How often do you need to shower? A doctor argues, less often than you think

While I do mostly agree with you, and think that there's generally no need to bathe on mostly-sedentary days in a mild climate, there is certainly an actual answer to your maybe-hypothetical question: "... I will never put my self in a position where anyone can smell my body odour but why shower so frequently if your body isn't telling you, "it's a bit dirty over here, I could do with a rinse?".

I can certainly attest that I've known lots of people who seem to be unaware that anyone can smell their body odour, and presumably can't smell it themselves. The keenness of the sense of smell seems to vary a lot more among people than other senses (except perhaps sight, but we use technology to normalize that).

So having known many people who are unaware that they smell, I certainly worry the same could be true of me - I have a decent sense of smell, but probably there are many people who would notice my body odor before I did.

I made the move towards not so much shower reduction(a few times a week still, and stick deodorant) as soap reduction, because I realized that what is true of most surfaces is true of my skin and hair: it's not the soap that gets it clean but the scrubbing, and a little bit of scrub with a washcloth is going to be enough to get most of the actual gunk while preserving the microbiome. Soap is for when you actually need a harsher cleaning agent than water, which is going to happen only occasionally. Exposure to sunlight also does some natural cleansing, though not everyone is in a position to sunbathe.

And yes, for the first few weeks this did make things a little more smelly. Deodorant suffices to cover it.

" I shower when I notice I start to smell. "

1) We adapt quickly to odours around us, you will always smell a whole lot worse to other people than you do to yourself. So maybe a ritual is better than a faulty detector.

2) The 'natural skin' thing is partly a myth. While a lot of products are snake oil, many are not. Women past a certain age (I suppose men as well) generally do not get 'amazing skin' without some kind of regime. Water, moisturizer and UV blockers are the base, but there is rationality to it all.

> As another comment added, I will never put my self in a position where anyone can smell my body odour but why shower so frequently if your body isn't telling you, "it's a bit dirty over here, I could do with a rinse?".

There is so much of our culture ingrained in this sentence that any conclusions we draw from it risk being warped. I don't know what's really going on but I put forward this theory:

1. We are probably supposed to put ourselves in positions where someone else can smell us. It's very, very, common in the animal kingdom.

2. Given 1 your body is probably not asking for a rinse. The message that your body is trying to convey might not be intended for you all.

3. Humans are intelligent enough to realize this and have the capability to alter the way they smell. This has led to an elaborate competition for social status based upon artificial fragrances.

4. Humans are intelligent enough to realize even this so from there it might very well be the case that your body is asking you for a rinse. But it's all meta at this point. ;-)

I feel like I shower much more when I am not in the hot, humid, sweaty tropics. You're just gonna be covered in sweat again five minutes after going outside, why bother? Everyone smells a little sweaty. In colder places, nobody has any natural scent, and you stick out if you do.

I refuse to go to the mall because the chemical warfare is unbearable. It burns my eyes as well.

This times 100. I often jokingly quip that Assad has nothing on US fragrance companies when it comes to chemical warfare, but when I walk into a room with a wall mounted airwick it becomes less of a joke.

While I mostly agree with you, some people can truly smell foul, to the point where I gag. But I suspect that's mostly a case of them not washing at all.

Right, I have dry earwax and have never worn deodorant. I shower once or twice a week, but I never start to stink. My clothes don't even stink if I get them all sweaty every day without changing them.

It's not fair, but it's how it is.

I'd be curious to know if you have anyone in your life that was around you and could have complained about your odor and what they think about this

I think showering has more benefits than just cleansing aspect. A shower with good pressure can be like a massage. A soaking bath is very primal and reminiscent of pre birth amniotic fluid. Water is healing.

All soap is made from lye. Any cleansing product should be bio degradable, safe for marine life and shouldn’t be laden with chemicals. Bathing can be great without the toxic soups we create in plastic containers that clog the landfill.

I love talking to older people and I am fond of taking notes of their grooming habits. That’s why some of my farm products focus on cosmetics that are also edible.

They used ground grains and nut shells for exfoliant. Herbs and oils. Plant dyes and natural fragrances. Milk and cream and yogurt. Honey. Turmeric and saffron and rose water. Corn cobs and luffa to scrub down. It’s not much diff from what we do except we have to wrap everything in plastic and use preservatives for shelf life.

Also..another thing I learnt about skin and hair care is that the inside matters. Make up and cosmetics may fix things from outside, but skin and hair are markers of diet and good health. Also circulation. Perhaps there was something to brushing yourself hair 100 times before going to bed. I also found that the women I spoke to always had grooming habits that they indulged in as a group. It was not a solitary activity. I found the whole thing fascinating.

I tried this 7 years ago and I got way too greasy all over, so much acne, so much time trying to get clean in the shower. Hair like the fonz. And I’m old. Gave it up after about 2 weeks. Should I have stuck it out?

I need to use specialised shampoo because I have a dandruff problem that gets pretty gnarly if I don't take care of it for a couple days.

The one place I would highly recommend using soap is your anus. Although culturally there seems to be an uncomfortably high number of people who don't realise it's a good idea to wash there.

I will second this - I haven't used soap or shampoo for 3 years except for hands. I use a stick deodorant.

It all started when my favorite hair conditioner was discontinued! I spent unhappy months trying to find a replacement. That got me to thinking, and wondering why I was spending so much money on product, killing my skin biome, and sending all that product down the drain.

At first I had to get used to my skin feeling a little stickier than I liked. Now I don't notice at all. When I don't regularly work out and work up a sweat, my hair and ears will tend to get a bit greasy. I also find I keep my hair a bit shorter. Showers are much faster.

My closest companion doesn't complain about any smell, but she also doesn't tell me anymore that my hair smells good.

I was just going to try it out for a while, but now I am sure it's permanent.

I think he has simply won the genetic lottery if he was able to live in good health to 107 with that lifestyle.

> buried 5 children but he never got sad

?

>For almost all of human existence we've somehow survived without showering

for almost all of our biological history we didn't wear clothes and hang out in the open, not dressed in a shirt in a office building with 20 other people in the same room or a packed subway station.

> If I were a betting person, I’d wager that those who shower often get laid less.

I honestly can't tell if you're being serious. Shower reasonably soon before a date, people.

> I’d wager that those who shower often get laid less. A really interesting wager. I'd take you up on it if I could.

There has been a big trend over the last 10-20 years to add stronger artificial scents to cleaning products. People couldn't tell much difference between how well a product cleaned so manufacturers found that smell also played a vital role in our perception of cleanliness.

Since shower gels and soaps clearly overpower natural pheromones, in a side by side mate picking, I'd wager the one wearing the most fragrant scent would get laid more.

Two daily showers? Isn't one enough? You run the risk of drying out your skin and stripping your hair of its natural (and beneficial) oils.

I used to shower once in the morning, then married a once in the evening person. Now I'm happily in the twice a day crowd. Mornings I wash my hair, evening just to rinse off.

I’m a twice a day person. When I was in Germany I told my host that I would be showering twice a day and she was aghast — she said that it was unhealthy for the skin and that there was a cost to the environment in terms of water usage and chemicals down the drain.

I hear that, but to me showering goes beyond cleanliness. I do it for the mental health benefits. It’s my time to unplug from the stresses of the day, to think quietly to myself (bathroom ideas are a real thing), and to feel squeaky clean before the day starts and before I go to bed (the mental health benefits of a good nights sleep is significant).

Showering is as psychological as it is physical.

I once went on a camping trip where I couldn’t shower for 3 days. My body felt like it was overheating and I was irritable the whole time.

I'm curious where you live where "water is abundant". Water that comes out of your shower is the same stuff that comes out of your faucet. It's been carefully purified and disinfected, which costs a lot of energy. Even if you live somewhere (as I do) where water falls from the sky all the time, the water for showers is still not "abundant".

and your job