# Why do some people not bathe?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [November 19, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224 "2010-11-19T15:40:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Bewildebeest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bewildebeest)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/21 "2010-11-20T01:43:09Z")
I used to work with a guy who never washed, never changed his clothes, and owned a horse. Talk about making your eyes water! There was a big grease stain on his office chair. When he was finally laid off, they threw out his office furniture and changed the carpet.
This guy had a doctorate in physics.
When his wife left him, he just stopped caring.
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### Author:  [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/22 "2010-11-20T01:52:40Z")
> [@pkbites](#):
>
> I was afraid I’d catch some flak for saying every-other-day. But only twice a week?
>
> No way is that enough for an adult man or woman who is having any interactions with anyone else! Just the act of sleeping causes a person to sweat and build up body odor.
Seriously, ymmv. I don’t sweat at night except in the summer. In the winter, I tend to bath twice a week (clean clothes everyday). I haven’t gotten complaints, and I assure you my family isn’t shy. I’m more sensitive to smells than them as well.
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### Author:  [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/23 "2010-11-20T02:30:07Z")
> [@pkbites](#):
>
> I was afraid I’d catch some flak for saying every-other-day. But only twice a week?
>
> No way is that enough for an adult man or woman who is having any interactions with anyone else! Just the act of sleeping causes a person to sweat and build up body odor.
>
> If you live alone and don’t go anywhere, fine. Stink all you want. Otherwise conform to the standards of civilized society.
It’s only on this board that I’ve come across the idea that everyone should bathe/shower daily, and if not they’re weird and probably smelly. I find it really odd.
There was a thread recently about people who ‘didn’t bathe’ based on an article with the same premise, and it turned out to actually be about people who didn’t wash their hair daily. Most of them showered and the one who bathed least (once every two days! Gasp!) carried wipes around with her.
What the hell are people doing to smell so much? Sure, some individuals need to wash more often than others despite similar levels of activity - there’s variance in sweat glands and sweat production - but ordinary people in non-physical jobs don’t generally reek after one day without a bath or shower.
My friends would _definitely_ tell me if I smelt anything but lovely.
Anyway… Is this colleague extremely overweight? That can make a difference to how easy it is to keep clean and stay smelling clean throughout the day. (Obviously, most extremely overweight people aren’t like this - but it could make a difference).
Or he could have [hyperhidrosis](http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Excessive-Sweating.htm) if he appears to be otherwise healthy and well-dressed. Not that this is necessarily an excuse for smelling so bad it hurts, but it’s possibly an answer to your question.
Hopefully his wife is also an anosmiac. That could be the ideal pairing!
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/24 "2010-11-20T03:02:52Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> Nonsense. Assuming you’re not working out or doing a job that makes you sweat, twice a week is fine – especially if you change your clothes daily. Once a week is probably pushing it, though.
:eek:
Before I came to this board, I actually couldn’t believe there are people who _don’t_ bathe daily. Hair is one thing – everyone’s hair is different (mine is the type that has to be washed every day), and not everyone needs deodorant/anti-perspirant, etc. But barring some kind of skin-condition, I really can’t imagine NOT taking a shower every night. In fact, when I was in the hospital three years ago, I was only able to take a “whore bath” every day – and by the time I got home I was ready to climb the freaking walls\*. I love taking a nice, hot shower and having my skin feel all nice and clean and tingly.
I mean, to each his own and all, but yeah. It’s just a foreign concept to me.
\*The worst part was that I had an EEG and they had to attach those electrodes to your scalp, so my hair had all those little sticky things in it, and I couldn’t get them out with my brush. Yuck.
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### Author:  [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/25 "2010-11-20T03:30:37Z")
I think the “absolutely must bathe every single day” is an oddity, too, if you’re not, you know, hoisting bales for a living or something. I don’t shower every single day (and my skin thanks me for it); I do wear anti-perspirant or deodorant every day, and wash my clothes regularly - I’m pretty sure I’m not stinking up the joint. My husband showers about every other day, too, and he doesn’t stink either.
That said, I don’t know why someone would not bathe at a minimum of once a week. You either can’t smell it or you don’t care; one of the two.
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### Author:  [@ramel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ramel)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/26 "2010-11-20T05:11:57Z")
I have a bath once a week. Occasionally I have been known to miss a week. _hears people recoil in horror_ Everyone in my family does this and has always done this. In my entire life, nobody ever had a problem with this. Not one person.
That is, until I started talking to people online, especially Americans.
Okay, having multiple baths a week isn’t too strange. There have been times when I’ve done this. Some people have a shower everyday, which quite frankly I think is a bit extreme, but okay. But when people shower multiple times a day, quite frankly I think you are mentally ill. You are showing signs of OCD. If you’re not a coal miner, surgeon, sewer worker or some other job like that, then there’s just no excuse or reason for such behaviour.
Throughout human history large number of cultures have coped with NEVER having baths. Their civilisations didn’t collapse in waves of pestilence and stinkiness.
Since the late Victorian age, humans discovered germ theory and that never cleaning is a pretty bad idea.
So what do I do? I have a bath roughly once a week. Occasionally I have an extra bath if I need one. Occasionally I skip a week. I change my clothes. I wash my hands after I go to the toilet for any reason. Okay, I don’t pee on my hands so that may be pointless, but I do it anyway. I also wash my hands before I handle food.
So, what does my constantly being caked in an average of three whole days worth of filth do to my health!?!?
2010 Right now I have a cough. Apart from that, I haven’t been ill all year.
2009 I wasn’t ill at all. Not once.
2008 I think I had two colds.
2007 I think I had one cold.
Beyond that I don’t remember very well. But on average I have one or two colds a year.
In 2002 I caught a stomach bug. I haven’t thrown up since.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this isn’t the health record of someone being ravaged by filth and disease.
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/27 "2010-11-20T05:37:53Z")
I’ve had an extra shower in the morning, just a quick rinse in the morning if I’m sick, or if I fell and I’m sore to make my muscles feel better.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/28 "2010-11-20T05:59:10Z")
Yet another possibility…
There’s a sales person who comes into my store a few times a week. From time to time the guy will smell terrible. Bad enough that if he’s in the office for more the a few minutes we’ll have to let it air out for a little while. Couldn’t figure it out either, wasn’t anything I could pin point, but it was awful. A few weeks ago, whatever it was had flared up again. He walked past my ex-wife who promptly pulled me off to the side and said that the smell that he’s emitting is exactly what her mouth tastes like when her [tonsil stones](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonsillolith) flare up.
So, is it possible that he does bathe but has some sort of a mouth or dental problem/infection?
BTW, This smell is so over powering I didn’t even think that it could be his breath. It’s not that he stunk when he talked to you, it’s that he just fills the room with stench as soon as he enters it.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/29 "2010-11-20T06:13:25Z")
I had a roommate in college who rarely bathed / showered. I’d guess once every few weeks, at the most.
He claimed that he had eczema, and that showering dried his skin out and made it worse.
He definitely did have a not-particularly-pleasant odor about him, but it wasn’t eye-watering. Honestly, it surprised me that he didn’t smell even worse than he did. The fact that he was pretty sedentary may have helped, to an extent.
I’ll note that he was just sort of odd in general (beyond the bathing thing) – he had the stereotypical socially-awkward engineer thing going. He also had the unfortunate combination of being a math prodigy, and dyslexic.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/30 "2010-11-20T06:17:14Z")
> [@ramel](#):
>
> That is, until I started talking to people online, especially Americans.
I’m just curious…where do you live?
> [@ramel](#):
>
> I wash my hands after I go to the toilet for any reason. Okay, I don’t pee on my hands so that may be pointless, but I do it anyway.
Washing your hands after using the toilet has little to do with your urine being unhygenic (ISTR that urine, itself, is usually sterile when it leaves your body). The issue is in handling your genitals, which _will_ have considerable levels bacteria on them.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/31 "2010-11-20T09:53:02Z")
I’m Brit, I shower once a day, or twice if I’ve been exercising and sweating. I would consider myself to smell unacceptably bad if I missed a day. And I pretty much do “recoil in horror” at **ramel** ’s “sometimes I skip a week” assertion.
**ramel** , do you wash yourself with a flannel or towel between baths, even if you don’t go for full immersion? I can’t imagine your groin, ass or armpits being particularly pleasant to be near if you don’t, even through your clothing.
You mention not getting sick, but it’s not necessarily about hygiene, it’s about culturally acceptable smells. If you’ve never had complaints it might be because you’re in a place where that level of odour is culturally acceptable. Either that or you live in such a cold environment that the bacteria don’t reproduce and exude all the byproducts of their existence that make us humans stink.
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### Author:  [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/32 "2010-11-20T10:04:20Z")
The only time I **don’t** shower daily is when I’m out camping in the bush, getting down and dirty and ferally stinky for days on end…and the most luxurious, delightful, righteously _exquisite_ feeling is jumping in the shower, turning on the super-hot water, sloshing the soap and shampoo all over my grungy bod and washing myself clean again.
I’ve thought of going more than a day at home, but it’s not the same. 😛
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### Author:  [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/33 "2010-11-20T10:13:24Z")
I know a girl\* who just stinks. She showers or bathes twice a day and uses deodorant, and that keeps it down to a manageable level most days - noticeable but not noxious. I don’t know the details of it but I understand she had some kind of operation or medical procedure to try to correct it but it didn’t work. I’ve known her since I was twelve years old and this problem was happening then - except back then we were in school and she was teased mercilessly by our fellow students.
These days I think people are too polite to say anything, except for my ex who walked in once after she’d been visiting for a few hours on a warm day and started loudly complaining about the mysterious stench in the house, and kept missing my subtle clues to STFU about the smell.
\*Any time I tell a story that starts “I know this girl”, it’s usually this same girl. Huh. I didn’t realise she was so interesting.
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### Author:  [@Suil\_Dubh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suil_Dubh)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/34 "2010-11-20T10:20:08Z")
> [@Silver Tyger Girl](#):
>
> Seriously, ymmv. I don’t sweat at night except in the summer. In the winter, I tend to bath twice a week (clean clothes everyday). I haven’t gotten complaints, and I assure you my family isn’t shy. I’m more sensitive to smells than them as well.
Yeah, I agree about the YMMV.
When I was in high school and university I was a spikey-hair, combat-boot, studded-leather-jacket, punk rocker as were most of my friends.
I used to shower regularly, but I’d wear the same t-shirt and jeans for a few days at a time. Other friends would only shower once or twice a week. No one smelled particularly awfully. I mean, we weren’t fresh as daisies, but we certainly weren’t reeking.
One of my friends was complaining about another guy we both new. “That guy’s so lame, he probably showers every day,” my friend told me.
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### Author:  [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/35 "2010-11-20T12:03:37Z")
I shower once a day if I leave the house, and I never wear dirty clothes. This isn’t because I am fastidious, but because I am not, at all. I seem to totally lack the instinct that makes people dislike being dirty, and so if I don’t artificially control myself, I could slip into bathing once a week or less. And, I have greasy hair. One time in ten years I didn’t wash it before going to work (plumbing problems) and I had a kid ask me why my hair was so greasy.
But I can totally believe that some people can get away with showering once or twice a week.
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### Author:  [@Hairy\_Bob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hairy_Bob)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/36 "2010-11-20T12:35:46Z")
When I were a lad, livin’ in’t North of England, thu’ wu’ 5 o’ us in our 'ouse, and we 'ad one bath a week, Sunday night, whether we needed it or not. When I say we had one bath a week, I mean between the five of us, the bath was filled once, and maybe topped up if we splashed a lot.
I’m thankful we at least had a bathroom, my father clearly recalls the tin bath in front of the fire, and him lining up with his four brothers and five sisters to be dipped, scrubbed and towelled off by my grandparents before Sunday bedtime.
I still only shower once a week, or more if I’ve got mucky/smelly at work (which is less often now than when I was a site labourer) and my wife is quick of the mark to tell me when I smell even slightly bad.
“Get in that shower, now! You needn’t think you’re stinking out this house when I’ve spent all day cleaning it!”, in extreme cases…
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### Author:  [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/37 "2010-11-20T16:42:02Z")
Some people say they don’t like water on their skin or are afraid of water. So some kind of mental problem could be involved.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/38 "2010-11-20T17:04:50Z")
> [@ramel](#):
>
> So, what does my constantly being caked in an average of three whole days worth of filth do to my health!?!?
>
> 2010 Right now I have a cough. Apart from that, I haven’t been ill all year.
> 2009 I wasn’t ill at all. Not once.
> 2008 I think I had two colds.
> 2007 I think I had one cold.
Maybe people won’t get close enough to you to pass on their germs. 😛
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/39 "2010-11-20T17:13:39Z")
If I didn’t shower in the morning I’d have to go to work with my hair sticking up! Showering is the quickest way by far to get it looking normal.
I did go without for a week once on a schooner. Whores baths every morning, of course (cold water, unless you wanted to haul your greasy ass up on deck and to the head.) Nobody smelled, and we were working _hard!_ Of course, it might have been one of those “living medieval” things where we all smelled so nobody noticed it, but we ate below decks in very close quarters and nobody seemed particularly stinky. Lots of fresh air, of course. And we did get rained on once.
Now, when I went to go home and got upgraded to first class, the people at the Rockland, ME airport were very nice about letting me leave my bags sitting there in the middle of the terminal and taking a very thorough whore’s bath in their bathroom so I didn’t embarrass the airline. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)
#### Post date: [November 20, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-people-not-bathe/561224/40 "2010-11-20T17:30:50Z")
> [@jjimm](#):
>
> \ Either that or you live in such a cold environment that the bacteria don’t reproduce and exude all the byproducts of their existence that make us humans stink.
Living in a cold place doesn’t really make people stink less - it might, if malls would learn that shoppers are wearing three layers of clothes and a parka in winter. The parka and winter clothes are a whole 'nother issue - parkas can be difficult to clean, and if it’s your only one (and it very often is), you’re not going to be washing it until winter’s over (if at all). Heaven help the smokers - at least they are being forced to air out their parkas every time they go out for a smoke.
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