6 ms·

> We usually don’t bathe every day and listen to our body’s needs. If I did this I'd need to shower every 4h :)

petodo 4y ago
I'm living in apartment and shower twice a week (at least in winter). Never understood obsession with daily shower as seen is American movies, no wonder Americans have extreme water consumption, I wonder how common is eczema and skin diseases over there compared to countries which shower less. EDIT: instead of downvoting rather prove me wrong, do you think Americans don't have extreme water consumption? US water consumption per capita is in top 10 in whole world and it's 4 times higher than Germany for instance. Everything else in comment are just observations, but I guess too many Americans here don't like the facts and observations. https://www.worldometers.info/water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/
- samwestdev 4y ago
  Japanese people are also obsessed with bath/shower every day before sleeping.
  - skhr0680 4y ago
    In summer: you need a shower to wash the sweat off In winter: you need a bath to get as warm as possible before going to bed. Until recently (~1980s-90s) houses were expected to be ephemeral, whether they were knocked over by an earthquake or the new owner, so people skipped "luxuries" like insulation.
    - hermitcrab 4y ago
      >In winter: you need a bath to get as warm as possible before going to bed Have you tried an electric blanket?
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  You don't need to use any chemistry for shower unless you are greasy, thus no pollution and washing your skin with just water is good for it if not outright neutral. You do you, some people sweat and/or smell more, some people less, some have very social lives and some go out of their home just for shopping or not even that. And some simply don't care if they disgust others. World is big, no need to bash Americans or any other nation.
  - petodo 4y ago
    > washing your skin with just water is good for it if not outright neutral Not true, excessive washing even just with water dries your skin plus not everyone has exactly pH neutral showering water. So yes, you can wash every day and then apply lotion/cream or you can just not wash and avoid all of that.
- joxel 4y ago
  So everyone else just smells like shit all the time in other countries? I smell like shit when I wake up in the morning, you wouldn't want to work next to me if I don't shower.
  - elbigbad 4y ago
    Not only from just existing, but between going to the gym a few days a week and doing regular cardio on other days, I just can’t imagine the absolute rank stink from not showering regularly. Once I thought I didn’t work up enough of a sweat weightlifting in the gym so went to bed when I got home, and the bed smelled like absolute trash the next day and neither me nor my partner could sleep there again without washing everything. Maybe it’s just my neuroses or mental illness, but I can’t imagine smelling so badly and not showering even if I didn’t socialize with others, and can’t imagine I’d have many people to continue to socialize with (in USA so this is probably different in the OP’s country) if I smelled so bad when I went out.
    - uoaei 4y ago
      That's not sweat, that's the bacteria on your skin. Use less soap and change your diet and you will encourage more healthy skin microbiome that can even smell pleasant.
  - orangepurple 4y ago
    You smell bad because of your diet. Build up of aromatics in your adipose tissue that are released over time via your sebaceous glands, bacterial decomposition products of those compounds, and off-gassing of bacterial decomposition byproducts from your orifices contribute to bad body odor.
    - Firmwarrior 4y ago
      I'm going to be your pal and tell this to you to help you out: You stink, and people are just too polite to say it to your face
      - 4y ago
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  If you do any physical work, you get sweaty, sweat means bacteria, means bad smell. Some of us don't like to stink, also don't like our beds to stink.
  - HPsquared 4y ago
    What fraction of people do any substantial physical work in an average day? I reckon about 25%.
    - pigsty 4y ago
      Men also generally stink more. Just being too warm for a few minutes means smelly armpits and crotch for loads of dudes.
    - digdugdirk 4y ago
      This might be more a reflection of your social bubble. I'd reckon the percentage would be more likely to be flipped. Especially if we're talking about a global population.
  - bitwize 4y ago
    Hackernews told me that this is just another microbiome that needs to be brought into balance, after which the smell goes away; and that soaps and shampoos disrupt that balance. As one who's hung out with bohemian vagabonds who didn't make a routine habit of bathing, my nose has told me otherwise. Nice people but... humans smell funny in general.
    - uoaei 4y ago
      > humans smell funny in general A fact of life that seems pointless to try to avoid. One person's BO is another person's aphrodisiac. Biochemistry is fun, lean into it!
  - uoaei 4y ago
    It's really not that simple. The bacteria that live on my skin don't stink like that after a lot of exercise.
- Liuser 4y ago
  Is that link for personal water use or does it account for farming? What do you suggest to people who exercise everyday?
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    OP is confusing overall use which includes agricultural and industrial use with municipal use.
  - petodo 4y ago
    It doesn't really matter, ebcause it applies same to all countries, so it doesn't explain why Americans need to consume 4 times more water per capita (3794 litres) than Germans (855), while Czechs for instance even half of the Germans (422). And don't go at me with average temperatures nonsense, Spain and Greece are warmer than most of the US and have half of US water consumption, Thailand little bit over half, Malaysia less than 1/3 of US consumption.
- esperent 4y ago
  I'm from a northern European country and I moved to a tropical country. I sweat buckets here, quite possibly literally. You can bet I shower daily. Sometimes I shower several times a day (although fortunately I live by the sea so I try to jump in there instead when possible). I also sometimes go though several shirts in a day and have to take care to manage my electrolytes and hydration. Showering this often is not a luxury, it's a necessity. To avoid becoming a stinking sweat monster who would send children screaming, I mean. Locals don't have this problem. I've been living here for years and I don't think my body is going to adapt. America is a big place, and a lot of it is hot and populated with many people of a similar ancestry to mine. Maybe it's where their "obsession" comes from?
  - petodo 4y ago
    Last time I checked US was not a tropical country. Obviously when I travelled around Southeast Asia I was showering daily. We are talking here about your regular American living and working in AC home and moving between them in AC car and shopping in AC shops and not doing manual labor. > Locals don't have this problem. Oh they do, but for instance they use prickly heat powder in some of those tropical countries. And that's also reason why everything is airconditioned and you freeze in buses, cinemas, etc. so they are comfortable and don't sweat that much. US water consumption per capita is 4X higher (3794 litres) than Germany (855), 9X highter than Czechia (422). Even warm Spain and Greece have half of US water consumption, Thailand little bit over half, Malaysia less than 1/3 of US consumption, so there is no reasonable excuse why Americans waste that much water.
    - ehnto 4y ago
      You're fixating on water consumption as a measure of the impact of showering, but for a households usage it's more likely the amount of grass Americans maintain that pumps those numbers up. I would also like to point out how massive America is, it has almost all the climates, and it has almost all the infrastructure variants in regards to where the water comes from and how impactful that usage is.
    - dahfizz 4y ago
      Looking at municipal water usage per capita, US uses 175.9 m3 per capita Germany uses 236.5 m3 per capita Czechia uses 57.5 per capita So individuals in America (i.e. showering) do not use abnormally high amounts of water. The country in total uses more water because we have more farming and more industry than Germany or Czechia. https://www.worldometers.info/water/us-water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/us-water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/germany-water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/germany-water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/czechia-water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/czechia-water/
- ch4s3 4y ago
  By your own source the vast majority of that use is agricultural and industrial [1]. If you look at say, Germany they use 19.68 billion m^3 for municipal purposes vs 58.39 in the US, but the US population is about 4x that of Germany, so Americans use less water than Germans(for example). The Japanese use a little less per person for municipal purposes, but not by a lot. People are down voting you because you're muddling domestic use with agricultural and industrial numbers and you're being a judgemental asshole. And you can't be both innumerate and an asshole at the same time here. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/water/us-water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/us-water/
- unmole 4y ago
  People shower everyday and even multiple times a day in the tropics. It's not some weird American obsession.
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    I take several showers /day in summer but they are usually quick 1 minute rinse to cool and remove sweat. Only one is done with soap. Some people would probably use more water in one 10 minute hot shower / day. Never understood people taking long showers.
- kragen 4y ago
  household freshwater consumption in the usa is insignificant compared to irrigation freshwater consumption, so shower frequency is irrelevant; what matters is, roughly, bushels of rice produced per capita
uoaei 4y ago
I've reduced my skin and scalp's dependence on soap and shampoo, and now a vigorous rinse in a hot shower gets me 95% clean. I do use a mild (minimal glycerin content) soap on sensitive parts. Whatever it is that accumulates on my body over time has become less oil-based (more water-based) and after some time in hot water begins mixing (emulsifying?) so that I become clean. This helps you to live with a healthy skin microbiome that is effective at maintaining itself. I can easily skip a shower for a day and be fine, because the buggies living on my skin help manage the population of bacteria and yeasts that ultimately contribute to smells, pleasant or otherwise. However the transition from Western-style harmful hygiene practices (harsh soaps, extreme obsession) back to a more normal baseline can take a while, and requires being a little gross as your body re-learns to manage itself without such drastic outside measures as strong surfactants. tl;dr your skin and scalp easily develop an unhealthy dependence on external soaps, resulting in a chronic inability to manage skin microbe populations, which means you're covered in uncontrolled colonies of stinky microbes until your next shower. Let your body handle it and it will manage those populations itself.
- Beaver117 4y ago
  Are there any actual studies on no-soap and no-shampoo? I've only ever heard anecdotes.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  Not the main problem. It is a stinky bacteria infection in the armpits. Coincidentally uncommon in Japan. No amount of washing will fully get rid of them because they are beneath the skin in the sweat glands.
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    "It is a stinky bacteria infection in the armpits. " If it is a infection, then something is very wrong. Otherwise you can and should clean them with care, especially when you cannot shower.
    - mixmastamyk 4y ago

I'm living in apartment and shower twice a week (at least in winter). Never understood obsession with daily shower as seen is American movies, no wonder Americans have extreme water consumption, I wonder how common is eczema and skin diseases over there compared to countries which shower less. EDIT: instead of downvoting rather prove me wrong, do you think Americans don't have extreme water consumption? US water consumption per capita is in top 10 in whole world and it's 4 times higher than Germany for instance. Everything else in comment are just observations, but I guess too many Americans here don't like the facts and observations. https://www.worldometers.info/water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/

samwestdev 4y ago
Japanese people are also obsessed with bath/shower every day before sleeping.
- skhr0680 4y ago
  In summer: you need a shower to wash the sweat off In winter: you need a bath to get as warm as possible before going to bed. Until recently (~1980s-90s) houses were expected to be ephemeral, whether they were knocked over by an earthquake or the new owner, so people skipped "luxuries" like insulation.
  - hermitcrab 4y ago
    >In winter: you need a bath to get as warm as possible before going to bed Have you tried an electric blanket?
saiya-jin 4y ago
You don't need to use any chemistry for shower unless you are greasy, thus no pollution and washing your skin with just water is good for it if not outright neutral. You do you, some people sweat and/or smell more, some people less, some have very social lives and some go out of their home just for shopping or not even that. And some simply don't care if they disgust others. World is big, no need to bash Americans or any other nation.
- petodo 4y ago
  > washing your skin with just water is good for it if not outright neutral Not true, excessive washing even just with water dries your skin plus not everyone has exactly pH neutral showering water. So yes, you can wash every day and then apply lotion/cream or you can just not wash and avoid all of that.
joxel 4y ago
So everyone else just smells like shit all the time in other countries? I smell like shit when I wake up in the morning, you wouldn't want to work next to me if I don't shower.
- elbigbad 4y ago
  Not only from just existing, but between going to the gym a few days a week and doing regular cardio on other days, I just can’t imagine the absolute rank stink from not showering regularly. Once I thought I didn’t work up enough of a sweat weightlifting in the gym so went to bed when I got home, and the bed smelled like absolute trash the next day and neither me nor my partner could sleep there again without washing everything. Maybe it’s just my neuroses or mental illness, but I can’t imagine smelling so badly and not showering even if I didn’t socialize with others, and can’t imagine I’d have many people to continue to socialize with (in USA so this is probably different in the OP’s country) if I smelled so bad when I went out.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    That's not sweat, that's the bacteria on your skin. Use less soap and change your diet and you will encourage more healthy skin microbiome that can even smell pleasant.
- orangepurple 4y ago
  You smell bad because of your diet. Build up of aromatics in your adipose tissue that are released over time via your sebaceous glands, bacterial decomposition products of those compounds, and off-gassing of bacterial decomposition byproducts from your orifices contribute to bad body odor.
  - Firmwarrior 4y ago
    I'm going to be your pal and tell this to you to help you out: You stink, and people are just too polite to say it to your face
    - 4y ago
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
If you do any physical work, you get sweaty, sweat means bacteria, means bad smell. Some of us don't like to stink, also don't like our beds to stink.
- HPsquared 4y ago
  What fraction of people do any substantial physical work in an average day? I reckon about 25%.
  - pigsty 4y ago
    Men also generally stink more. Just being too warm for a few minutes means smelly armpits and crotch for loads of dudes.
  - digdugdirk 4y ago
    This might be more a reflection of your social bubble. I'd reckon the percentage would be more likely to be flipped. Especially if we're talking about a global population.
- bitwize 4y ago
  Hackernews told me that this is just another microbiome that needs to be brought into balance, after which the smell goes away; and that soaps and shampoos disrupt that balance. As one who's hung out with bohemian vagabonds who didn't make a routine habit of bathing, my nose has told me otherwise. Nice people but... humans smell funny in general.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    > humans smell funny in general A fact of life that seems pointless to try to avoid. One person's BO is another person's aphrodisiac. Biochemistry is fun, lean into it!
- uoaei 4y ago
  It's really not that simple. The bacteria that live on my skin don't stink like that after a lot of exercise.
Liuser 4y ago
Is that link for personal water use or does it account for farming? What do you suggest to people who exercise everyday?
- ch4s3 4y ago
  OP is confusing overall use which includes agricultural and industrial use with municipal use.
- petodo 4y ago
  It doesn't really matter, ebcause it applies same to all countries, so it doesn't explain why Americans need to consume 4 times more water per capita (3794 litres) than Germans (855), while Czechs for instance even half of the Germans (422). And don't go at me with average temperatures nonsense, Spain and Greece are warmer than most of the US and have half of US water consumption, Thailand little bit over half, Malaysia less than 1/3 of US consumption.
esperent 4y ago
I'm from a northern European country and I moved to a tropical country. I sweat buckets here, quite possibly literally. You can bet I shower daily. Sometimes I shower several times a day (although fortunately I live by the sea so I try to jump in there instead when possible). I also sometimes go though several shirts in a day and have to take care to manage my electrolytes and hydration. Showering this often is not a luxury, it's a necessity. To avoid becoming a stinking sweat monster who would send children screaming, I mean. Locals don't have this problem. I've been living here for years and I don't think my body is going to adapt. America is a big place, and a lot of it is hot and populated with many people of a similar ancestry to mine. Maybe it's where their "obsession" comes from?
- petodo 4y ago
  Last time I checked US was not a tropical country. Obviously when I travelled around Southeast Asia I was showering daily. We are talking here about your regular American living and working in AC home and moving between them in AC car and shopping in AC shops and not doing manual labor. > Locals don't have this problem. Oh they do, but for instance they use prickly heat powder in some of those tropical countries. And that's also reason why everything is airconditioned and you freeze in buses, cinemas, etc. so they are comfortable and don't sweat that much. US water consumption per capita is 4X higher (3794 litres) than Germany (855), 9X highter than Czechia (422). Even warm Spain and Greece have half of US water consumption, Thailand little bit over half, Malaysia less than 1/3 of US consumption, so there is no reasonable excuse why Americans waste that much water.
  - ehnto 4y ago
    You're fixating on water consumption as a measure of the impact of showering, but for a households usage it's more likely the amount of grass Americans maintain that pumps those numbers up. I would also like to point out how massive America is, it has almost all the climates, and it has almost all the infrastructure variants in regards to where the water comes from and how impactful that usage is.
  - dahfizz 4y ago
    Looking at municipal water usage per capita, US uses 175.9 m3 per capita Germany uses 236.5 m3 per capita Czechia uses 57.5 per capita So individuals in America (i.e. showering) do not use abnormally high amounts of water. The country in total uses more water because we have more farming and more industry than Germany or Czechia. https://www.worldometers.info/water/us-water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/us-water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/germany-water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/germany-water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/czechia-water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/czechia-water/
ch4s3 4y ago
By your own source the vast majority of that use is agricultural and industrial [1]. If you look at say, Germany they use 19.68 billion m^3 for municipal purposes vs 58.39 in the US, but the US population is about 4x that of Germany, so Americans use less water than Germans(for example). The Japanese use a little less per person for municipal purposes, but not by a lot. People are down voting you because you're muddling domestic use with agricultural and industrial numbers and you're being a judgemental asshole. And you can't be both innumerate and an asshole at the same time here. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/water/us-water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/us-water/
unmole 4y ago
People shower everyday and even multiple times a day in the tropics. It's not some weird American obsession.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  I take several showers /day in summer but they are usually quick 1 minute rinse to cool and remove sweat. Only one is done with soap. Some people would probably use more water in one 10 minute hot shower / day. Never understood people taking long showers.
kragen 4y ago
household freshwater consumption in the usa is insignificant compared to irrigation freshwater consumption, so shower frequency is irrelevant; what matters is, roughly, bushels of rice produced per capita

uoaei 4y ago

I've reduced my skin and scalp's dependence on soap and shampoo, and now a vigorous rinse in a hot shower gets me 95% clean. I do use a mild (minimal glycerin content) soap on sensitive parts. Whatever it is that accumulates on my body over time has become less oil-based (more water-based) and after some time in hot water begins mixing (emulsifying?) so that I become clean. This helps you to live with a healthy skin microbiome that is effective at maintaining itself. I can easily skip a shower for a day and be fine, because the buggies living on my skin help manage the population of bacteria and yeasts that ultimately contribute to smells, pleasant or otherwise. However the transition from Western-style harmful hygiene practices (harsh soaps, extreme obsession) back to a more normal baseline can take a while, and requires being a little gross as your body re-learns to manage itself without such drastic outside measures as strong surfactants. tl;dr your skin and scalp easily develop an unhealthy dependence on external soaps, resulting in a chronic inability to manage skin microbe populations, which means you're covered in uncontrolled colonies of stinky microbes until your next shower. Let your body handle it and it will manage those populations itself.

Beaver117 4y ago
Are there any actual studies on no-soap and no-shampoo? I've only ever heard anecdotes.
mixmastamyk 4y ago
Not the main problem. It is a stinky bacteria infection in the armpits. Coincidentally uncommon in Japan. No amount of washing will fully get rid of them because they are beneath the skin in the sweat glands.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  "It is a stinky bacteria infection in the armpits. " If it is a infection, then something is very wrong. Otherwise you can and should clean them with care, especially when you cannot shower.
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago