The Great Unwashed | Hacker News Reader

The Great Unwashed

nytimes.com

30 pointscwan34 comments

I've smelled lots of stinky people and never told them they stink.

If everyone acts like me, it makes sense that these people don't get told they are stinky.

Business opportunity: "Honestly, do you stink?"

A total stranger and/or scientific equipment rates your aroma. Because in general, it's hard to smell yourself, and taboos can make it hard for your friends and coworkers to give honest feedback.

this could be a web app too.. where you could anonymously tell people they stink

One of the ideas on http://failin.gs

Indeed, at least in professional settings.

There is a guy at the office where I'm doing some consulting now, and he stinks. But I'm no more inclined to tell him that he stinks than I am to tell a certain woman colleague of mine that she uses WAY too much perfume.

I might, however, one day work up the guts to tell the leading goal-scorer on my hockey team that his pads (or something) smell revoltingly bad, even when compared with other hockey gear.

In other words, I'd tell a friend that he stinks, but I wouldn't tell a colleague the same.

I live in central America, so skipping a shower or two WILL get you on peoples lousy side. Hell in here you'd have to shower twice a day as a minimum. Oh and no deodorant? Oh man I've heard that "but I don't stink!" excuse a million times. Yes you freaking do!

I don't think that I could skip the daily shower, if only for the fact that it is one time out of the day where you can just let your mind and body completely relax.

PG talks about the ability to find your top ideas in the shower: http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html

For me, the 5 minutes in the shower substitute for coffee: it helps me feel awake and ready to go.

People are so sold on the you are disgusting and smell and only buying product will save you.

Personally I like a shower every day but saying that I haven't bothered with soap or shampoo for maybe the last 5 years. I also don't bother with deoderants. Strange though it may seem people never notice and are happy to sit next to me and give me hugs etc.

Lots of stinky people actually wash very often. If I was smelly I'd do something about it too.

Sorry, I'm having trouble parsing that. You mean to say that you shower, but don't use any soap or shampoo? Just water?

> Just water?

That is correct.

PS I do wash my hands with soap after a shit.

You make it seem like this is a non-issue for you, but it looks like you created a new account to comment on this. Are you concerned about this opinion being linked with your real (or better-known) identity?

It's my first comment so I needed to think up an account name.

In fact, Ms. Palmer, the chief executive of Osea, an organic skin-care line, often travels to meet business contacts at the five-star luxury hotels where her line is sold. They might be surprised to read that Ms. Palmer, a petite, put-together brunette, showers “no more than three times a week,” she said, and less if she hasn’t been “working out vigorously.”

She contends that a soapy washcloth under her arms, between her legs and under her feet is all she needs to get “really clean.” On the go, underarm odor is wiped away with a sliced lemon.

Some of us ought to note that it's not necessary to be the model customer in order to build a successful business.

Personally, I'd have a hard time getting over the cognitive dissonance, though.

"On the go, underarm odor is wiped away with a sliced lemon."

A sliced lemon seems like it would be at once more expensive and less convenient than a stick of antiperspirant, though mitigated somewhat if you happen to have a lemon tree.

>other gold standards of personal hygiene, like frequent shampooing and deodorant use.

Using deodorant does not have an effect on hygiene. Hygiene is about being clean; deodorant is about being dirty and not smelling like you are.

Being clean is important; if one has sufficient hygiene (in most climates), deodorant might not be necessary - it certainly shouldn't be referred to as a hygiene product.

    Using deodorant does not have an effect on hygiene.
    Hygiene is about being clean; deodorant is about being
    dirty and not smelling like you are.

Many deodorants do fight bacteria to an extent, and if you use an unscented stick, you'll still sweat your own scent without the bacterial funk.

Anecdotally, my father claims that a little body odor was much more socially acceptable when he was growing up in north Texas during the 50s and 60s (consider that climate and the typical clothes that an adult would wear out of the house during that time). My mother, meanwhile, is Vietnamese and wears no deodorant at all.

In fact, I was surprised to see no discussion at all of Asian Americans; east Asians generally have fewer apocrine glands and thus less body odor.

Most people are used to putting copious amounts of detergent in their hair every day. This makes the scalp's oil production go into overdrive. Stop shampooing and your hair is like an oil slick. This effect takes many months to go away, thus making most of us dependent on shampoo.

Exactly. If I don't shower every day, my hair gets really oily. I've often wondered what would happen if I indeed let those months pass and get a more "natural" secretion of oil, but the time it takes it just too much.

There are some ways to mitigate the problem during the transition: showering more frequently, furious manual hair-cleaning in shower, natural shampoos, washing with just conditioner.

Or just shave your hair off and start afresh ;)

Back in high school, I became incredibly paranoid about hygiene to the extent that I damaged the skin on my hands through overwashing, and was paranoid about not touching my shirt/pants after i'd been on a train, between the time when i'd washed my hands and walked to the kitchen table to eat.

At one point I realised it had all gone completely crazy, and during uni I took a conscious choice to relax, and to try and be more 'normal.' This meant observing the way others behaved, when they washed their hands, what they touched, what they considered normal. The diversity of the way people act, and what they think is clean/dirty is startling. I'm still perfecting my own middleground, and the people in this article are doing their best to reconcile so many differing ideas.

The instance in this article that people perceive deodorant-ness as cleanliness is amusing in the least, and nauseatingly smelly for the worst scented deodorants.

There seems to be a continuum here: I don't shower everyday during winter, but during summer I have to - otherwise I stink too much.

I guess it depends on what you do, how much physical work you do, where you live, and properly also on your body.

That said - no deodorant means I stink in a couple hours.

I stopped using antiperspirant a few months ago. Not for any health benefits, since those seem tenuous at best... just because I never found antiperspirants to work all that well for me, and the way skin feels when antiperspirant is on it kind of weirds me out.

Still use deodorant, though. No complaints. And my wife has certainly been known to tell me "you smell, go shower", so I think she'd be honest in this area.

I skipped shampooing my hair for a few days on vacation this Summer and I was shocked at how much better it looked. Ever since, I shampoo about once a week.

I never found a hair style that worked for me until very recently. It turns out that if I just don't do a damned thing to it, it looks awesome.

If you have frizzy, dry hair, try letting it keep its natural oils for a day.

“removing some of the good bacteria that help maintain a healthy balance of skin.” ... this quote makes me think there's about to be a huge market at Whole Foods for probiotic cosmetics. Anyone for starting a line of kombucha lotions?

I stopped using antiperspirant several years ago and just use deodorant. Yes, there is a difference. The former contains aluminum, which is associated with Alzheimer's. And if you're a women who applies this stuff after shaving your armpits, you're really soaking it up.

I suspect the sexual pheromones are impaired more by antiperspirant than deodorant, so you may want to do different things for a job interview than for a date.

As far as showering, why not do it more frequently but without as much soap? Sometimes, I just do the smelly parts :-)

There are many things which are worth doing more frequently than doing perfectly. Cleaning in general is one of them. The AVERAGE cleanliness and avoiding extreme uncleanliness is far more important than getting something perfectly clean on a regular basis.

From the article:

    Some [...] are concerned about antiperspirants containing 
    aluminum, even though both the National Cancer Institute 
    and the Alzheimer’s Association don’t share those 
    concerns.

Antiperspirants are better avoided for the damage they do clothing than the damage they do the brain.

I'd rather be safe personally since there's little downside. just because it hasn't been recognized as a risk by some groups doesn't mean eventually become clear that its a risk. I don't need to have the same standard of proof that they do or any at all when I decide to steer clear of something that some day might turn out to be a risk.

Print version: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/fashion/31Unwashed.html?_r...

Utilizing less chemicals, like baking soda for deodorant link: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/primal-personal-products/

Baking soda is an amazingly effective anti-odorant - I think it works by creating a pH that discourages bacterial growth. Seriously.

Please don't post links to pages that redirect me to a login. It sets a bad example.

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