5 ms·

For a brief moment. Just like how brushing your teeth makes your breath smell alright for 30 minutes. Nice to have a gameplan thereafter though.

loeg 9y ago
No, you continue to smell just fine for about 24 hours or until you induce yourself to sweat (exercise, sauna, wearing too many clothes for conditions). The bacteria and their food have literally been washed off of your skin and it takes them some time to regrow into sufficient numbers to produce odor. What mechanism of applying body soap do you think persists after showering? Either way, the bacteria are mostly gone and more importantly their food is mostly gone. Of course, they immediately start trying to grow back, whether you used soap or not. (I don't see any reason the tooth-brushing metaphor is warranted, since it seems to introduce more differences than similarities.)
- dpark 9y ago
  Water alone doesn’t do a very good job of removing bacteria, or sweat, or dirt. Which is why we use soap in the first place. Your skin has oils on it that trap all of these things. Soap allows you to get much more off than water alone. This is also why soaps can result in dry skin. If water alone did a good job of removing bacteria, then surgeons wouldn’t scrub with soap for 15 minutes.
  - loeg 9y ago
    > Water alone doesn’t do a very good job of removing sweat Citation needed? Sweat is mostly water and trace amount of salt. It dissolves easily in water. > Water alone doesn’t do a very good job of removing bacteria or dirt We agree here! (With some qualified reservations about what the subjective "very good" means, and how necessary it is for body washing applications.) Water does a reasonable job of removing bacteria -- handwashing studies show this. It's a lot better than nothing. Yes, water combined with soap does a better job. > If water alone did a good job of removing bacteria, then surgeons wouldn’t scrub with soap for 15 minutes. The topic under discussion is body soaps, not handwashing. I would always suggest washing your hands with soap! You use your hands to prepare food and touch mucus membranes. The same is not true of, say, your armpits. (Going off into the weeds here, but: surgeons do not scrub for 15 minutes. That would destroy their skin and increase risk of transferring disease. Timed scrubs are 3-5 minutes. And they certainly do not perform surgery with their armpits.)
    - DoubleCribble 9y ago
      > Water does a reasonable job of removing bacteria -- handwashing studies show this. If I'm not mistaken, the materials I've seen indicate it's the scrubbing for a certain period of time (20 seconds?) that removes the most bacteria in handwashing. Just putting your hands under running water alone doesn't do much, if anything.
      - loeg 9y ago
        Agreed — scrubbing is important. My comment about "water alone" was in contrast to "water plus body soap." I did not mean to suggest you should not scrub.
    - nrb 9y ago
      The goal of hand washing and body washing is the same: reduce the amount of remaining problem bacteria to a negligible amount.
      - loeg 9y ago
        Problem bacteria levels for hands and body are different. Hands are also typically washed for far shorter periods of time than showers.
        dpark 9y ago
        Standing in a shower for 10 minutes doesn’t mean your armpits are getting cleaned well (or anything else for that matter). I bet most people scrub their armpits for a couple of seconds each. And except for people who shave, armpits are full of hair that interferes with getting them cleaned easily. The set of people who vigorously scrub their clean-shaven armpits under water for 20-30 seconds each is probably pretty small.
- smileysteve 9y ago
  > or until you induce yourself to sweat So, for me walking to work, that would be about 10 minutes. And most of the east coast is 90% humid and in the 90s come summer
  - loeg 9y ago
    So do you think washing with soap prevents you from sweating, or what?
coatmatter 9y ago
> Just like how brushing your teeth makes your breath smell alright for 30 minutes. Provided your mouth isn't dry (e.g., when you're asleep), brushing your tongue should help a lot. Getting rid of the white furry stuff very much helps keep things fresh - at least until you start drinking coffee/sugar and eating foods again (apples might be alright though). While you didn't mention tongue brushing - I won't presume whether you do or don't do that already so I'm replying as such for others' benefit - I believe not everyone realises[1] how much of an improvement tongue brushing makes. Those with a strong gag reflex[2] might also be reluctant to brush - it's not something my parents ever taught me to do and one of them still has it as strong as I used to only around 10-15 years ago - I had to learn it myself from online reading and gradual practice. [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=brush+tongue https://duckduckgo.com/?q=brush+tongue [2] My own tips for dialing down the reflex is to not have a full stomach (so not immediately after breakfast or dinner[3]), breathe in deeply beforehand, brush from back of the tongue to the front, and grimace/retract the tongue before a gag kicks in (but also not worry if there is still a gag; just take another chance to rinse/breathe). The other benefit to being able to be relaxed about this is that dentist visits become a lot more relaxing (i.e., I've almost drifted off before while occupying/placing my mind in other places and thinking about - meditation, self hypnosis perhaps?). [3] One other common dental hygiene recommendation is to brush three times a day, but I've never really been able to do that consistently and know of very few people who do. I would suggest a compromise solution of brushing morning, and then before dinner to clear the bacteria, and then of course again before bed. The idea isn't to have no bacteria in the mouth (that's impossible) but to just cut it back frequently enough to make a difference. (Background: I'm not a dentist but I've had enough experience visiting them to have permanently made improvements towards my dental health, which I'd guess was below-average in the past. These days I practically look forward to seeing my dentist - so long as it's just the yearly checkup.)

loeg 9y ago

No, you continue to smell just fine for about 24 hours or until you induce yourself to sweat (exercise, sauna, wearing too many clothes for conditions). The bacteria and their food have literally been washed off of your skin and it takes them some time to regrow into sufficient numbers to produce odor. What mechanism of applying body soap do you think persists after showering? Either way, the bacteria are mostly gone and more importantly their food is mostly gone. Of course, they immediately start trying to grow back, whether you used soap or not. (I don't see any reason the tooth-brushing metaphor is warranted, since it seems to introduce more differences than similarities.)

dpark 9y ago
Water alone doesn’t do a very good job of removing bacteria, or sweat, or dirt. Which is why we use soap in the first place. Your skin has oils on it that trap all of these things. Soap allows you to get much more off than water alone. This is also why soaps can result in dry skin. If water alone did a good job of removing bacteria, then surgeons wouldn’t scrub with soap for 15 minutes.
- loeg 9y ago
  > Water alone doesn’t do a very good job of removing sweat Citation needed? Sweat is mostly water and trace amount of salt. It dissolves easily in water. > Water alone doesn’t do a very good job of removing bacteria or dirt We agree here! (With some qualified reservations about what the subjective "very good" means, and how necessary it is for body washing applications.) Water does a reasonable job of removing bacteria -- handwashing studies show this. It's a lot better than nothing. Yes, water combined with soap does a better job. > If water alone did a good job of removing bacteria, then surgeons wouldn’t scrub with soap for 15 minutes. The topic under discussion is body soaps, not handwashing. I would always suggest washing your hands with soap! You use your hands to prepare food and touch mucus membranes. The same is not true of, say, your armpits. (Going off into the weeds here, but: surgeons do not scrub for 15 minutes. That would destroy their skin and increase risk of transferring disease. Timed scrubs are 3-5 minutes. And they certainly do not perform surgery with their armpits.)
  - DoubleCribble 9y ago
    > Water does a reasonable job of removing bacteria -- handwashing studies show this. If I'm not mistaken, the materials I've seen indicate it's the scrubbing for a certain period of time (20 seconds?) that removes the most bacteria in handwashing. Just putting your hands under running water alone doesn't do much, if anything.
    - loeg 9y ago
      Agreed — scrubbing is important. My comment about "water alone" was in contrast to "water plus body soap." I did not mean to suggest you should not scrub.
  - nrb 9y ago
    The goal of hand washing and body washing is the same: reduce the amount of remaining problem bacteria to a negligible amount.
    - loeg 9y ago
      Problem bacteria levels for hands and body are different. Hands are also typically washed for far shorter periods of time than showers.
      - dpark 9y ago
        Standing in a shower for 10 minutes doesn’t mean your armpits are getting cleaned well (or anything else for that matter). I bet most people scrub their armpits for a couple of seconds each. And except for people who shave, armpits are full of hair that interferes with getting them cleaned easily. The set of people who vigorously scrub their clean-shaven armpits under water for 20-30 seconds each is probably pretty small.
smileysteve 9y ago
> or until you induce yourself to sweat So, for me walking to work, that would be about 10 minutes. And most of the east coast is 90% humid and in the 90s come summer
- loeg 9y ago
  So do you think washing with soap prevents you from sweating, or what?

coatmatter 9y ago

> Just like how brushing your teeth makes your breath smell alright for 30 minutes. Provided your mouth isn't dry (e.g., when you're asleep), brushing your tongue should help a lot. Getting rid of the white furry stuff very much helps keep things fresh - at least until you start drinking coffee/sugar and eating foods again (apples might be alright though). While you didn't mention tongue brushing - I won't presume whether you do or don't do that already so I'm replying as such for others' benefit - I believe not everyone realises[1] how much of an improvement tongue brushing makes. Those with a strong gag reflex[2] might also be reluctant to brush - it's not something my parents ever taught me to do and one of them still has it as strong as I used to only around 10-15 years ago - I had to learn it myself from online reading and gradual practice. [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=brush+tongue https://duckduckgo.com/?q=brush+tongue [2] My own tips for dialing down the reflex is to not have a full stomach (so not immediately after breakfast or dinner[3]), breathe in deeply beforehand, brush from back of the tongue to the front, and grimace/retract the tongue before a gag kicks in (but also not worry if there is still a gag; just take another chance to rinse/breathe). The other benefit to being able to be relaxed about this is that dentist visits become a lot more relaxing (i.e., I've almost drifted off before while occupying/placing my mind in other places and thinking about - meditation, self hypnosis perhaps?). [3] One other common dental hygiene recommendation is to brush three times a day, but I've never really been able to do that consistently and know of very few people who do. I would suggest a compromise solution of brushing morning, and then before dinner to clear the bacteria, and then of course again before bed. The idea isn't to have no bacteria in the mouth (that's impossible) but to just cut it back frequently enough to make a difference. (Background: I'm not a dentist but I've had enough experience visiting them to have permanently made improvements towards my dental health, which I'd guess was below-average in the past. These days I practically look forward to seeing my dentist - so long as it's just the yearly checkup.)