I’m not saying I smell fresh as a daisy all over when I go a long time without bathing, but I don’t get spicy or rank BO the way some people do. Ever. And with regular deod applications, my armpits truly do not smell like anything but whatever scent I’m applying.
Now, if I didn’t wear clean clothes, I imagine I would smell bad after a week without bathing (this has really only ever happened on camping trips or other extreme situations. Usually I get a shower at least twice per week). But I always wear clean clothes. Since I’m sensitive about BO and would never want to inflict it on others, in these situations I ask friends to smell my pits. Everyone confirms there is no odor but deod. My boyfriend also has a very sensitive nose and if I smelled from not bathing he would be the first to tell me I was gross.
FWIW I think I inherited my lack of BO from my father. He has a skin disorder which meant he could bathe at the most once-weekly his entire life, and he never had a bit of BO either. I have the same disorder, but a much milder version. It is known to inhibit sweating on most of the body. Maybe it also prevents me from hosting smelly bacteria.
I have a multitude of good examples, but they are pretty much all TMI and gross. So I’ll spare you.
I can vouch for different people having different…smell profiles? Whatever bacteria makes feet stink, I’m lacking it. You can stick your nose in athletic shoes that I’ve used for years and not smell anything except the shoe. If other people who have no reason to lie are telling you that your pits don’t stink, I believe you. Of course, your pits aren’t the only place on your body that smells if you don’t wash regularly (and then there’s your whole body, that starts to smell gamey if not washed regularly).
ETA: And then I read back a while and saw that you wash all the critical areas. Never mind.
Heh, I agree. I remember she made the comment a few days after I had noticed that she had maybe 4 different outfits - which is fine, frankly, I don’t care if you wear the same thing every single day, so long as it’s clean. It was just a problem when she said she only did laundry every three weeks :eek:.
Most people don’t have that many clothes though - underwear, perhaps, but not that many gym or work clothes, IMO.
Three week is a long time. I have a lot of clothes but even with using the same clothes to work out in that I’ve slept in (like pj shorts), after three weeks…blech.
I have a washer-dryer now, but I just got it. Even in the month of April, when I am busier than a one-armed paperhanger, where I have to go to the laundromat during work hours only, when I am exhausted to boot, the longest I went without doing laundry was two weeks. No more than that!
I bath every morning like most everyone in the U.S. I believe that one doesn’t have to bath every morning to avoid stinking, but it is a perfectly good routine to avoid the whole question of how often is often enough.
Now, for my dirty lil’ secret. There is no way I am washing my hair every day. Every week at the most. I lot of black people I know* wash their hair a lot less than that. I have never noticed any kind of odor coming from their hair, though.
*Just the black folks I know. I don’t dare speak for Black Folks™
I shower 2-3 times a week to get my hair done, and the rest of the time I wash in the sink in the mornings (to save my skin) and as necessary. If I didn’t do that I’d be rank – I can wash as much as I like and apply a deodorant stick and 48hr antiperspirant, and after a day just being on my feet I still smell faintly gross.
I think some of the people going “Ew, ick, you shower less than once a day” are failing to consider that most people who don’t shower daily still wash their face, hands, armpits, and crotch at least once a day. (Actually, I wash hands multiple times a day). Now, if you didn’t hit those four zones yes, there would probably be some odor, but if you get those likely there won’t be assuming sedentary existence in moderate temperatures.
Quartz – how is a shower “unsafe”? I don’t take baths nowadays because I don’t want to worry about having a seizure while I’m in the tub. They’re under control nowadays (I haven’t had one since August) but better safe than sorry.
Every night. I can’t style my hair when it’s wet, (I use a curling iron then set it in curlers for about an hour for body), plus I feel better going to bed all nice and clean. I HAVE to wash my hair everyday – it’s babyfine and poker straight, and it tends to be really oily.
I once went without a shower for about four days – about, oh three years ago when I was in the hospital. By the time I was ready to go home I was about to the climb the walls. My hair was just so freaking gross.
(I had to have an EEG, so it had all those little sticky things in it from the little electrodes they put on your scalp)
If I could get away with it, timewise and money-wise (water bills), I’d take a quick shower in the morning as well. But it’s just because I loooooove a nice hot shower.
And for those of you who can’t wash your hair everyday – why not just use a shower cap?
I can’t speak for Quartz, but my husband finds showers unsafe because he’s unsteady on his feet even on dry surfaces. Add water and he falls down a lot. At a minimum he needs very sturdy handrails to hang on to and/or a shower chair. Or a bathtub he can just plain old sit down in.
I have problems with showers because, at some point, I have to take my glasses off to get one which leaves me functionally blind. I’m steady on my feet, but I can’t find stuff and I can easily trip over any sort of lip or rim on a shower because I simply can’t see it (or my feet) with my glasses off My familiar shower at home isn’t so bad, but one I’m not familiar with involves a lot of groping and fumbling.
And that’s an excellent reason for avoiding bathtubs.
Because my hair is not the limiting factor. The skin on most of my body is what can’t be washed daily, not my hair.
Until I read this message board, I didn’t realize how overly clean I am. I can’t imagine getting dressed and going to work without taking a shower first. Even if I shower at night, I shower again in the morning. The only time I’d go a day without showering would be if I were sick or camping or something. I generally shower only once a day, but I live in Florida and sometimes shower twice a day just to cool off. I definitely don’t wash my hair every day, though. It’s thick and dry and doesn’t like to be washed more than twice a week.
I shower once in the morning to get clean for the day, and usually also again just before bed to unwind, cool off (in hot weather) or warm up (in cold weather).
I rarely shower – maybe twice a year – because I prefer baths.
I work at home, so usually I’ll bathe for the following reasons:
I’m going somewhere.
I just worked out.
I just finished a project and I want to treat myself to a soak.
My hair needs washing.
It’s bedtime and I want to make sure I drop right off.
Probably a few other reasons I haven’t thought of.
Usually this works out to at least once a day, sometimes twice. If Mr. S is home he’ll share my tub water. Once in a while I might skip a day of bathing, if I’m just sitting at home.
I just started an experiment of specifically not washing my hair every day, but every other or every third, because it’s getting dry. If it’s a non-hair-washing day and I’m in the tub, I’ll just dunk it.
I don’t use deodorant or antiperspirant. Never felt the need to coat my pits with goo, I guess. I’m not a heavy sweater (except when I work out) and I feel that I bathe often enough. I think I may be one of those people who don’t really need it.
And I will often hang up clothes that have been “lightly” worn and wear them a second time before washing. Because I work at home, sitting at a computer, I often wear the same comfy “around the house” clothes for several days (changing underwear daily), and put on “real clothes” for a few hours if I go somewhere. I figure the water I “waste” on baths is saved on laundry.
It probably helps that Mr. S has allergies and thus almost no sense of smell.
The danger of slipping and falling, mainly. I’m very tall so usually have to duck to fit under showerheads to wash my head which is unbalancing and there’s a long way to fall onto objects that would cause serious damage if I were to hit them with my head. I’ve had a few near-slips and that was enough.
Ditto. Takes too long to fill up the tub, the water’s never at the right level anyway, it doesn’t stay warm unless I make it scalding from the get-go, it takes forever to wash my hair, and by the end of the whole thing I feel like I’m just kinda sitting there in my own filth.
As for showers, I take one once a day in the evening. Now that I put products in my hair, I can’t stand to go to bed without washing them out. I’m probably drying the heck out of my skin, but I can’t stand having greasy, stiff hair. And I hate showering in the morning, because that means having to get up earlier.
Question–for those of you who don’t shower every day and don’t have dry skin issues, why not shower every day? Like, I get that it’s not necessary but what would it hurt if you did? Even if I didn’t need to, I think I would. Just out of habit and b/c psychologically I feel cleaner and because I do enjoy showering–it wakes me up and relaxes me.
Nearly every day. Sometimes I’ll skip one if I have been swimming the day before or if I am traveling in Winter and have barely worked up a sweat.
Just as an aside, a friend who works in aged care told me, a while ago, that the latest recommendations for showering the elderly is to do it far less often. They aren’t engaged in arduous activity and the risk of injury from falling is halved by showering them every second day. Since a fracture can effectively kill them it is a wise move.
