast so I have to wash it every day. I even tried the thing of not washing it every day in order to get it "used" to not being washed. Nearly two months of that with very little improvement, I couldn't take it anymore so I stopped.

I also tend to sweat like a beast under my arms, especially in my sleep so I can be pretty smelly when I get up in the morning. You will pry my daily shower from my cold, dead hands.

Anyway, how is "giving your whole body a good scrub with a washcloth every day" any different for the skin's "microbiome" than just hopping in the shower?

 

[monsterkitty]

I took a shower this morning before going to breakfast with my mom and sister. In a bit, I'm going to go do a 2 hour bike ride and a 45-minute tempo run off the bike.

I'll be showering again before bed. Heck, probably before dinner!

 

[John VN]

I took a shower this morning before going to breakfast with my mom and sister. In a bit, I'm going to go do a 2 hour bike ride and a 45-minute tempo run off the bike.

I'll be showering again before bed. Heck, probably before dinner!

Nice BRICK. Got a tri coming up?

I went out today and surprisingly halved yesterday's ride. Finished with 31.13 miles and showered immediately cause jumping into the 74°F pool is not an option.

 

[monsterkitty]

Nice BRICK. Got a tri coming up?

I went out today and surprisingly halved yesterday's ride. Finished with 31.13 miles and showered immediately cause jumping into the 74°F pool is not an option.

Boulder 70.3 on June 8

Really jealous of your ride outside. Our weather has been not so kind to outside rides this spring and I've only been out once. This weekend was 3 hours on the trainer, which is worse than digging your eyes out with a rusty spoon.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

“Why are we washing? Mostly because we’re afraid somebody else will tell us that we’re smelling,” environmentalist Donnachadh McCarthy told the BBC.

There are some of us who do have a bad odor about themselves, even if they do shower daily.

 

[VandVsmama]

https://nypost.com/2024/04/25/lifes...youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nypost

Call it perfume-ative hygiene.

Experts say the daily shower has no proven health benefit, dismissing the dousing as a socially accepted practice geared toward staving off accusations of funkiness — as A-listers like Jake Gyllenhaal and Mila Kunis admit they’ve been saying no to the nozzle.

“Why are we washing? Mostly because we’re afraid somebody else will tell us that we’re smelling,” environmentalist Donnachadh McCarthy told the BBC.

The “Prostitute State” author only hoses off once per month to help the environment — a lifestyle choice inspired by spending two weeks in the Amazon with the indigenous Yanomami people, he said.

Every other morning, McCarthy told a reporter, he opts instead for a wash at the sink, using a cloth to give his body a good scrub.

And while abstaining from daily showers might seem like antisocial behavior, medical experts are inclined to lean toward agreeing with earthy types like McCarthy, saying that the modern obsession with cleanliness can actually be hazardous to one’s health.

Manhattan dermatologist Dr. Julie Russak previously told The Post that prolonged and daily showers could strip away the “skin’s microbiome,” which plays a role in protecting the skin and is “also extremely important in overall health of the body.”

Chemist David Whitlock was so adamant about preserving this dermal barrier that the bathing abstainer didn’t shower for 12 years, instead opting to spray himself with good bacteria that he claims neutralizes the body’s smell-making chemicals.

When asked about addressing critics, he told Vice: “Tell anyone who mocks you that they are betraying profound ignorance of the skin microbiome, and then walk away.”

this is so dumb. Like, this is the sort of nonsense people believed in the Middle Ages. And look at how well that worked out for them in terms of the general population's mortality rate back then.

 

[John VN]

Boulder 70.3 on June 8

Really jealous of your ride outside. Our weather has been not so kind to outside rides this spring and I've only been out once. This weekend was 3 hours on the trainer, which is worse than digging your eyes out with a rusty spoon.

1st bold -- way cool Good LUCK and have a blast!!! R U on STRAVA?

2nd bold -- 3 HOURS -- I am in awe.

 

[CynBeth]

I shower every day and then 3 times a week at night I take another one to wash my hair.

 

[NotUrsula]

My family comes from a cold-climate culture where a once-weekly bath was the norm, and it was typical for several family members to use the same tub of water in turn because plumbed bathtubs were not common in most homes there until about the 1960s, so the water had to be hauled in buckets. After our immigration to the southern US, schoolmates let us know in no uncertain terms that that system wasn't sufficient here, and to our parents' bewilderment, we insisted on bathing daily after that ((which does make sense in a hot climate (and especially for adolescents, who tend to have more body odor at that age.)) Running water in the bathroom does make bathing every day a whole lot easier.

As I've gotten older my skin has lost moisture, and I find that in winter, at least, bathing daily is generally too often for me now, unless I've been doing some grubby chores. I still bathe daily in summer or when I've been working in the garden, but in the coldest part of winter I switch to a schedule of a full shower only every 3rd day or so for awhile, with just a daily wash-up in between.

It really isn't at all middle-ages stuff; it's really true that not *everyone* needs to fully bathe daily, especially very young children or the elderly, particularly in colder climates. As most of the folks on this board are lucky enough to live somewhere where indoor plumbing is standard, where water is relatively plentiful and where using that much water is not a luxury, then sure, bathe whenever you feel you need to, but for sedentary people who don't have much natural body odor and are not in a hot environment, that really may not need to be every single day. (I'd say that going more than a week between full showers/baths is taking that position to seriously grubby extremes, though.)

 

[CGB]

Anyone who says daily bathing isn't necessary clearly hasn't spent time in a middle school classroom.