Before working exclusively from home and not really being able to go anywhere, I could shower about three times a week. Now I’m lucky if I do it twice a week. I just can’t bring myself to care.
It’d probably help if I had a nicer shower- the shower in this house is really small.
I’m fairly neutral toward the experience of showering itself: I don’t mind it, but if I could get the effects of showering without actually taking a shower, I would.
However, when I go a day without showering (which last happened a few months ago when the water heater broke), I feel icky and stinky.
I absolutely accept that people differ, both physically and psychologically, in how often they need to shower.
My issue is that my bathroom is cold. When I take baths, I’m normally overheated before I step out, so the cool air is refreshing. With showers it’s just unpleasant.
I would shower less often if my hair didn’t get greasy so quickly. I can’t stand it. I’ve heard people say eventually your natural oils kick in to… something… but I’ve never been able to make it that long.
I shower every other day, too … unless, like you, there’s a specific need to shower before then. My sister and I alternate doing our “dog duty.” Because we’re in a townhouse, with no backyard, he needs to go out multiple times a day, he’s fed three times a day (with medications), so, on my non-dog days I shower and sit around (mostly) having a relaxed day. On dog days, I’m out walking a lot, and I do chores on that day, so I need to shower after that. It works for me.
I’d heard that, too, and I also could never go long enough to see if it worked. Now that I’m older my hair is finally less oily, so I don’t need to wash it every day.
This does raise the question of whether other people can smell you from six feet away if they’re masked.
We had a wintertime discussion of showering a few months back:
We’ve all seen those bumper stickers that say something like
If you can read this you’re following too close!
I suppose we could sell ragged A-shirts (AKA “wife-beaters”) with gaping open armholes that say
If you can smell me you’re too close for COVID!!
on the front and back. Then just skip showering altogether and use your BO as a force field to repel all the infectious strangers. It’ll even repel the maskless to a greater distance than the masked.
By George, I think I’m on to something here! 
See, this is where i want to click the “like” button.
I was hoping the discussion would have gotten a bit more clinical about how showering or not showering affects body odors and bacteria. I am convinced that too much showering has the opposite affect that we are looking for when we shower.
Once I get that up on some T-shirt selling site I just want you to click the “Buy” button. 
Yet others are saying they don’t see the same effect as you. You’re just not seeing what you want to see. What works for you doesn’t necessarily work for others.
I admit, I’ve used masking and social distancing as permission to unashamedly fart in a public place.
I may have not stated my case well enough. Most posts I see are saying if they skip showers they feel and smell grubby. What I failed to say in the OP was that it didn’t start happening to me suddenly but it was fairly quick. I am going to guess it took about 6 weeks for my body to condition itself to less showers. The improvement was steady almost from the beginning. I am curious if others have tried this.
I have certainly read of other people reporting the same experience as @HoneyBadgerDC does. That after a few weeks of no showering / bathing the ecosystem of skin microflora and microfauna has changed a bunch and the stinky BO-causing bacteria have been outcompeted by something else.
I know I used to work with a guy who had truly eye-watering sulfurous BO. I stink when I sweat; this guy reeked. I know he showered regularly because this was in the military and we all showered more or less together after morning PT. Anyhow one day he came in to work and simply didn’t stink. It was miraculous. Turns out he had seen a dermatologist specialist that put him on some meds that exterminated whatever skin infestation he had and viola: he smelled like an ordinary human. Actually less rank that most ordinary humans. Daily showering or not could equally be influencing which bacteria & fungi you’re wiping out and which you’re supporting.
I am one of those dry hair/dry skin types now. First run through chemo 4 years ago did it to me. I shower Sundays and Wednesdays, and use a shampoo without the sulphates and silicones [or whatever, I use the brand recommended by the derm the oncologist sent me to] and I use a superfatted soap by Bravo Sierra. I did notice that when on infusion chemo I had absolutely no body odor or random body acne, the chemo apparently kept killing off my external bugs and fungi [?]
I tend my stoma every day, I use a 2 piece bag system. I use plain boiled water [we have well water, so I keep an electric kettle on hand for using in my neti pot, so I just divert some to keeping my stoma clean] <holy crap, the electric tea kettle is an amazing invention> I change the barrier on my pouch system once a week on Sundays, and with good diet, use of olive oil as a bag lubricant and oddly strong wintergreen altoids as the bag deodorant, I can generally make the bag do a week as well. I have a couple boxes of the nondrainable pouches that match my barrier that I use for medical appointment days.
Over on reddit, r/ostomy someone asked what happens to ostomates in the slammer, so I tend to be a bit curious myself.
And please do keep safe, it would be horrible to lose you, you are a gifted story teller and font of information of everything from prison, medicine to cheese.
They get necessary supplies, ostomy clinic followup as needed, and single cells.
Seconding this. I think about the hazardous conditions you work under… and I do worry some…
Man, that must’ve been some incredible viola-playing! 
Thanks for noticing. I always use “Viola”.
https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-bottom-line-to-all-these-sovereign-citizen-cases/926331/61?u=lslguy
My mother (of blessed memory) did, too. Intentionally. 
Good to know, diet requirements as well?
[I am lucky that so far everything I have eaten has digested well though I understand iliostomates have a much more restricted diet they need to follow.]