# Hygiene, I read something kind of weird this morning
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [December 29, 2022, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289 "2022-12-29T17:12:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@JaneDoe42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JaneDoe42)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/41 "2022-12-31T07:03:21Z")
> [@kayaker](#):
>
> Anytime I ate garlic that way she could tell the next day.
Back in my floozy days, I was a vegetarian. I could always taste the meat eaters when we were making woopy.
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### Author:  [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/42 "2022-12-31T11:30:18Z")
Asians – ones actually living in Asia – say the same thing about meat-heavy westerners.
When my girlfriend and I went to an Indian restaurant I could smell curry on her skin the next morning.
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### Author:  [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/43 "2022-12-31T14:46:52Z")
I just found some articles that mention that - but I’m not sure about the survey they are based on, because they also report that small percentages of people report only washing their socks or underwear after wearing them ten times. Which doesn’t make any sense to me unless maybe they are talking about people wearing the same socks/underwear for 10 days straight.
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### Author:  [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/44 "2022-12-31T14:52:27Z")
nevermind.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/45 "2022-12-31T15:16:44Z")
I can maybe imagine wearing the same underpants ten days in a row. But socks? Don’t they get matted?
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/46 "2022-12-31T15:21:21Z")
Anyway, i assume the purpose of bathing and then putting on your dirty underwear is to remove non-bacterial dirt while maintaining your bacterial colonies. You do accrue salt, oil, dead flakes of skin, and whatever you’ve touched over time.
Part of why i bathe is to keep down the bacteria in my crotch and under my breasts that irritate my skin and give me rashes, though. So i will not be trying this. If i wanted to promote healthy bacterial colonies, I’d probably look for a source of live bacteria to annoint myself with, like eating yogurt and kefir to restore gut bacteria after a course of antibiotics.
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### Author:  [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/47 "2022-12-31T15:27:40Z")
I can’t imagine wearing either ten days straight - but all the other items they talk about washing in terms of wears are items that you put on and take off (like they say hats/gloves/scarves should be washed every 5-10 wears) so they have some airing out time when they are not on your body and it’s even harder for me to imagine why anyone would take off their socks and underwear and put the already-worn ones back on ten times, consecutive days or not as someone might do with a pair or pants or a dress or even a shirt.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/48 "2022-12-31T15:30:23Z")
I routinely wear shirts and and pants a few times before washing them. Basically, i wear them until i can smell them. I do air them out between washing.
And for outerwear that doesn’t touch my skin, like coats, i only wash them if they look dirty.
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### Author:  [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/49 "2022-12-31T15:50:08Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#):
>
> I routinely wear shirts and and pants a few times before washing them. Basically, i wear them until i can smell them. I do air them out between washing.
I might not have been clear - I can totally see someone wearing pants/shirt/dress , and taking it off and wearing it again the next day or the next week. But I can more easily imagine someone wearing underwear for ten days straight than I can imagine someone taking off underwear Monday night and putting in back on Tuesday or Wednesday morning
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/50 "2022-12-31T15:51:41Z")
I agree with you on all those points. I pretty much never put on underwear that I’ve taken off. I was just adding my personal preferences.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/51 "2022-12-31T15:56:30Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#):
>
> maintaining your bacterial colonies
…is vital, in the face of a massive conspiracy to weaken and destroy them, along with our precious bodily fluids.
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### Author:  [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/52 "2022-12-31T17:04:05Z")
Well played, Dr. 😉
ETA: it speaks to a well-developed sense of humor(s).
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/53 "2022-12-31T17:07:46Z")
Anecdote: I bathe or shower most days and change my underwear. I notice no ill effects.
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/54 "2022-12-31T17:56:59Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#):
>
> > [@ThelmaLou](#):
> >
> > Dogs are God’s natural-born scientists.
>
> I shouldn’t share this, but I will anyway. I had a girlfriend that was one of those girls you could talk to about anything. She was pretty much game for anything if you could give her a logical reason. After my retirement I went into kind of a grubby stage. I lived alone and really enjoyed my alone time. Her and I would only visit once a week or so but talked on the phone regularly. I confessed to her that I wasn’t showering unless she was coming over or I was going out. But I also added that all my skin conditions had cleared up, and there really was no kind of odor. Her reply was that I was kidding myself and had simply become immune to the smell. I countered with " How about I take my shower after you arrive and you give me the sniff test before I shower." She thought that was a fantastic idea. So, just as planned when she showed up I had not showered. After a few minutes of chat we went right to the sniff test. Her response! " Go wash your dick but don’t shower" She loved the way I smelled; she said it was not offensive in anyway. It had been 4 days since my last shower.
Sounds like me now that I work from home.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/55 "2022-12-31T20:24:33Z")
> [@susan](#):
>
> Anecdote: I bathe or shower most days and change my underwear. I notice no ill effects
As do I. And everyone in my bubble. It’s a nice smelling bubble.
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### Author:  [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2022, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/56 "2022-12-31T22:33:44Z")
I hypothesize that wearing the same socks more than a couple days in a row, might be nice for storage as they would stand up in the corner on their own.
That is just gross as is not changing sheets regularly.
I don’t shower every day. I do wet my hair down on non-shower days to rinse out product. I also clean, what my mother referred to as, “the important parts”. I do not put on dirty underwear or socks. That is gross. It may have good bacteria, but it also has dirt, bodily effluvia, and all sorts of sweat, grime, etc.
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2023, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/57 "2023-01-01T05:57:18Z")
I seem to remember reading somewhere that one cause of BO is that some people, despite bathing regularly, don’t change or at least don’t wear clean clothes. Even if you’re clean when you put them on, you sweat, get dirty while wearing them – the whole point of taking a shower. If you’re dirty enough to bath, then shouldn’t your clothes get dirty from being on you?
I’m starting to understand the complaints about anime conventions.
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### Author:  [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2023, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/58 "2023-01-01T06:25:19Z")
Am I to understand that there may be health risks attached to my having gone commando for the last 30 years?
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### Author:  [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2023, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/59 "2023-01-01T11:02:05Z")
> [@elfkin477](#):
>
> over 1/3rd of Brits surveyed admitted to only changing their sheets once a year. Since then I’ve wondered what day they pick. January first to ring in the new year? Christmas? Their anniversary?
“When I blooody feckin’ well feel li’it.”
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### Author:  [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2023, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hygiene-i-read-something-kind-of-weird-this-morning/977289/60 "2023-01-02T08:34:28Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> key intertriginous areas
I really must find a way to introduce that phrase into conversation.
[I don’t shower every day but do do a strip wash of said areas, and change knickers and socks every day. I haven’t noticed any wrinkling noses or people backing away from me.]
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