“A bath is not an alternative to a shower: it is a hot lie-down”

November 27, 2020 8:07 AM

One in four Britons don’t shower every day: “A Shower is where you get completely into the shower and also wash your hair. A man shower is where you get your hair wet but don’t wash it. And a shower (lower case, no stated gender) is where you just stand at the sink, splashing yourself ... If you spray deodorant on and call that a shower, that’s a Sure-er (you have to say it, not spell it). If you spray deodorant on and spray dry shampoo into your hair, you’ve had a Febreze. If you can’t be bothered to shower and instead get into the sea because you are near it, you’ve had a Sea Febreze.”
posted by Wordshore (150 comments total)

nooooo what have you done wordshore this is the real kraken you have unleashed on mefi
posted by lalochezia at 8:24 AM on November 27, 2020 [40 favorites]

I can count on one hand the number of days I haven't had a shower since I was a teen (sorry, "Shower" I guess) and those are pretty much all days when I was just super ill and wasn't going to leave the house anyway. I'm mystified by not wanting to bathe regularly. It's one of the reasons I'm utterly disinterested in camping or things like Burning Man - if that's your jam, good for you, but I feel completely rank until I have had a shower every day.
posted by jzb at 8:26 AM on November 27, 2020 [28 favorites]

Sometimes I skip days in the winter (Minnesota) because it's so cold I don't really sweat at all unless I work out. Sorry I'm so disgusting.
posted by zixyer at 8:30 AM on November 27, 2020 [13 favorites]

Once a day Shower MeFite here. Though the time during that day varies, depending on when I go out and/or if I am in the presence of someone else. Twice a day showers, sometimes, in hot weather or otherwise filthy.

Baths are for lazing in, or doing Zoom or other video chats in; I don't regard them as a place where you get clean.
posted by Wordshore at 8:32 AM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

I'm genuinely surprised to learn that, reportedly, 75% of people shower daily. It's probably lower because it's self-reported, but I would have guessed about 50% of people shower daily, and 75% shower 4 or more times a week.
posted by LSK at 8:32 AM on November 27, 2020 [12 favorites]

I grew up in the country on a well. Crap water pressure, so no showers. Everyone bathed once a week.

I certainly don't shower daily in the winter, even though I now live in the city.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:33 AM on November 27, 2020 [8 favorites]

I Shower twice a week. I soap my crotch, feet and pits almost daily, in the shower.

Big Soap lies to us, its so unnecessary (and in some cases harmful to your skin) to soap most parts of your body regularly.
posted by dazedandconfused at 8:34 AM on November 27, 2020 [19 favorites]

"...and 14% have stopped using deodorant."

During Lockdown 1, this was me. Three months without deodorant. Like camping, but longer. And I was fine. I wasn't leaving the house, there was only me in the house, it affected no-one but me, and why not pass on slapping chemicals on my body if I don't need to?

That said, I did catch my own scent a couple times. I wasn't ripe, but there was definitely a scent.

Perhaps relatedly, daily shower time lengthened considerably. What else did I have to do that day?
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:35 AM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

Lotta people without crippling depression in this thread apparently
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:38 AM on November 27, 2020 [200 favorites]

I still take a shower (pretty much) every day, but I'm not washing my hair nearly as frequently as I did pre-pandemic. Part of it is that my hair has grown really long, and it's a pain in the ass to dry it. Part of it is that I'm trying to take better care of my hair, since I'm not getting it trimmed and want to avoid getting split ends and whatnot. So yeah: shower every day but hair wash every four to five days.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:38 AM on November 27, 2020 [8 favorites]

I don't like showers and take about two a week if I have to hang with humans in non-pandemics. I do care about other people a lot, though.
posted by lauranesson at 8:44 AM on November 27, 2020 [9 favorites]

Yes.
posted by infini at 8:45 AM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

"...and 14% have stopped using deodorant."

I never really started, and have gotten to 50+ without anyone fainting, running away or moving out because of my body odour. Admittedly I did buy a can of deodorant in my late teens. Being a combination of more gullible, desperate and stupid then, I was taken in by ads which strongly implied that the particular brand was the fast track to getting laid.

I absolutely hated the smell, and loathed being enveloped in this cloud of chemicals. It seemed ridiculous. And I didn't get laid; if anything, it seemed to act as a repellant.

After a miserable week I tried to get my money back, failed at that as well, threw it away and continued to shower every day. No deodorant since.
posted by Wordshore at 8:51 AM on November 27, 2020 [15 favorites]

One of the things that sucks about my broken knee is that my "having a shower" is a major production that requires the assistance of a roommate, so I don't do it every day and it's SO frustrating.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:53 AM on November 27, 2020 [7 favorites]

The real thrust of the story is in the line " 25% of people have stopped having a shower every day," and that this is OK. Not mentioned in the story is that less washing of the skin makes sense if you consider that, just as we are learning that biome of our gut is important not just to our digestion but our overall health, our skin biome is pretty important too. But it can't do its job if we keep scrubbing it off.

Various others voices in the non-showering (or at least the non-soap-using) wilderness have said the same:

I Quit Showering, and Life Continued — We spend two full years of our lives washing ourselves. How much of that time (and money and water) is a waste? (The Atlantic)

‘I don’t smell!’ Meet the people who have stopped washing — A growing number of people are eschewing soap and trusting bacteria to do the job instead – and an entire industry has sprung up to accommodate them. (The Guardian)

What Happens When You Don’t Shower For Five Years — Author James Hamblin hasn’t showered in five years. In this excerpt of his new book, he recounts his approach to personal hygiene. (Science Friday)

No Showers, No Soap, Perfect Skin? Meet the Bacteria Facial — The skin microbiome is having a moment (Medium)
posted by beagle at 8:56 AM on November 27, 2020 [26 favorites]

I would like to see how this shower thing correlates/changes with age. I remember quite distinctly that before some point in my teenage years it was no problem to play basketball in street clothes in the middle of the day and never feel particularly sweaty/dirty and then that all changed and going through the 20's the need for showering went up and up but lately in my 50's I realize I don't (absent doing something physical) feel the need for a shower every day, I am bald now so washing hair is sort of prefunctory and I just don't get that oily gritty sweaty feeling that I used to just from standing around. If I am not doing some kind of construction or running I pretty much shower based upon my shaving schedule which is every couple or three days. I am also guilty of taking showers out of boredom though.
posted by Pembquist at 8:57 AM on November 27, 2020 [7 favorites]

Also I rarely use soap, it feels like paint stripper.
posted by Pembquist at 8:59 AM on November 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

Your hair will start to regulate itself if you stop washing it with shampoo. After some time it won't be greasy. And if you do wash it regularly like most people, you shouldn't do more than every few days.
posted by Liquidwolf at 9:01 AM on November 27, 2020 [10 favorites]

Lotta people without crippling depression in this thread apparently

Interestingly, at peak, borderline suicidal depression (aged 22) , I was taking at least one shower and sometimes 2-3 baths in a day. For a while, it felt like the only time life felt like anything other than pure torment were the hours i spent half-suspended in hot water in an enormous rusting tub (i had a great apartment for the bleak years) crying to cheap bubble bath and reading William Blake and weird, sad Latin American novels until my toes threatened to permanently prune.
posted by thivaia at 9:02 AM on November 27, 2020 [41 favorites]

Pre-pandemic: Shower almost daily, wet hair at the same time, but only shampoo it every other day. I had to go into the office and be presentable.

Now: I don't come within 20 feet of people or leave my apartment (where I live alone) for as long as a week at a time and I've been giving myself buzzcuts so my hair doesn't look awful on Zoom even if I don't do anything to it. I "shower" every 3 days or so, or on a day where I need to go out.
posted by LionIndex at 9:04 AM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Night-showerer here, couple times a week and almost never daily unless I've worked out.

This killed me.... "...like giving a cat lunch." QFT
posted by esoteric things at 9:05 AM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

Still at least a once a day Showerer. Less depressed though
posted by thivaia at 9:06 AM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Mod note: One comment deleted. Skip the weird "let me tell you about your character flaws" stuff or throwing around big generalizations about other people. People's situations are different, and people have lots of different reasons for not showering everyday. Stick to talking about how things are for you.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:08 AM on November 27, 2020 [24 favorites]

I had surgery at the beginning of 2020 that meant I couldn't have a proper shower for two weeks. Even baby wipes and cleaning up at the sink were not enough and my skin and scalp were so fucking itchy that I ended up standing in the shower a few days before I supposed to with the handheld nozzle so I could at least properly soap and rinse.

Pre-surgery and covid I needed to shower in the morning before going to work. Otherwise I felt neither clean nor awake, plus the only way to make my hair cooperate is to thoroughly wet, clean (used to be shampoo, now conditioner), and air dry. Now I'm showering about every other day, in the evening, fixing my hair either by wetting in the sink or just putting on a baseball cap.

Oh but deodorant is an absolute necessity. Largely because HRT changes your body chemistry. I had 15+ years to know what my armpits smelled like under estrogen and it is a different and Stronger smell with testosterone. Not that I'm complaining, mind, but I'm also not skipping deodorant.
posted by Is It Over Yet? at 9:10 AM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

Living through the day zero water shortage in Cape Town has taught me that I definitely don't need to Shower every day, and that I can clean myself fairly luxuriously with about 3 liters of water.
I do love, love, love being in hot water though. So relaxing.
posted by Zumbador at 9:11 AM on November 27, 2020 [18 favorites]

In colder climates, I find I tend to have a hot shower just about every morning. It's a desirable, pleasurable thing, it warms me up in a way that makes me ready to face another day of going out in the miserable, horrible cold. (I am a skinny thing with no built-in insulation.)

But when I was growing up in the tropics, and now that I'm back in them, I have a shower every few days at best, and do not do any of the other things discussed in this article. I am going to be sweaty within about five minutes of walking outside and getting on the bicycle, why the hell should I bother? If I got in an air-conditioned car and drove to an air-conditioned office then I guess more frequent showers would make sense. And maybe if I had regular video meetings with co-workers it might make sense, but I'm a freelancer, I see nobody. New Orleans is a hot, sweaty place, and I happily embrace that.

The precise time between showers ebbs and flows. It's been longer in general this year. They start looking more attractive for the three months the morning temperatures start dipping below 60ºf. Sometimes a cold one is a really wonderful thing to help me get ready for sleep on a particularly hot and humid night - wash off that congealed sweat and gunk of the day, cool down, it's great.
posted by egypturnash at 9:20 AM on November 27, 2020 [6 favorites]

I never really started, and have gotten to 50+ without anyone fainting, running away or moving out because of my body odour.

Right there with ya. I suppose I used roll-on for a little while in my teens and early twenties, but that is decades ago. Since then? If I get excessively warm and sweaty (say, chopping wood for an hour) and do not then shower and change, I am perceptible; if not, then not.

I certainly have had enough close partners who were, let us say, excessively candid and direct in their appraisals of me that I would have heard by now if there were an issue. The consensus of a short series of wives and a longer series of girlfriends before and between them is that my hair will sometimes carry a trace of scent from my shampoo, but in general the boy don't smell.

For what it's worth, I have almost no sense of smell myself, and I have further spent most of my life in Canada. The latter means that sweating from heat and humidity is often minimal; the former means that I am acutely conscious that I would not realize if I stank, so I stay pretty clean to avoid the possibility. When I have passed weeks or months in tropical climates, I am even more dedicated in the use of the Shower to head off problems.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:28 AM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

"Meet the people who have stopped washing"

No.
posted by mhoye at 9:29 AM on November 27, 2020 [39 favorites]

Took 2-3 up to 5 showers a day this summer, just did not hit the level of humidity to haul up the AC units and although very hot some day there was always some breeze. But a quick 20 second rinse in cool water helped regulate my comfort level. Now until it gets cold enough to crank up the thermostat (a bit of icy sheen in the sink :-) it's chilly and many fewer per week. And WHO THE .... is going to get close enough for a sniff this year????
posted by sammyo at 9:32 AM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Bodies are different, smells are different, hair is different. Do what works for you and if you're not knocking me over with your smell, I will never know. Or care.

The number one reason I hate zombie/apocalypse movies is that no one who survived is likely to ever get a hot shower again, and who wants to live in a world like that? Not this lover of civilization.
posted by emjaybee at 9:34 AM on November 27, 2020 [29 favorites]

I heard an expert on the radio worrying that some male athletes in particular shower too much, or soap too much of their body. She recommended pits, groin, and feet. (Hair is another story.) Skin problems developed because too many friendly bacteria were being killed on our "largest organ."

Me, every couple of days is fine. Especially in the winter.
posted by kozad at 9:38 AM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Count me as another person who is amazed at people not needing to bathe. I shower at least once or twice a day; sometimes three times in the summer (hello southeastern North Carolina!) and I am a fan of bathing. In fact, I love staying in nice hotels and utilizing fancy showers. I have so many types of soaps and scrubs and gels and shampoos - I love the whole process.
But really, I’m super active and I am very stinky for god knows what reason (I guess because I eat a lot of pungent foods, sweat a lot, and live somewhere where humidity doesn’t allow the sweat to evaporate). I do shave several times a week, and sometimes I wonder if that makes it worse. My hairy manfriend like, never smells. It’s insane. He can workout or do yardwork and get sweaty and he just Doesn’t Smell. I can think about doing a push-up and people move away. I switched to natural deodorant a few years ago and I’d like to take this opportunity to make a public apology for the people I affected as my body was adapting: I am so sorry.
posted by sara is disenchanted at 9:41 AM on November 27, 2020 [7 favorites]

Let everyone do as they will when it comes to actions. If I find their aroma to be offensive, I'll move away. No problem.
posted by stirfry at 9:42 AM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

BTW, there is a bacteria (RB41) that lives on your shower head, your dog's nose, and in paleolithic paintings. No further information available. Source: 99% Invisible microbial scientist. I don't mean the scientist was either invisible or microbial, you understand.
posted by kozad at 9:45 AM on November 27, 2020 [17 favorites]

I wonder how many frequent shower/bath folks here live in humid climates? I'm in a non-humid area and a cowboy bath at the sink every day or second day is sufficient, a proper shower once a week, immersion bath almost never.

I (think) I smell like a human most of the time, and I think that is okay.
posted by elkevelvet at 9:49 AM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

One of my tells for “not doing so hot, emotionally” is taking more than one shower a day, because it’s a few minutes that’s soothing and feels nice. Showering is great, I love it. I’m a night shower-er and I’ve gotten even more grossed out as I get older by the idea of NOT showering off before bed, and being all day-gross in your sheets?! Ew. But this might be another anxiety manifestation, because I watched Near Dark (yes, the Katherine Bigelow vampire movie from the 90s) the other day and was just obsessed with how dirty everyone was and spent the whole movie wishing they would bathe. Pandemic life is clearly going great, thanks. In conclusion, a nice warm shower is a lovely thing and I am grateful I can take one whenever I wish.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 9:49 AM on November 27, 2020 [10 favorites]

The Daily Mail is never a good source for reliable statistics, according to a 2019 yougov survey 55% of brits shower once or more per day.

So if that 55% figure has dropped by 25% the number of brits showering once or more per day is currently about 41%
posted by Lanark at 9:52 AM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Since adolescence, I have been incapable of functioning if I haven't showered that day, especially if my hair is longer than an inch. The sensory screaming of greasy hair is like nails on a chalkboard, and my face doesn't feel right, and--just! brrr. Having very short hair that absolutely cannot touch my neck and most of my face helps, I keep my hair as short as I do for sensory reasons as well as gendered ones, but I gotta at least wash my face and hair and head before I'm going to be able to pay attention to anything other than my skin crawling.

I am actually fairly lucky in that I tend to need to sweat a lot before I get stinky (as informed by people I'm closed to, not just my own perceptions) so it's not really about smell for me as much as it is about just feeling like I can exist in my own skin without screaming.
posted by sciatrix at 10:03 AM on November 27, 2020 [9 favorites]

I always think, ok–I won't bathe. I'll just get dressed and go. It'll save time. But I can't do it because I can't enjoy myself unless I'm clean (which entails soap, water, loofa - but also drying off and applying various lotions, oils, sunscreens etc). So I tell myself I'll just shower quickly. I know people who can shower in 10 minutes. But once I'm in there it's 30 minutes no matter what I do because there is an order to things and I can't skip any of the steps. I've tried. And, I can't just stand under the water for two minutes like in the movies. I've tried that too. It doesn't feel right. When I'm off of work and I'm in a bad mood I know that if I just get in the shower I'll feel 80% better. It's a lot of work keeping clean but I have to do it. I'm probably pretty high maintenance. And this isn't the first time I've commented about showering on metafilter. (I don't think it's even just the second time).
posted by marimeko at 10:05 AM on November 27, 2020 [15 favorites]

there is a bacteria (RB41) that lives on your shower head, your dog's nose, and in paleolithic paintings

The way bacteria do, I'm pretty sure you can say there's one that lives in any three random locations and have a 95% chance of being right. No matter how often you Shower.
posted by echo target at 10:08 AM on November 27, 2020 [8 favorites]

BTW, there is a bacteria (RB41) that lives on your shower head, your dog's nose, and in paleolithic paintings.

That's an intriguing set of contexts. Like, have dogs been secretly doing plumbing and art behind our backs for millennia??
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:10 AM on November 27, 2020 [7 favorites]

The number one reason I hate zombie/apocalypse movies is that no one who survived is likely to ever get a hot shower again, and who wants to live in a world like that?

Heh. I've always assumed that zombies would be so heinously and unrelentingly odoriferous that debates over personal hygiene among people trying to survive in that world would be moot.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:13 AM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

beagle: "Meet the Bacteria Facial"

this is a terrible idea for a PornHub channel
posted by chavenet at 10:15 AM on November 27, 2020 [15 favorites]

I'm envious of those who find showers/baths luxurious and pleasurable. For me Getting Clean is just one more chore required of me to be part of human society; I've never derived any pleasure from it and I do it as rarely as I can get away with without being offensive to others. I've been WFH for years now, which means that being around others was already unusual, and this year even more so. Judge me as ye may.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:21 AM on November 27, 2020 [16 favorites]

Ha. You guys are gonna think I'm gross. I only wash my hair once a week, if that, I don't use any soap on my body, and I take a nice hot bath in the evenings most days instead of showering. I never shower in the morning unless I'm like, going to a wedding.

I do use a bit of deodorant and barely sweat though (I have real issues regulating my temperature) and I basically never smell (corroborated by my partner and family members).
posted by stillnocturnal at 10:23 AM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

I'm envious of those who find showers/baths luxurious and pleasurable. For me Getting Clean is just one more chore required of me to be part of human society; I've never derived any pleasure from it and I do it as rarely as I can get away with without being offensive to others.

For me the experience is basically: ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh oh hey this is nice ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh. Everything on either end of actually being under the water is a total chore. Especially drying (no matter how clean the towel or how thorough the shower, I'm still stuck picking bits of lint and wet hair off myself). Probably doesn't help that I live in NYC and my bathroom is smaller than half the rest of yalls closets. I can't even get dressed in there without banging all my limbs on something.

I like a nice bath-and-wine sometimes, but the second I get in there, in the back of my mind I'm still thinking "very soon you will be out of the bath and wet and naked and cold :("
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:29 AM on November 27, 2020 [22 favorites]

It's not that I don't like showering, it's that I don't like the process of starting to shower -- being naked, being cold and then having to look at the thing I am in the mirror -- and getting out of the shower, which is all the above plus being cold. Being in the shower is a delight, but it's a lot of trouble. I would skip it for longer, but after about a day, the question becomes how much dandruff and how much cystic acne would I like in my life, which is not very much at all.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:31 AM on November 27, 2020 [17 favorites]

I never wash my hair. But then, I'm bald.

I do brush my teeth and shave in the shower though.
posted by Foosnark at 10:31 AM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Source: 99% Invisible microbial scientist.

Oooh!

I don't mean the scientist was either invisible or microbial, you understand.

Oh. Disapoint.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:31 AM on November 27, 2020 [14 favorites]

Baths are great, but only if they are big enough to actually submerge. Unfortunately for bathing, I'm tall, so it is very rare to find a tub that is large enough for me to actually have a relaxing, warm time in.

I shower daily because otherwise my skin feels sort of greasy and itchy, and I can start to smell myself. I've gone without bathing a few times for a week or two while camping and showering after a week of being grubby is one of the best feelings in the world.

I've lived without running water and had no problem feeling clean bucket bathing. I never measured the water use exactly but probably it only took a few liters/quarts.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:32 AM on November 27, 2020 [5 favorites]

I also sometimes take a shower because I do my best thinking in the shower, and taking a shower can sometimes help me figure out the answer to a vexing problem. I wish that I could get the same effect by working out or cooking or doing some other useful thing, but so far that hasn't worked. I probably shower 75% more when I'm doing a challenging coding project than when I'm not.

I don't really do baths: I don't ever feel like my tub is totally clean, and I don't love the idea of stewing in my own dirt. Also, I have dry skin, and I feel like taking baths would make it worse. But I'm kind of tempted to buy some expensive bath bomb thingies and give it a try.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:33 AM on November 27, 2020 [6 favorites]

I only sweat 50% as much as I'm supposed to (I had the purple shower to prove it) so I only have to shower 3x a week. My partner has an extremely sensitive nose and no filter, so trust me, if it were a problem they would tell me.

RIP to you poor sons of bitches with functioning autonomic systems but I'm different.
posted by brook horse at 10:34 AM on November 27, 2020 [6 favorites]

Baths are great, but only if they are big enough to actually submerge. Unfortunately for bathing, I'm tall, so it is very rare to find a tub that is large enough for me to actually have a relaxing, warm time in.

We had a tub until I was maybe 12 and then not again until my late teens, and the first bath I took after the long break, I was SO DISAPPOINTED to realize that the days of being able to lie completely prone in the tub were over. If I'm ever rich, a massive tub will be on the list of stupid indulgences.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:34 AM on November 27, 2020 [10 favorites]

Culture really does make a difference in attitude in regards to showers. A lot of Koreans I know grew up scrubbing enough to take off the first layer of skin when they showered, using either a loofah cloth or loofah glove. (I've never heard the term "Italy towel" before, but the loofah part is accurate.)

I still have a loofah cloth, but don't use it quite as rigorously. But if I don't wash my hair every day it will smell reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeealll bad. And itch.
posted by ishmael at 10:37 AM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Interestingly though, we also only showered once a week when I was a kid, but I think it was more for budgetary reasons. I also smelled bad as a kid.
posted by ishmael at 10:39 AM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Our house has a decently long soaking tub, and I am short. I take a bath with some sort of perfumey bath product about twice a month; bath and a book is definitely one of my favorite selfcare activities.

I like showers too, but just don't feel the need to shower every day. People don't seem to find me disgusting. Usually shower 2-4x a week depending on circumstances.
posted by the primroses were over at 10:43 AM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

Also, I want to go on record and say that actually, being in the shower sucks. I don't care about the before/after part. Actually showering is the worst and makes me feel like absolute shit. I shower at night so it doesn't ruin the rest of my day. I resent the fact that I have to do it as much as I do.
posted by brook horse at 10:44 AM on November 27, 2020 [6 favorites]

I don't care too much about the shower itself but a day where I don't exercise feels incomplete and I am seriously funky when I sweat so the shower is just me being polite to my housemates.
posted by mattamatic at 10:50 AM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

I always shower after a bath. My baths ended in childhood and began again this March.

My baths are only ever bubble baths that make the bathtub look like a sumptuous meringue pie. I take a bath almost every night, when I'm so cold from sitting for work for so many hours, and read a novel (my novels have resigned themselves to the water damage they know to expect now).

I've developed a hot bubble bath habit. My cold, numb limbs reviving in the (barely tolerably) hot water, blanketed in clouds, smelling like cassis.
posted by ipsative at 10:51 AM on November 27, 2020 [17 favorites]

Your hair will start to regulate itself if you stop washing it with shampoo. After some time it won't be greasy.

Not my hair. This advice is pushed on people all the time, but I skipped washing my hair for an entire month at the beginning of quarantine, and nothing changed. In fact, I need to use shampoo with - *gasp* - sulfates from time to time to really clarify it.
posted by airmail at 10:52 AM on November 27, 2020 [29 favorites]

(before I rediscovered baths, I used to shower so often it was almost comical. As an early teen, I would literally refuse to leave the house unshowered)
posted by ipsative at 10:54 AM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

brook horse, me too! I sweat very little, wear deodorant only once every two weeks, or so. The baths and showers are all about the feeling during/after.

Who here does shower kneippen, with an ice-cold finale? Pure bliss.
posted by ipsative at 10:58 AM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

One other thing I've noticed: I've almost always had a bit of beard dandruff despite using anti-dandruff shampoos of various sorts over the years. This year, what with everything else going on, for the hell of it I decided to let the beard grow out rather than keep it trimmed...so far it's not really doing me any favors looks-wise and I'll eventually go back to trimming it. But it did start me using beard balm to tame the hair's wilder tendencies and keep it relatively soft and less crinkly. The product's instructions say to massage it in from the skin outward - which seems to have had the surprising benefit of clearing up the dandruff as well. Yay! So I'll keep using it even when I do trim my beard short again. Teeny weeny pandemic win.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:01 AM on November 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

Mod note: Couple comments deleted for replying to a deleted comment. Please reload the thread; thanks.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:07 AM on November 27, 2020

Your hair will start to regulate itself if you stop washing it with shampoo. After some time it won't be greasy.

How long is this supposed to take exactly? I can’t say I’ve really tried it - I used to wash my hair only every other day, but I did use shampoo - but it certainly seems more likely to me that one’s hair will reach a steady state of greasiness, which for some people would not be very greasy and which for me would probably still be pretty greasy.

(Which is why I started washing it every day, and then it did get even greasier, and then I changed shampoos and kept washing it every day.)
posted by atoxyl at 11:11 AM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Your hair will start to regulate itself if you stop washing it with shampoo. After some time it won't be greasy.

Not my hair. This advice is pushed on people all the time, but I skipped washing my hair for an entire month at the beginning of quarantine, and nothing changed. In fact, I need to use shampoo with - *gasp* - sulfates from time to time to really clarify it.

Yeah, I also gave this idea a good few months whilst I was furloughed, and nope. My hair did settle into a sort of equilibrium, but that equilibrium consisted of rather gross, dirty looking hair. It never even began to look as good as it does when I actually wash it with shanpoo. And I only wash it once a week!
posted by stillnocturnal at 11:13 AM on November 27, 2020 [15 favorites]

I don't know how prevalent CLEAN ALL THE THINGS INCLUDING YOU is elsewhere in the world, but at least in America, cleanliness is nearly fetishized--certainly helps the multi-billion-dollar beauty industry--and not just bodily cleanliness either (we can go on about the mega-glut of household cleaners on the market and misogyny/mom-shaming another time).

My point: unless you are particularly active and your activeness generates yuck in any form, or have odor/comfort/physical-manifestations-of-nope issues if you don't wash yourself every day, you absolutely do not have to wash yourself daily at all. It's entirely unnecessary and it's been sold to us as a bill of goods.
posted by tzikeh at 11:19 AM on November 27, 2020 [27 favorites]

I agree with Countess Elena that while in shower is nice, the cold naked bits before and ESPECIALLY after when you are wet sucks. Especially in winter.

I grew up in perpetual drought and my parents (who had the shower in their bedroom) would not permit me to shower daily like my peers "said to." Nobody noticed. I do not get that hot/sweaty just existing most of the time. If you massage your head while shampooing your hair is clean for days. In my case it will get flatter as time goes on and that is about it.

In the beforetimes I showered every few days. Now that I am utterly alone and cannot get near other humans, what does it matter, so now it is once or twice a week.

On a related note, do we still have to do decontamination showers every time we go outside at all still? I've been doing that. Just wondered if that has been debunked yet like stuff about wiping the groceries.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:31 AM on November 27, 2020 [5 favorites]

I feel icky if I don't shower every morning, but I'm thinking that it wasn't all that long ago that standard behavior was to have a bath once a week - usually on Saturday night, so that people would be fresh and clean for church on Sunday. When I look at old photographs, I'm struck by how greasy (by modern standards) people's hair looks. This was, of course, because running water was not as readily available.

I was born in 1960, and the new suburban house that I grew up in had a shower head in the bathtub, but it didn't work all that well, as the default method of cleanliness was assumed to be a bath. When our family started showering more regularly, the bathroom needed to be remodelled to support this method of getting clean.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 11:33 AM on November 27, 2020 [5 favorites]

It's been about ten years since I read it, but Katherine Ashenburg's The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History is a pretty interesting dive into how concepts of personal hygiene have varied over time and place and have been influenced by (among other things), marketing.

Here's a recent (i.e., pandemic-era) radio interview with her and with Virginia Smith, who wrote Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:33 AM on November 27, 2020 [9 favorites]

Sea Febreze? I dare say you have never been scrubbed so thoroughly as being thrashed by an 8’ wave.
posted by sudogeek at 11:41 AM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

I just bought a Japanese super-abrasive bath scrubby cloth that I think would at least give that 8' wave a run for its money.

(I used it after I got my cast off and that was the BEST. THING. EVER.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:43 AM on November 27, 2020 [7 favorites]

I shower just about every day (there's a rare day here and there that I skip) because I enjoy showering. I find it incredibly comforting (baths too, even more so, but I don't currently have a bathtub). I don't wash my hair every day, though -- just when it needs it (so every few days). Mostly, though, in the shower, I focus on washing the bits that might be smelly and only scrub down the rest thoroughly if I feel like it particularly needs it. (I also shower at night and I find it a good way to "rinse" the day off and settle in for my evening.)

To each their own, though.
posted by edencosmic at 11:44 AM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

I don't know- stink is definitely personal. My household is full of smelly folk, and I grew up with smelly folk, and we needed regular cleaning; I shower once every 24 hours at minimum, and definitely after any exertion. I have had colleagues who would run 5 miles during lunch, barely break a sweat and never stink, while if I even run a mile, I turn red, sweat buckets and DO. NOT. SMELL. PLEASENT.

In the before times I would regularly do a fair bit of mountaineering/hiking/backpacking, and myself and my partner make a point of figuring out how to wash ourselves (first a soap down and rinse 50yards from the running water, and then an ice cold plunge). Even when doing overnight winter hikes, figuring out how to wash your face/wipe down the smelly bits is pretty key for me.

Sure maybe it's overkill, but really, to each their own, and some of us are definitely smellier than others.
posted by larthegreat at 11:48 AM on November 27, 2020 [13 favorites]

I shower when I feel like it. Sometimes that can be days. I do actual labor for a living.

Deodorant is a fools game; if you mask your scent how can you tell when you need a shower?

I am less offended by a person who smells like natural sweat than I am from someone who smells like a laundromat or perfume parlor.
posted by Max Power at 11:53 AM on November 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

Among overlapping groups of hippies and (research type) field workers it has seemed to me that some people get stinky and others don’t, if not washing. A hot wet rag on the pits & bits is plenty washing almost always though.

I wondered sometimes if getting smelly it was a sign of indigestible food, but there was no way to test it without insulting and under feeding half of us, so I just mused over it when I couldn’t get upwind. Well, mused over that and worried that I was unpleasant to my neighbors.
posted by clew at 11:54 AM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

As my girlfriend put it, I smelled “like a person.” Initial skepticism turned to enthusiasm.

I am not big on recreational hygiene myself, try to keep it to minimal required maintenance as we do out in the developing world. One thing I really do notice when I get back to the West, North America in particular, is how often people have a quite strong fragrance of "product" - shampoo, deodorant, whatever, not really sure, but they smell like artificial chemical cleansing products. It is not bad, per se, but a bit of a culture shock.

So for sure "being clean" is a cultural thing that means different in different places.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:55 AM on November 27, 2020 [15 favorites]

"Recreational hygiene" is a fantastic phrase!
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:00 PM on November 27, 2020 [9 favorites]

When I was younger, I'd capital-S shower seven days a week, because I had very oily skin (it's still relatively oily, but has dried a bit with age, I think) and didn't want to be that nerd with stringy, greasy hair. Now that I'm older, and live by myself, I'll still shower if I'm working that day, but sometimes on the weekends I'll be out and about, get in a long stretch of physical exercise, come back home, rest, eat, do something else in the evening... before I know it, it's bedtime, and I'm like, well, it's just me, and changing underwear gets rid of about 90% of the funk, so.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:07 PM on November 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

Unfortunately for bathing, I'm tall, so it is very rare to find a tub that is large enough for me to actually have a relaxing, warm time in.

I am of average height and still find most (i.e. standard size tub/shower combo) tubs too small to comfortably submerge myself up to my neck. In theory, I think hot baths would be quite nice, but I find they tend not to live up to my warmth or relaxation goals in practice.

On the frequency of hair washing topic: I slowly weaned myself down from daily shampoos to once or twice a week (or after sweaty exercise, whenever I have a spurt of exercising more regularly than once or twice a week). I'm not sure how effective just suddenly changing frequency of hair washing would be for helping your scalp acclimate to a new schedule.

Count me as another person for whom not feeling grubby is helpful but also the morning shower being an important part of a starting the day off on the right foot routine. Like washing dishes in comfortably hot water, a nice hot shower can be meditative.
posted by eviemath at 12:14 PM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Vinegar spray (instead of soap) makes my armpits smell healthier.
posted by aniola at 12:19 PM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

I am trying to reduce my showers. I find a really hot shower in the winter and a cool shower in the summer soothing and happy-making and the only way to wake up or start to relax at each end of the day. But in the winter my skin is already dry and my hot hot showers make that worse.
posted by PussKillian at 12:30 PM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Part of the Shower experience for many is not so much the puritan cleaning products regime as it is the Hot, Wet, and Loud part. A way to tune your brain to an empty channel and become one with the static for a few minutes. Heck I've stepped halfway out after a 10 minute shower and then got back in for a bit because I'd forgotten to do the soap part.

There's also those who live in a cold place with a cold house, and a few minutes of full-body heat in the morning and/or before bed are the only way to keep the cold from taking root in your bones for months at a time.
posted by bartleby at 12:30 PM on November 27, 2020 [32 favorites]

Potential derail: what's the over/under on shaving in the shower? I'm obliged to spend time every day to scrape the hair off my face, and I do it while I'm soaped up and nakey already.
I've also known shower-toothbrushers and nail-clippers. A combination of getting it all done at once, and any excuse to spend more time in the Warm White Noise Box.
posted by bartleby at 12:33 PM on November 27, 2020 [6 favorites]

I grew up in a place with a lot of droughts where you shower only as needed and as quickly as possible. I know that’s not true for most people but I still am amazed at how many people take multiple showers per day or baths per week. But then I am also astonished by large lawns and fountains. For the record, I typically shower every three days.
posted by cali at 12:39 PM on November 27, 2020 [9 favorites]

Since adolescence, I have been incapable of functioning if I haven't showered that day, especially if my hair is longer than an inch. The sensory screaming of greasy hair is like nails on a chalkboard, and my face doesn't feel right, and--just! brrr. Having very short hair that absolutely cannot touch my neck and most of my face helps, I keep my hair as short as I do for sensory reasons as well as gendered ones, but I gotta at least wash my face and hair and head before I'm going to be able to pay attention to anything other than my skin crawling.

Once again, Sciatrix has made me realize something about myself. Hard samesies on almost all of this. And also showering is the fastest way to get my sinuses unclogged and back to the right internal humidity here in an arid climate. You'd think inhaling deeply into a hot washcloth would be sufficient, but it doesn't even come close for some reason. One day I'll get my act together and get a proper setup for gray water recapture, but 2020 is not that year.
posted by deludingmyself at 12:41 PM on November 27, 2020 [7 favorites]

A combination of getting it all done at once, and any excuse to spend more time in the Warm White Noise Box.

Oh. Oh. I think I've discovered why I can no longer get as much enjoyment out of baths, and now I'm one continuously looped noise track away from relaxation.
posted by deludingmyself at 12:45 PM on November 27, 2020 [6 favorites]

I refer to showering as “entering the dissociation cube”. It is the worst. I hate being wet and being blind (very bad eyes) and being cold. I hate all temperatures of water except for a like two degree range that my shower can never manage to exist in. I hate dealing with loose hair and the tight feeling of my face and sloughing off dead skin cells and all the various crap I have to rub into or spray on myself afterwards. I hate the entire sensory experience.

Over the years I’ve attempted numerous techniques and utilized various technologies to stop hating washing so much, to no avail. Even in the cushiest bathroom with heated floors and spring water and the finest soaps and fluffiest towels and a bench and overhead lighting I still have to force myself to bathe. Even when I am at my grossest and most itchy it is a chore. I have been like this my entire life.

Every time someone talks about it as relaxing or energizing or important to getting their day started or wound down I am baffled and envious. I imagine it must be what eating regular meals is like to people with food-related trauma. Everyone else does it, so why is it so hard for me? The best thing I’ve managed to hash out so far is to shower in the afternoon, so I can be all annoyed and wet and grumpy and overloaded at a time I am not supposed to be bright and bushy tailed or relaxed and mellow.
posted by Mizu at 12:50 PM on November 27, 2020 [13 favorites]

As always, MetaFilter is a land of contrasts.
Dropping in to recommend the drain-cover solution to bath-takers desirous of deeper soaks in average-sized bathtubs.
(Yes, you'll still be tall, just sitting in a few more inches of warm bath water.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:51 PM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

For the folks like mizu, and the drought sensitive, might I suggest a backcountry camping / science hack?
It's not the volume of water that does the cleaning, it's the surface tension at the edge of water droplets where all the action happens.
You 'actually get cleaner' with a fine mist, not a deluge; most shower water is wasted, not to mention a whole bathtub.

SO. You're at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. You are dirty and you stink. But you came prepared with the plastic spray trigger and tube gizmo from a bottle of window cleaner or whatever you found made a wide fine spray rather than a single jet. You screw it into the mouth of a water bottle. With one soapy washcloth and one clean dry one, you can get squeaky clean taking a One Liter Spray Bottle Shower.

I can do it on a rock face, so I imagine you can do it with the water just right and unscented soap and some hand towels that are just the right texture. There's so little splashy-splashy that you could probably put a bathmat on the floor and bathe in the kitchen while you're waiting for the kettle to boil.
posted by bartleby at 1:14 PM on November 27, 2020 [17 favorites]

I live in a very hot country. Today for example, it is going to be 38 degrees. (That’s 100 degrees for you non centigrade people). Because it’s so hot, you get sweaty so you need to shower every day. I literally can’t remember ever skipping a shower and I’d feel really dirty if I did. But because there’s always perpetual droughts due to the heat, there’s water restrictions and it’s ingrained into me to use very little so I have super quick showers and only wash my hair once a week.
posted by Jubey at 1:18 PM on November 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

I shower every evening for five minutes because I like the clean feeling, but I only use soap on my groin and pits. Once in a while I leave out a day, but meh. I feel manky the next day. I wash my hair every other day with baby shampoo.

Can't remember the last time I used soap on my knee caps or belly? Hot water seems to get the job done.

The family keeps volunteering how nice I smell, so that's fine.
posted by Omnomnom at 1:28 PM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Back when I was 19, I didn't use soap for four months. I got up before everyone else, went and swam in the ocean, came back and took a quick, cold shower to clean off the salt. My hair and my skin was amazing. I didn't smell (and I promise, there were several family members who really wanted me to smell, but had to admit I didn't).
The thing is, at the time I lived at our farm full time, literally a hundred miles from the nearest big city and pollution. I don't think it can be replicated if you live in a place with a lot of exhaust from cars and trucks and other stuff you get in a city. The initial salt soak was probably a good thing too.
I have extremely sensitive skin, and sometimes I need to shower frequently with disinfectant soap to fend off infections, and at other times I need to hold back because bathing dries up the skin which then invites infections. It's exhausting to always have to think about it and I think my relationship with bathing is something like how people with eating disorders feel about food.
I have a dear friend who rarely bathes, and they do smell a bit. But somehow it just isn't important. So that's a thing, too.
posted by mumimor at 2:09 PM on November 27, 2020 [5 favorites]

t's been about ten years since I read it, but Katherine Ashenburg's The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History is a pretty interesting dive into how concepts of personal hygiene have varied over time and place and have been influenced by (among other things), marketing.

From what I recall, the idea that humans are meant to be odourless originated in 20th-century America, largely driven by soap marketing, though spread elsewhere. For a long time, in Europe, it was considered natural that humans had an odour and it wasn't necessarily offensive, though eventually that got pushed back.

Australia seems to have gotten US-style soap culture sooner than the UK; I recall reading that in post-WW2 kitchen-sink-movie austerity era UK, not bathing regularly was common, though I'm surprised that this lasted until the 90s (when Zoe Williams would have been at university), and am wondering when it changed. Did it come in with an Americanisation of culture sometime in the Blair era? Was an advance in electric shower technology (i.e., those boxes on the wall in the bathroom which pressurise and heat water, and which you'd hope were installed by a competent electrician) responsible in popularising showering? Was Britons' increase of attention to smelling good correlated with their increased attention to how their teeth looked (as per the old British-teeth stereotypes)?
posted by acb at 2:11 PM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

always think of this tweet from @TragicAllyHere

Before I take a shower: I hate it in there, the wet world is a bad place

While in the shower: I remember now that this is a good place, it is the dry world that is the enemy
posted by taquito sunrise at 2:13 PM on November 27, 2020 [36 favorites]

Also, in terms of showering, I'm on Team Bath. The only times I shower (not at a gym/pool, that is) are either if I'm in a hurry (unlikely in the evening) or staying/living somewhere without a bath, and when I look for places to live, the absence of a bath is close to a dealbreaker. Being able to soak in the bath before going to sleep is one of life's luxuries. (I also have taken to reading in the bath, which is easier and less fraught in this day when water-resistant e-readers exist.)
posted by acb at 2:15 PM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

A shower story I'm only comfortable to share with Internet friends...

So in China, there are a lot of traditional taboos for postpartum women, and the number one thing is that they are not supposed to have a bath or a shower for a whole month. If they do, they are going to catch a cold and die. (No I'm not exaggerating much.)

My mom came to help after baby Foe was born, and she begged me not to take a shower after we came back from the hospital. I had a C-section, it wasn't the best time to get into fights with your mom, the shower was upstairs and walking upstairs was not good for healing... so long story short, the baby and I camped on the first floor of the house and I didn't make it to the shower for two weeks and to be honest, didn't miss it at all.

When I did, the shower was glorious. But something terrible happened afterwards -- the baby cried her head off and refused to latch on when it was nursing time. Everyone was puzzled -- did the baby lost her hard-earned latching skills all of a sudden? Before that major episode we were super careful not to use the bottle much, for fear of nipple confusion, but faced with a super upset baby, all rules went out of the window and Dr. Brown became our best friend.

Only later did I realize that it must have been a change in my smell after the shower that threw the baby off. The poor kid hadn't learned to see that well yet, and smell must have been so much of her sensory world back then.

So terrible things can happen when a new mother takes a shower, but not in the way my mom predicted.
posted by of strange foe at 2:21 PM on November 27, 2020 [32 favorites]

All of this is so context dependent, from climate, to environment, to exercise, to cultural standards, to individual biology. When I was working in an office I'd try to shower every day (keeping my hair dry for two days, using a non-sulfate shampoo on the third) and I used non-antiperspirant deodorant. It wasn't just about feeling clean but making sure I wasn't bothering other people. Now I skip deodorant unless I'm leaving the house for a doctor's appointment or I'm going to be out for a while on a hot day. I'm showering every second or third day or so, with additional showers for certain biological processes or when I feel like it, since I greatly enjoy dissociating in the warm steamy womb-like cube.

Not my hair. This advice is pushed on people all the time, but I skipped washing my hair for an entire month at the beginning of quarantine, and nothing changed.

Me too! I have thin hair so I've tried to cut down on hair washing a few times, but with no luck. I tried again at the beginning of the pandemic and lasted well over a month but nothing changed.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 2:33 PM on November 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

Yeah my hair looks its best one or two days after washing but it’s also thick and wavy. My mom has thin hair and can’t pull that off at all.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:49 PM on November 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

Complete capital-S Shower every day, with full body wash (OK, maybe not the middle of my back, but I can't reach it!), plus shampoo and conditioner, since I was about 12, notwithstanding one of my longer hospitalizations where they wouldn't let me out of bed for three days, and I threatened to leave AMA if they didn't let me shower. Twice a day if I've been outside in summer and perspired or if I went to the gym.

After 24 hours or so without a Shower, my inner elbows, the skin between the back of my ears and my skull, and anyplace else skin touches skin are so uncomfortably icky, I cannot focus on anything else. This is not a "culture" thing, this is a sensation thing.

(I have nothing against baths, per se, except that they're no fun without the bubbles, and you can't entirely rinse off the bubbles if you're in a tub without a shower function.)
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 2:57 PM on November 27, 2020 [6 favorites]

I grew up in a hippy household and went to hippy college; I've known lots of "I don't smell when I don't shower" people all my life. For some of them, it is true, they have amazing personal biomes and genuinely don't smell. For others, it's just that they can't smell themselves -- subjectively, they don't smell, but objectively, they do. It's good to get honest external feedback if you take that route.

I hate being wet and being blind (very bad eyes)

I liked showering so much more once I had corrective vision surgery. I was nearsighted to the point that showering was pretty much totally by touch, unless I wore contacts and then risked the pain that is getting soap under a contact. Just being able to see adequately makes showers so much nicer and more relaxing.
posted by Dip Flash at 2:58 PM on November 27, 2020 [5 favorites]

I Shower maybe 2-3 times a week in autumn, winter, spring and maybe 3-4 times a week in summer, more often if it is a Real Summer (I live in Scotland; Real Summers are around one in five) but even then not every day. Nthing that multiple partners would have had no qualms mentioning it if this was insufficient.

I drove from Amsterdam to southern France (Carcassonne, very near the Spanish border) a few years ago and the regularity of showers increased as we moved south (to the point that on some days I showered twice a day and certainly once a day). I guess, for me, any increase in Showering is directly linked to heat and associated stickiness.

I do like a bath for pleasure, though - but, as noted above, most baths seem designed for people somewhat shorter than I am - it's normally a decision as to whether a large part of my torso or a large part of my legs are above the waterline when what I want is to be fully submerged to my chin. (One ex worked in a castle turned upmarket hotel and lived on the grounds; the baths in the castle were perfect.)

As others have said, to each their own of course but I find showering a chore, don't think it's personally necessary to do daily, am aware of just how environmentally unfriendly showers (and, yes, baths) are and just don't get the same sense of satisfaction others evidently do from the procedure. Unless it's hot outside.
posted by deeker at 3:19 PM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Hair must get wet. Must admit, I'm on a kick with the steam shower in the morning. Steam shower replaced the sauna that is off limits at the gym. (Actually the main thing I go there for!) We acquired a treadmill during Covid which was lucky. Almost like going to the gym, but no crew to work out with on the downside. During lockdown, the deodorant was optional, but I'm back in the habit.

Main problem in the winter is dry skin. I've got better body wash, but have to moisturize. The dryness is not related to the steam, from what I can tell, just the lathering up.
posted by geekP1ng at 3:22 PM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

If ever you are searching for an apartment with a reasonably sized tub in the US, the term you are looking for is "garden tub." They make baths quite worthwhile, if more than a bit decadent in terms of hot water usage. They are longer than any tub made since the 50s at least and also usually wider because they are oval shaped.

They're better even for showering thanks to the extra width. Never do you need to feel the liner stick to your skin again.

It's certainly no deal breaker for me given that it's been 12 years since I had one, but I still look back upon it fondly. It really did feel decadent.
posted by wierdo at 3:47 PM on November 27, 2020 [6 favorites]

I never really liked bathing of any kind since I was a boy. These days if I am running daily I have to shower every day, but recently I haven't been so I shower maybe 2-3 times a week. I also never ever wash my hair and just splash water on it.

I don't think I am very visibly dirty, but I aim for what I call the gas station dirtbag aesthetic so it doesn't really matter anyway.
posted by Literaryhero at 3:53 PM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

I never really started, and have gotten to 50+ without anyone fainting, running away or moving out because of my body odour.

Count your lucky stars, because body odor is largely a genetic predisposition. I stink without deodorant, and more specifically antiperspirant/deodorant. Gotta gotta every day, without fail, or...others will notice me.

Anyway, I have thoughts on this matter. Hot and cold weather matter when it comes to showers. In the summer when you sweat a lot, daily showers not only make sense, they are a given. Sometimes I shower twice a day in the summer. Winter, though, I fairly frequently give it a pass, so shower every other day, but even then I'll do a quick scrubdown of the more scent-generating parts. And now that I stay at home all the fucking time, I think this winter will be distinctly light on showers.

Now hair is a topic in and of itself, but long story short, I rarely use shampoo and conditioner. Maybe 3 or 4 times a year, and I've been "no poo" for about 3 years now. The idea is that shampoo, while it does clean the scalp, it also washes away the natural oil that keeps hair healthy. Conditioner artificially replaces this oil. With the no shampoo method, you rinse your hair under water and scrub your scalp hard, with your nails or a scalp brush. This breaks up any dead skin and crusted-over follicles, allowing the oil to flow up into the hair. You have to scrub hard, and when it's dry need to brush your hair even more, and it's best to do all this twice a day. So it's work, but I think my hair looks much better, and my constant dandruff problem is also much better (though that flares up every now and then).
posted by zardoz at 4:00 PM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

If ever you are searching for an apartment with a reasonably sized tub in the US, the term you are looking for is "garden tub."

Yes, but find out about the water heater capacity. My new apartment has a garden tub, but the hot water runs out when it’s 1/3 full, and takes 20 minutes to heat back up. So filling the tub is an hour-long process.
posted by snowmentality at 4:17 PM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Team Bath here as well. Only time I shower is when we're staying somewhere that doesn't have a bath. And while our giant bathtub uses a lot of hot water, we have solar hot water, so in only runs out at night in the winter after other's have also showered or bathed right before. It's awesome. Hot bath, good book, right before bed. Mmmmm
posted by Windopaene at 4:21 PM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

the hot water runs out when it’s 1/3 full

That's when a ready kettle of boiling water is your friend.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:44 PM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Count your lucky stars, because body odor is largely a genetic predisposition.

If I'm ever unlucky enough to be homeless without access to showers, I'll be the guy you can smell two blocks away, I'm guessing.
posted by maxwelton at 4:47 PM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

That's when a ready kettle of boiling water is your friend.

“Kettle” in this case meaning something the size of a witch's cauldron or the kettles of pitch used to repel mediaeval sieges?
posted by acb at 4:53 PM on November 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

That's a fabulously enlightening comment, of strange foe!
posted by jamjam at 4:56 PM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but what's the mechanism that your scalp is self regulating if you're not using shampoo? I would think that your hair/scalp would just keep doing what it does with or without shampoo and for some people that's not too greasy.
posted by Carillon at 4:57 PM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Re: garden tubs. They're better even for showering thanks to the extra width. Never do you need to feel the liner stick to your skin again.
In standard tubs, a curved curtain rod helps the liner keep a respectful distance.
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:06 PM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

I very much dislike showering due to sensory issues. I hate being cold and wet. I hate dealing with wet hair and wet ears and cold damp skin. I used to like the actual shower part of the shower: standing under hot, pounding jets of water actually felt nice and relaxing. But our landlords ruined that a few years ago by installing low-flow shower heads that we are not allowed to replace with the nice kind. So now even the actual shower part sucks as the lackluster water pressure doesn't have the same pleasant effect. Plus, it feels like it takes forever to get the shampoo and conditioner out of my hair now, which means I'm showering longer than I used to and I wonder just how much water the stupid showerhead is even saving, all things considered.

I probably shower around twice a week these days. In the before times, I'd shower on the two days I went into the office, and maybe once on the weekend if I thought I might be getting laid. Now that I'm home every day, on non-shower days I just wash my under-boob area and nether parts before getting dressed in the morning. I don't bother washing my pits as my deodorant seems to be good for a few days. Occasionally I get a whiff of underarm odor if I haven't reapplied or showered by about the fourth day, but it's not bad.

I don't actually find the smell of underarm sweat to be offensive (it's the "body cheese" and unwashed butt smells that are gross to me.) Armpit sweat can be rather pleasant, if it hasn't gotten to the point of overwhelming. I once had a car that smelled faintly of the previous owner, when hot weather brought out the scent. I found it pleasant (and also wonder if that is why the car was sold so cheaply! Worked out well for me, at any rate.)

In addition to really needing to wash my hair twice a week, I need those couple of showers because my skin is not the kind of skin that thrives without bathing. If I don't exfoliate regularly with scrubby gloves and moisturizing body wash, my upper arms and legs get rough and bumpy, while the rest of my body (especially my lower legs and arms and shoulders) get flaky and super dry. I don't think my skin cells fall off like they're supposed to, or something. I gotta scrape those little bitches off manually in order to feel reasonably soft and non-itchy.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 5:12 PM on November 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

Serene Empress Dork, low-flow shower heads can be adjusted (removing a single restrictive element may make a great difference in getting your hair clean in a reasonable amount of time), if that is something you'd be comfortable doing.
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:19 PM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Carillon, it works like this. You shampoo your hair every night and then your scalp goes "Eek, I've been stripped again. Must make more oil." After you stop doing that day after day after day... For a while, your hair will be oily and nasty. But.... After a while your scalp with start thinking "Hrmm, I don't need so much oil." and you'll hit this easy wash it with water mostly, sometimes use something. Just stop stripping your scalp of oils every day.

Your scalp will eventually stop producing so much oil if you stop lathering up and stripping it all away every day.
posted by zengargoyle at 5:37 PM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Interesting, I guess I'm curious how does the scalp in this scenario know that there isn't enough oil? Are there receptors or something to engage that feedback loop?
posted by Carillon at 5:48 PM on November 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

twice a day if you work in a kitchen.

For the really folks, spread 20 lbs. dried Parsley near oceans edge in a flat sandy area, attach placard: "The spice will flow"
posted by clavdivs at 5:51 PM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

That's when a ready kettle of boiling water is your friend.

“Kettle” in this case meaning something the size of a witch's cauldron or the kettles of pitch used to repel mediaeval sieges?

Okay, fair enough; but "succession of kettles" is less succinct and punchy. Though it does make a good username.
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:51 PM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

That's when a ready kettle of boiling water is your friend.

Last time I filled the tub, I put in two electric kettles-ful, a spaghetti pot-ful, and a saucepan-ful of boiling water. It helped the water in the tub stay warm while waiting for the water heater to reheat, but did not help with filling the tub any quicker.

I miss having a gas water heater. (This apartment has other good features — namely, having 3 bedrooms so that we can each have a dedicated home office, while not costing the entire Earth in rent — but having to go back to electric water heater and electric stove is annoying.)
posted by snowmentality at 6:00 PM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

I too am on “Team Tall w/ a short tub”, or I’d be luxuriating in being submerged in warm water on a daily basis. As it is, I’m anywhere from 1-a-day Shower to every 3 days.

As far as hair, I’ve been “no shampoo” for maybe 5 years now, and my hair has never been healthier. I give it a full warm water rinse under the shower head, every few washes I give it a dilute apple-cider vinegar rinse. Conditioner is a small dab of my beard balm (good for the face, good for the locks). For the body we’ve generally used a Trader Joe’s house-brand body wash.

But as far as not showering every day, 2 magic weapons:
- Salicylic acid-based acne pads repurposed as deodorant
- Warm-water bidet attachment to the toilet.

You get an adjustable-pressure booty-wash at a pleasant temperature and pits which don’t stink, that plus brushed teeth and you’ll be surprised at how clean you feel when you haven’t otherwise Showered in 3 days.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 6:29 PM on November 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I hate showering. I admit it. Both the before-time of being cold, naked, and annoyed with the steaming-up process, and the Sensory Thing of getting into a stream of hot water—and gingerly sticking body bits in one at a time.

My Depression Era American grandmother–who is somewhat British in her upbringing–raised me with the birdbath-and-a-washcloth thing most of the time.

I also grew up in a few countries where running water wasn't a regular occurrence, so cleaning one's self mainly meant dumping buckets of cold water over one's head. Not something that would make one want more of... that. My poor mother—who loves hot baths and showers—would fill every pot and pan in the house with water the night before, so it would heat up with the sun in the morning. :-/

Now that I work on a farm, I shower every night. Because gross, and also poison ivy, and also my newfound fear of zoonotic diseases (Swine! Birds! We're VERY certified organic, VERY pasture-raised, VERY careful, and VERY clean-for-a-production-farm... but still.)

I have to say: night showering is way more tolerable than morning, with fancy shower stuff and a shitty beer.

I'm *heartened* to hear about my fellow shower-ambivalent folks. I feel seen.
posted by functionequalsform at 6:33 PM on November 27, 2020 [14 favorites]

For years before the pandemic, I showered M-W-F and washed my hair (in the sink) T-Th. Weekends I didn't bother. During the pandemic, I've found that showering three days a week helps keep me on track, but I don't usually wash my hair the other days. This week, (since I've been off work since Monday in celebration of US Thanksgiving) I haven't bothered with any of it, and no one has complained.

My showers have tended to be "pits and bits" the last couple of years, largely because the apartment we've been in for three years now started off with an iffy hot water heater and I haven't gotten back into the habit of not rushing; I'm usually in and out, dried, shaved and moisturized in 15 minutes tops. In these colder times, I take advantage of heat trapped behind the shower curtain and dry thoroughly before stepping out into the cold.

Though showering does feel good, I resent the time it takes.
posted by lhauser at 7:16 PM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Actual conversation from my house earlier today: “I’m going to take a shower.” “Oh, are you going out?” “No.” “But you took a shower yesterday.” “Yes, honey, that’s what people did in the before times.”
posted by Ruki at 7:36 PM on November 27, 2020 [11 favorites]

My morning shower is part of my start-the-day ritual, and I cannot be without it if I expect to be the least bit functional and civil. Even in the middle of summer, it needs to be hot. I do tend to sweat a lot in my sleep, so I am actually removing the night's grime, but it is mainly for the restorative properties of letting the water revive me enough that I can get dressed and make coffee, which is THE most important part of the ritual.
posted by briank at 7:37 PM on November 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

Hmm, I suspect the lack of sufficient hot water has to do with the temperature on the water heater being set too low. If you've not got kids and have anti-scald valves, just turn the thing up. There's no way I'd ever have been able to fill a bath with only hot water, though I am a bit on the sensitive side about it..
posted by wierdo at 7:57 PM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

I am part of the "smell me before you see me" contingent, if I leave off showering for more than 24 hours. Hell, 12 hours in summer, immediately if I'm getting hot and sweaty. My scalp does not like the agitation only method of cleaning, and will eventually crack and bleed along my hairline (same goes for my ears). I wash my hair every two days or so but my body reacts strongly to stress. So when I am stressed I stink more, my scalp, ears, and eyebrows get eczema going on, and it's unpleasant.

So I shower every morning, keeping my hair out of the spray otherwise my scalp gets angry about that too. I have very fine hair but an obnoxious amount of it, so drying it once it is longer than two inches is a pain - I don't use a hairdryer so I just try and avoid having wet hair unless it's being washed. If I put it up while wet (even now two thirds of my head is shaved) then my scalp and hair will still be unpleasantly damp in the evening.

I also have a body chemistry that makes a lot of other scents clash. The wrong deodorant, perfume, or laundry powder and I immediately smell like wet laundry. So where possible I go unscented (except the oil I use for my curls, which is rosehip and bergamot). My scalp sweats a lot, as do my pits and my tits, so while a fresh shirt and wipedown helps, my hair ends up gross.
posted by geek anachronism at 10:32 PM on November 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

I take a 45 minute bath every morning (garden tub!) while reading a book, and then stand up and shower. I don't shampoo my hair every day, more like every 3, but I condition it every day because it is coarse and tends to frizz.

When I travel I pine for that tub, but I will eventually move out of this apartment and lose access to such luxury. I have to shower and at least get my hair wet/rub my scalp in the m orning, as well as clean my bits, or I can't function. Even WFH has not changed this.
posted by taterpie at 11:17 PM on November 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Hey, we haven't even started in on shower beers yet. Or the Shower Orange.
posted by bartleby at 3:44 AM on November 28, 2020 [3 favorites]

Australia seems to have gotten US-style soap culture sooner than the UK; I recall reading that in post-WW2 kitchen-sink-movie austerity era UK, not bathing regularly was common, though I'm surprised that this lasted until the 90s (when Zoe Williams would have been at university), and am wondering when it changed.

I grew up in a lower middle-class area in the UK. When I was a child in the 80s we once did something at primary school about how frequently we had baths (or showers, but my recollection is that the vast majority had a bath). Most of the kids had 2 or 3 baths a week, with the most frequent being every day and the least frequent once a week. We also had to compose a poem while in the bath as homework.

In my house, we had a our bathroom replaced when I was about 13 or 14. We didn't have a shower put in, but we did have all the electrics added so one could be installed later above the bathtub. The electric shower was indeed installed later, maybe when I was about 16? As a student, in 2000/2001, there were still perfectly good rental houses that didn't have showers. My housemates and I were insistent that we needed one with a shower, with the primary concern of the women being the ease of washing long hair.

Looking further back, houses for the lower middle to upper working classes built before WW1 did not usually have indoor bathrooms (but from at least 1890 would have flushing toilets), but houses for the same groups built in the 1920s and 1930s did have indoor bathrooms: bath, sink and toilet. All older houses without indoor plumbing tended to be modernised to have bathrooms between the 1960s and 1980s.

So, I think most people were taking what we would think of as regular baths by the mid-20th century, but this varied by area, depending on the age and quality of the housing stock. I think the ubiquitousness of taking showers rather than baths is later, with the switch happening between say the 1980s and the early 2000s. (Obviously some adults prefer baths still, but nowadays showers are the cultural default for getting clean with baths being generally for relaxing in.)
posted by plonkee at 9:23 AM on November 28, 2020 [3 favorites]

Since starting running again during the pandemic (no commute means I have time!), I shower three times per week, sort of. Once is a complete shower (wash and condition hair, shave legs and pits, was face and body), two are sort of showers (wash face and body, maybe wash hair during one but more likely keep hair dry).

With young kids, I can make time for the run before 7:00am work start but can't manage a run AND a shower. Before work, it's one or the other or neither, in which case I get a blissful half hour alone with my coffee before the family wakes.
posted by teragram at 10:27 AM on November 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

We just moved, and let me tell you my previous tiny tub, inadequate hot water heater, and ridiculous water pressure can fuck right off. I had no idea how much it was depressing me.

The new bathroom has an actual soaking tub my tall partner can fit into, and we can both take baths, wash dishes AND wash clothes without running out of hot water. The first night here, I actually had to wait to get in the tub because the water was too hot - oh, the fucking luxury!

The minute my finances recover from moving, 99% of my disposable income is going straight into Lush bath products. #TeamBath #TeamShower #TeamAromatherapy
posted by Space Kitty at 11:01 AM on November 28, 2020 [5 favorites]

I don't go out much so I don't have to shower for work. But I do exercise PLUS my hair has gotten long. So I notice that by the second day my hair gets ugh and what with the workout, I feel like I'm grungy (even though there is little stink). But because I am a lazy straight male, I just pump out a shampoo/body cleanser and shower with that. Maybe it's the one advantage of Scandinavian skin, but I don't have any reaction to soap. When it gets really cold, I can get dry skin but it's pretty rare. So yeah, shower every other day. When I was serving time in the cubicle yard, it was every damn morning and likely again on Sunday. My skin survived just fine.

Mrs. Ber and I used to supervise exchange students, mostly from Europe coming to the US. We noticed that most of these kids were pretty quick in grasping that the Euro bathing practice wasn't up to snuff in an American high school. Adaptation was fast because acceptance and survival were paramount. Their parents were likely bewildered when they got home to get this kid that was used to bathing every freaking day.
posted by Ber at 1:28 PM on November 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

i'm reading this thread in the bath
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 3:08 PM on November 28, 2020 [8 favorites]

In regards to the "I stopped showering" people -- it's true that as long as you wear clean clothes each day, you will generally not end up smelling rancid, the eyewatering smell you get from being long term homeless and the like has more to do with wearing the same clothes. *But* you will start to smell intensely of person. It's not a vile smell per se, your partner may very well like it! But very few other people want to smell you from a distance.
posted by tavella at 3:23 PM on November 28, 2020 [2 favorites]

There’s been a few times in my life where sea febreeze was an option and i’d just do that for a week or so at a time between Showers. I was also living on boats during most of those times. Salty!
posted by stinkfoot at 5:36 PM on November 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

Hmm, I suspect the lack of sufficient hot water has to do with the temperature on the water heater being set too low. If you've not got kids and have anti-scald valves, just turn the thing up.

I would, but it’s in a locked closet that only the landlord has the key for. I don’t like this trend in apartments to make the water heater not accessible by tenants, especially when tenants pay the utilities. Like, do they think I am going to steal the water heater?
posted by snowmentality at 5:59 PM on November 28, 2020 [5 favorites]

Eponysterical
posted by acb at 6:01 PM on November 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

I went through a phase where I rarely washed my hair. My hair is thick and slightly dry. It used to get quite itchy. One day at the salon, the hairdresser told me I should stop washing it and just rinse it. She said "use a conditioner if you feel like you need to use something." I prefer baths so I was fine with following this advice, and it worked out great. It was no longer too dry or itchy.

Because of the pandemic, I have been taking more showers because... Well, I'm not sure. Because it is there I guess. Now my hair starts to get rough after a day of not washing. Back in my no-poo days, I went up to a month without it.
posted by tofu_crouton at 8:42 PM on November 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

WRT the shaving thing, yes in the shower, to the point where it really feels weird to do it at the bathroom sink. One thing is that I also shave my scalp, and it's not only easier in the shower but a lot less messy than trying to do it at the sink. Also, nothing is as ASMR for me as running my fingertips over my freshly denuded noggin.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:11 PM on November 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

Also I grew up on tank water during droughts so I am swift like the wind in there, even with drying and serums and so on. I rarely shave and when I do I run a bath, lounge in there for however long I want, then shave. I got a shower stool at my old place and honestly, life changing. I don't need it as much now since the bath has a ledge at my new place but between balance issues, legally blind, and nerve damage, I dislike standing on one leg at the best of times. So I sit on the stool in the bath, use the bathwater to rinse the blade (usually while deep conditioning my hair). I think my mother would have killed me if I'd ever shaved while the shower was running. Or if I took longer than five minutes.

So even when I had waist length hair, actual time running water was always under eight minutes. And I can roll out of bed and be out the door in fifteen when necessary, having a shower and washing my hair included (when it's short, it was twenty when my hair was long). I enjoy the shower but never relax under the water, it's just too embedded in me that it wastes water. If I want to relax I have a bath. And feel guilty.

Except for shaving my scalp, that is definitely a shower thing and I imagine if I shaved my face it would be too.
posted by geek anachronism at 12:05 AM on November 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

If you spray deodorant on and call that a shower, that’s a Sure-er

In this part of the world it's an "Aussie shower".
posted by HiroProtagonist at 6:06 PM on November 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

Since I no longer do vigorous exercise in the time of COVID (don't want to annoy the neighbors, increasingly lazy), my ABCC11 gene means I can basically shower (and wash my hair) once a week. The other days I might wash my legs and groin (with a water bottle) as needed, and use a boar bristle hairbrush to encourage my scalp oils down my hair shafts -- that increases the chance that next time I wash and dry it that it looks wavy rather than bushy.

I have never regularly worn deodorant except for the few weeks in 5th grade when teachers shamed kids into it. I wish I had better internet (or any other Asian friends, heh) then.
posted by batter_my_heart at 9:03 PM on November 29, 2020 [3 favorites]

I've been WFH for years and years and somewhere around Year 2? Or thereabouts? I flipped to night showers. This was partially because I'm just never ever going to be a morning person, and I will forever want to roll directly from my bed to my work laptop with nothing in the middle because that means MOAR SLEEP. And later it became a function of daily evening workouts and not wanting to shower both morning and night. At first it was very uncomfortable going anywhere during the day without having had a morning shower, but I slowly trained myself into it.

That said, I'm an oily person and I feel gross pretty easily. Plus, I'm increasingly allergic to things as I age, and sometimes if I've been around a dog for a long time (especially if I've slept in a house with a dog) or it's a very bad air quality day, a shower is the only way I can get my eyes to stop watering.

That said, showers are always full capital S Showers. Half measures feel just as gross as not bothering at all.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:21 PM on November 30, 2020 [2 favorites]

I'm always so amazed by people who shower every day - I have naturally curly hair that I wear straight, and it's like a 40 minute process to get my hair ready to leave the house after a shower. And my hair CAN'T air dry, even if I were going to leave it curly, which I am not, because it just takes like 3 hours to dry and I live in canada where it's very cold, and also it looks very bad air dried.

I'm not getting my hair wet more than twice a week, I'll tell you that!
posted by euphoria066 at 1:58 PM on November 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

body odor is largely a genetic predisposition.

This is really important for people to understand. As batter_my_heart points out above there's a well-established genetic component. There are different kinds of glands that produce sweat (apocrine, eccrine) and one of them smells more strongly and one does not. And the make-up of the ratio of these glands varies among people. And as a result the amount of sweating/stinking varies a lot. I have one Asian grandparent and I am fairly sure I fall into this smells-less category. I only wear deodorant when I can't shower, which I do maybe twice (max!) a week unless I'm exercising.

So I know it can be hard for people to get their heads around the fact that this varies (as opposed to people being totally clueless about the amount they smell, which I am sure happens sometimes, but all the time?) but this affects people's hygiene routines, as well as all the other things like mental health, sensory issues, access to decent shower/tub situations, sports/exercise.

I've got long hair, a cold bathroom, an eh shower with about 15 min of hot water, and a tub that won't fill up entirely (tho is otherwise lovely) and sensory crap that makes being cold in the shower pretty much the worst. I like to be all one temperature. Baths are great. So it's a process here: time for hair to dry before bed, time to shower when I haven't just done the dishes, time to heat up the bathroom so it's not so cold, time to remember how the shower speaker works, time when I am not expecting a phone call, have to eat, or have to do a work thing. It's more challenging than even I would have thought. In the before times I just went to the gym, used the AMAZING shower there, came home clean. Now, even though things are more close by, it's somehow more complicated.
posted by jessamyn at 2:53 PM on November 30, 2020 [5 favorites]

batter_my_heart, I remember the deodorant shaming! My school sponsored a week-long Sixth Grade Camp for all the incoming middle schoolers and I was so confused by the emphasis on deodorants/antiperspirants when we went over the packing list in class. I too am genetically inclined towards minimal body odor and my parents never used anything of the sort. I used it off and on for years (despite being allergic to aluminum antiperspirants!!) the same way you might occasionally wear makeup or perfume. I think I thought that's how everyone used it!

I can't quite make it a full week between showers, the limiting factor is usually my hair and face starting to feel oily. A quick targeted rinse can go a long way though. I'm already prone to dry itchy skin, can't imagine how awful things would get if I needed to shower every single day.
posted by yeahlikethat at 5:28 PM on November 30, 2020 [2 favorites]

In the before times, I was an every other day unless special occasion Showerer. During the week, it would be in the morning before work and I would skip a shower if I wanted to sleep more and just put my hair up for the day. I shampoo every time I shower, though I only condition the bottom half (not the scalp). Baths were nice but not a regular occurrence.

Then corona happened. At first, I realized I hadnt showered in a week because there was nothing to do so no reason to. That's when I learned I needed to actually be pro-active about showering even if there was no reason other than just to be clean for myself. I also discovered that I really really really really like baths. Especially now that the weather has turned cold, its the only time that my entire body is warm. Got myself a bath tray and its a regular thing now.

I am lucky in that my apartment complex uses a boiler for water heating and its turned up so high it will actually burn you so I can make my baths as hot as I would like. That plus I have a radiator heating in my bathroom - close the door and crank that thing up so my bathroom is toasty too. THE BEST

I am not a tall person, but I cannot submerge my entire body in the tub without folding somewhere. I do have a suggestion for taller people: make the water a little too hot for your comfort and having part of your leg or torso sticking out is actually quite pleasant. Then fold into the fetal position for a bit for full body submergence.
posted by LizBoBiz at 5:15 AM on December 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

Thirty-ish years ago, some friends in Seattle made a series of films that was just them showering (I declined to be filmed), out of curiosity about who did what in what order (and, let's be honest, about what people looked like naked). I wonder whatever happened to that collection.
posted by The corpse in the library at 4:04 PM on December 4, 2020 [1 favorite]