3 ms·
(European here) my grandparents bathed I think once per week, we often joked about this in the family. My uncle who is a commercial construction inspector/engin
by tinco 5y ago
(European here) my grandparents bathed I think once per week, we often joked about this in the family. My uncle who is a commercial construction inspector/engineer arranged for a full bathroom model a couple years before they died. When we went to sell the house he complained the bathroom was unused and looked the same as the day he signed off on it.
Despite this, they never smelled bad to me, they certainly had a recognizable smell, but it wasn't foul. Contrasting with myself, if I don't shower for a day, I'll get remarks from my girlfriend the next afternoon, and on the third day I smell so foul I can smell it myself. I also get more randomly itchy.
I wonder if by showering daily I'm somehow tampering with my bodies ability to fend off some foul smelling bacteria or something. Besides fearing to smell bad for a couple weeks (months?) to find out, I also enjoy showering to start my day fresh and I like the way it makes my hair feel.
- fouc 5y agoThere might be other factors too, like changing into pajamas at night (possibly changing underwear or no underwear), and then fresh clothes in the morning? As for hair, there's a whole "no shampoo" movement, takes a few weeks for the scalp to adjust.
- 0des 5y agoTo what extent is someone's "smell" a product of their local dermal biome and what they've been inoculated with, so to speak, via sharing deodorant, clothing, activity level, diet, etc?
- viburnum 5y agoYes https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/hygiene-is-overrated/612235/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/hygiene...
- sgerenser 5y agoA young Steve Jobs famously thought that as long as you ate a certain diet, you could skip showering/deodorant and still smell ok. His coworkers/manager at Atari did not agree and put him on the night shift: https://techpp.com/2017/02/24/steve-jobs-facts-you-might-not-know/#4-He-had-to-work-night-shifts-at-Atari-because-he-rarely-bathed https://techpp.com/2017/02/24/steve-jobs-facts-you-might-not...
- hellbannedguy 5y agoI think once your body is used to showering daily, it is never the same in terms of microbes, or it takes years to get back to whatever. I need to bathe daily. If I don't I get a sore under my arm, and I can smell myself. I had a girlfriend, well kinda, who didn't believe in showering, and she did smell. I never had the nerve to tell her. My grandfather didn't bath, and didn't have an odor. He was small, and very skinny though. My best friend didn't bath, and he did smell. I should have habituated to his smell since I saw him so much, but no. His smell was so bad, I needed to put down a towel before he sat on any chair. I saw my grandfather once a year.
- mixmastamyk 5y agoSmelly armpits are due to particular strains of bacteria that feed on sweat compounds and skin cells. If you haven’t been infected with the stinky ones you might last two days in moderate weather. Get infected and the time goes down to two hours. I found out the hard way, sharing a bar of soap. Avoid. :-/