There’s No Need To Shower Every Day

Showering every day? You may be doing it all
wrong.

According to medical professionals, there is no
intrinsic health benefit from bathing daily.

In fact,
it might even be bad for you – drying out your skin and
weakening your immune system. But should we really all skip
the wash?

Matilda Welin is a features correspondent
for the BBC, and chatted with Jim Mora about her own journey
to realising that daily showers were not necessary.

“I
do shower – I’m not some kind of crazy person who never
showers and stinks and scares everybody off.

“I shower
less than I used to… but I do still clean myself. I smell
all right, I think!”

Welin used to shower or bathe
every day “because that’s just what you do”.

There
were three reasons why that changed. The first was the
Covid-19 lockdowns, when she was not leaving the house as
much as before, and found she “wasn’t as scared of other
people smelling me”.

The second factor was moving in
with a partner who showered around every third
day.

The last reason, she said, was “sheer middle-aged
laziness – I stopped caring so much”.

Once Welin had
stopped, she wondered why there was such an impetus in
society to bathe daily, and decided to study the
psychological mechanisms behind the act.

This research
led her to realise it was “a made-up rule, with no basis in
actual health science and all to do with habit”.

But
are there some people for whom daily showers are essential,
such as those doing rigorous physical exercise, or with
certain health conditions?

Welin said yes, perhaps if
you were doing physical work or manual labour, such as
working with soil.

“If people want to, there’s nothing
stopping them from doing it.”

But the stigma around
being clean and smelling fresh means many were loath to
admit they did not shower every day.

Welin’s research
found about 49 percent of those surveyed admitted they did
not shower every day – but no one wanted to be the public
face of that stance.

Many people washed themselves
daily, but did it with a flannel in the sink. For some
proponents of this approach, it was driven by the need to
conserve water.

Welin suggested that “performative
showering” – where you needed to be seen to be bathing daily
– arose in the early 20th century when links were made
between health and hygiene.

“So they installed many
showers and baths in homes – and because they’re there,
people will use them.”

Modern life is so busy, it
involved different activities that required clothing
changes, so some people in her study treated the shower
“like a Superman booth”, emerging as a different persona
each time, she says.

Some people in the study said
they felt they had to shower in the morning, to wake up –
treating it like a transition in their daily
schedule.

Others liked to shower when they came home
from work to “wash away the day”, she said.

Are
showers better than baths?

Welin says there is
evidence of baths stretching back centuries, to Roman
times.

“The benefit of a bath… is that baths are
cleansing for the soul and the body… there is almost a
mythological power to them, which still remains
today.

“Taking a bath is about more than cleaning your
physical body.”

Many believed showers were healthier,
as any dirty water from washing the body drained away down
the plughole. But the difference in cleanliness between the
two was too small to make a difference, she
said.

Welin ‘s three ways to shower less,
successfully

• Spot-clean specific parts of the
  body with a flannel, for example under the
  arms
• Don’t stop washing your hands
• Find a
  trusted friend or family member “and beg them to be honest
  in telling you whether you
  smell”

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