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How often should you bathe/shower?

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Replies

  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,570 Member
    For the people who don't shower daily or nightly, how do you uh...not stink...in certain areas of your body that can't be talked about in mixed company. :)

    I mean, I've tried baby wipes but they don't seem to help.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,570 Member
    glassyo wrote: »
    For the people who don't shower daily or nightly, how do you uh...not stink...in certain areas of your body that can't be talked about in mixed company. :)

    I mean, I've tried baby wipes but they don't seem to help.
    glassyo wrote: »
    For the people who don't shower daily or nightly, how do you uh...not stink...in certain areas of your body that can't be talked about in mixed company. :)

    I mean, I've tried baby wipes but they don't seem to help.

    If you need to shower to clean one of the areas I think you're talking about, I hope you clean your shower with bleach after every use.

    Perhaps it's a difference in diet or gut biome, but personally I find toilet paper to be sufficient to remove any visible or smellable particles.

    Bleach? I'm not THAT stinky. :)
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,570 Member
    glassyo wrote: »
    For the people who don't shower daily or nightly, how do you uh...not stink...in certain areas of your body that can't be talked about in mixed company. :)

    I mean, I've tried baby wipes but they don't seem to help.


    well, post is bit coy so not sure exactly where you are talking about :*

    we are all adults so I am going to use clear language......

    Ive never found people's genital areas (either my own or other people's when I used to shower people in the community who showered 2 or 3 times a week) to become stinky after not showering for one day.
    If that is so, you might have an infection of some sort.

    have also found wiping with toilet paper after bowel actions to be sufficient - I guess people with incontinence issues might not find that, but am assuming that is not most of us.

    and anyway many of the non daily shower takers were still washing on the non shower days - what we used to call top and tail- ie your face and your genital and bottom area and probably under your arm pits.
    You can do that without having a full shower or bath.

    LOL yeah. Basically the genitals and buttockular region. :)

    I don't shower every day either. I use toilet tissue after both peeing and bms with the extra baby wipe since sometimes my bowel movements are a bit soft and hard to clean. Maybe I just don't feel "fresh" this way without the soap? I was actually wondering if you could use dry shampoo to help clean but a quick google search said no. :)
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,925 Member
    oh ok - and sure, if you feel cleaner showering daily, do so. Or use baby wipes or whatever.

    As i said earlier I shower every morning too - with very rare exceptions.

    No issues with that.

    only issue was with the blanket type statements from some posters about what everyone should do.
  • ehju0901
    ehju0901 Posts: 350 Member
    1-2 times per day for me. Usually depends on what activities I have going on.
  • Diatonic12
    Diatonic12 Posts: 32,344 Member
    I had to work with someone who didn't use soap or shampoo. They smelled like a gerbil at all times but didn't know it. Running water doesn't cut it for everyone. Our mileage will always vary.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,570 Member
    freda78 wrote: »
    glassyo wrote: »
    For the people who don't shower daily or nightly, how do you uh...not stink...in certain areas of your body that can't be talked about in mixed company. :)

    I mean, I've tried baby wipes but they don't seem to help.

    There is no universal rule that says after 24 hours you suddenly start to smell so the idea of having a daily shower is completely arbitrary.

    It is a bit like people who think their food in the fridge will go off on the strike of midnight on the "use by date". :#

    But I think most of us who do not shower daily do actually wash on the other days, so you need to bear that factoid in mind.

    Oy vey. I don't shower daily. I use baby wipes on the days I don't. But there's still a smell. That's why I asked.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,950 Member
    glassyo wrote: »
    glassyo wrote: »
    For the people who don't shower daily or nightly, how do you uh...not stink...in certain areas of your body that can't be talked about in mixed company. :)

    I mean, I've tried baby wipes but they don't seem to help.
    glassyo wrote: »
    For the people who don't shower daily or nightly, how do you uh...not stink...in certain areas of your body that can't be talked about in mixed company. :)

    I mean, I've tried baby wipes but they don't seem to help.

    If you need to shower to clean one of the areas I think you're talking about, I hope you clean your shower with bleach after every use.

    Perhaps it's a difference in diet or gut biome, but personally I find toilet paper to be sufficient to remove any visible or smellable particles.

    Bleach? I'm not THAT stinky. :)

    Bleach to clean the shower, as I said, not you. If you're using the shower to rinse off stool particles from your rectum, you're rinsing it on the floor of the shower. You don't want to be standing in that. What if you or the next person, if you share that shower, has a tiny cut on their foot? Personally, the idea of rinsing off stool particles that way and have them run down my leg seems a lot ickier, to use a technical term, than not showering every day. I don't think there's enough chlorine in my tap water to fix the potential problems.
  • nitalieben
    nitalieben Posts: 680 Member
    I shower every other day, unless I got particularly sweaty or dirty. I do freshen up other days, though.
  • Mangoperson88
    Mangoperson88 Posts: 339 Member
    I come from a tropical country and live in a hellhole (Mumbai) 😂 we don't get winters and I love to do hectic exercise in the evening. So, 2x a day for me😃
  • KosmosKitten
    KosmosKitten Posts: 10,476 Member
    It will probably depend on a number of factors besides personal preference. Some people can go a day or two without feeling the need to shower or without having breakouts or skin issues; others can't.

    Personally, I'm in camp "can't". I try to shower once daily, usually before bed. Some days, I don't make it though. Depression is a *kitten*. Also, sometimes I just kinda forget.

    My skin doesn't let me forget for too long, though. I usually get bad breakouts and my skin just feels gross if I were to skip more than two days.

    But again, that's me. Some folks don't need to shower daily because they aren't engaging in activities that make them sweat, or have them getting dirty/sticky/etc. Just depends.
  • TonyB0588
    TonyB0588 Posts: 9,520 Member
    The $600 water bill dictates how many showers I and family get a day or for how many minutes they are. It sucks.

    What currency is that? My bill converts to about US$55.00
  • TonyB0588
    TonyB0588 Posts: 9,520 Member
    Deviette wrote: »
    Lietchi wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Though I have more modern habits (like daily when no pandemic), my parents (b. 1912, 1917) grew up in the era of mostly weekly baths, and "sponge baths" from a basin/sink in between as needed: Heating the water on the woodstove, in some cases even drawing it from a well or by hand-pump first, to fill the tin tub . . . that tends to make the baths happen less often. Less stink than you might imagine.

    Norms change. The modern habits of daily bath/shower are pretty new, I think, in the general population . . . maybe around the last century-ish? (Running water, electricity, is a big deal.) Yeah, people have fewer lice, bedbugs, etc., than in the distant past. Bathing isn't the only reason.

    I was raised on 'one bath a week' and I'm only 37 (but not from the US). I've seen the shift to (nearly) daily showers in society, though not as 'bad' as in the US. There seems to be a tendency in western society (led by North America) to consider any bodily smell as a bad smell.
    Anyway, I refrain from telling people how much (little) I bathe/shower/wash, knowing the judgment will be instantaneous, even though they don't think I stink.

    Reading this thread, I'm mostly shocked at the (IMO) excessive water consumption. Living in Belgium, you would think water isn't an issue, but climate change combined with too much urban land cover is wreaking havoc on our water table and water is getting more expensive too.

    I'm fully convinced that showering (more than) daily is just cultural and not necessary for our health (or even detrimental). But this is a difficult topic to discuss, since most people will just go 'oh yuck' at the mere idea of showering less than daily.
    But even if you feel the need to wash yourself once or several times a day, I'm a big fan of going old-school and just using a washcloth (I hate showering anyway, I much prefer taking a bath :lol:)

    I could not have agreed with this whole post more! I'm UK based, and I'd say that most people probably don't shower more than once a day, but it amazes me how many people do from reading this thread. How do you people find the time!?

    What's different? Time is the same everywhere.
  • L1zardQueen
    L1zardQueen Posts: 8,754 Member
    TonyB0588 wrote: »
    The $600 water bill dictates how many showers I and family get a day or for how many minutes they are. It sucks.

    What currency is that? My bill converts to about US$55.00

    US. It is a two month bill.