To ask how often you need to wash yourself to be clean?

[Goldencurtain]

I have a shower every other day but wouldn't admit that publicly because fear I would be shamed for being dirty. When my mum was growing up it was standard to have a bath once a week, no shame attached at all to that. Indeed it's probably only been fairly recently there has been an expectation of a daily/twice daily shower.

When did social attitudes start to change on what 'dirty' meant and what do you do?

I think that perhaps there is an over-emphasis on smell in this thread. With a good 48 hour deodorant people won't smell for 2 days without washing and it's probably fine if they're just at home for that 48 hour period. However if they're working or travelling then they're very likely to have encountered viruses (cold, flu virus from surfaces that they've then rubbed all over their face and hair) or faecal bacteria(e.g. from public/work toilets) and even potentially norovirus- showering is like handwashing- it can prevent illness.

showering is like handwashing- it can prevent illness.
Do you have anything to back up that claim?

I wouldn't dream of going without at least one shower a day. I have had 2 today - one when I got up, and another 2 hours later after a gym class. I'd feel grubby without a shower first thing in the morning.

Stand up washes at the sink? That's just a wartime scenario to me -when people weren't lucky enough to have showers and copious hot water.

My friend only showers before bed. She smells a bit fusty.

Nobody smells from only showering once a day.
I wonder at all these people who claim they can tell if someone has not had a shower an hour before. I have a good sense of smell. What I smell on a lot of people is cat smell, dog smell, sometimes cigarettes. That is much more common.

@Elle7rose I always wear clothes in public. I wash my hands regularly. No other part of my body is touching surfaces to pick up cold viruses.

I shower every other day and wash every morning and am perfectly clean and fragrant! There is no need for a daily shower and it's bad for the planet

@Goldencurtain
There's a bit of historical insight to be found in a book called How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman. She discusses the daily habits of everyday Victorian people. They were fastidiously clean.

I saw some rugby players being interviewed on TV straight after a match this afternoon. They hadn’t had a chance to shower. The interviewer didn’t seem to be in any distress and was not standing 10 feet away from them.

I’ve never really understood the strip wash thing, I don’t think I’ve ever done one.

I shower every day but don’t wash my hair every day, I have a shower cap on for the days when I’m not washing my hair. And it takes me about a minute or two in there when not washing hair. How long does a strip wash take?

I was brought up in a house where I was the youngest of six and we had a bath (the same one for all of us, me last) once a week on Saturday evening. This was the early 1970s.

We got a shower put in when I was a teenager but even then, I wouldn’t have dreamed of using it every day. I just had a shower twice or three times a week.

When I was a student in the 1980s, I was still only having a shower every few days. Our grotty student house in Leeds was too cold, so we used to nip into the halls of residence and use the showers there. They weren’t en-suite bathrooms in those days so any random person could walk in and use the shower cubicles if you could find an unoccupied one!

@SerenDippitty fresh sweat doesn’t actually smell. The smell comes as the sweat dries and is colonised by bacteria. I don’t think people would be so keen to stand next to them an hour later.

BennytheBall showering before a sweaty workout. A whole new level of bonkers.

My exes gran used to do a strip wash because she found it too difficult to get in and out of the bath,

What is it with some people saying that a couple of minutes in the shower with shower gel won’t make anyone clean? What level of clean are you people talking about? You want scrubbed with bleach in a hot bath 3 times a day scenario? Are you people insane? I think it’s verging on a mental illness. Like those who wash maniacally but never feel clean. Ask any psychologist, they will confirm it.

Friday was laundry day in the twin tub & ironing. In the evening it was bath night & clean sheets, towels. Small white clothing was boiled in a bucket. Strip wash the rest of the week.

I shower 3 times most days. Quick rinse to refresh pits and bits in the AM, a good scrub and hair wash after working out in the gym at midday and then a quick rinse to smell nice in bed in the PM.

I will have a nice bubble bath so I can shave legs, have a face mask, on a Sunday night in place of a PM shower.

I have a good sense of smell for other people and I can tell who only showers a few times and week or washes their hair once a week [boak].

You don't need to immerse yourself to be totally clean. I've washed people who are bed bound, some incontinent, and cared for them for months and none of them have smelt
V hot water, soap lathered up and wiped down
It's v individual, some people will smell of strong BO after a day, some people don't

Those people saying "ah,but if you don't shower everyday,we can tell..."
Um,so what? It all depends if they/we smell actually unpleasant,affecting the quality of life of the smellers significantly or of human rather than of soap/shower gel/ detergent...
I can't shower everyday,my skin wouldn't survive.Due to a menopausal eczema flare up it is only just surviving every other day bathing (even with appropriate skin care stuff). I know I don't smell horrendous ( yes, I have checked) and if I smell a little bit,there is nothing I can do.
Also I work with the public,some of whom don't smell lovely - but again,so what? It really isn't that big of a deal...
I'm going to have to name change now,aren't I!

I grew up having two baths a week - Sunday and Wednesday were bath night. We had a fairly inefficient immersion heater, and I think my parents didn’t want the higher power bills that more baths would have meant.

Things changed for me when I started my nurse training - this was in the 80s when most of the training was practical, on the wards - so I went from being a school kid, who spent most of their ‘working’ day sitting down, to a busy, physical job where I was on my feet all day, in warm hospital wards, so I needed to wash more often.

Plus I was in the Nurses’ Home, with unlimited hot water, and enormous Victorian baths, so we could have lovely long soaks at the end of the day, and plenty of showers too.

If you are getting the floor wet with a strip wash then you are doing it wrong.

I wash daily when working, but happy to skip a day at the weekends. I wash my hair once or twice a week.

Exeter University 1968. I lived in digs with Mrs B on Old Tiverton road. The bathroom was kept LOCKED....we were allowed to ask for the key ONCE a week. The key was kept on a large chunk of cork.....it looked as if it might once had opened the main door at York Minster.
The bathing situation was so normal, that none of my fellow students (several of whom had attended public school)....that I don't remember anyone of us ever mentioning it.

I don't feel like it was that long ago that people routinely washed once a week. I was brought up in the 90s and we always did. For the daily strip wash I was only ever taught to wash my armpits. And that only once puberty had started. I was initially taught it wasn't advisable to have a bath when on my period but when we had period talks at school they said this was false and the pressure of the water would stop leaks so I did start bathing again. But not every day, just if I felt unfresh.

I left home in 2006 and had a shower for the first time but it still didn't occur to me to wash every day at that point. I reckon the change to every day showers probably did reach the tipping point around the millennium or mid 00s. It was to do with hot water provision as much as availability of showers. You physically couldn't have everyone in a household having a hot bath in one night when you had immersion heaters as standard. Electric showers help with this but a lot of showers back then were awful and not a nice experience at all.

Does anyone else remember in the 90s and earlier "I'm sorry, I can't come out tonight, I'm washing my hair" used to be a common excuse /trope/joke? I had forgotten about it entirely until I came across its use in an English as a second language textbook as part of a game and it struck me as terribly old fashioned and lost in translation today because most people wash their hair so frequently it can hardly be acceptable as an activity taking the entire evening! But it seemed totally normal then!

@BertieBotts I used that excuse the other day
I wash mine once or twice a week but it takes about 45-60 mins to diffuse then another couple of hours air drying so it's a whole evening thing still!

I don't understand how anyone who lives and/or works in London can shower any less than once a day. I love this city, but you don't half end up feeling grubby. Not sure if it's the pollution in the air or the cramming together on the tube... but it's at least one shower a day or it feels grim.

I smell plenty of people on the tube who clearly don't wash once a day and it's just awful. At its worst, I'm tempted to get a face mask to try to cover my nose. A face mask has to be more polite than trying not to gag...

Even if I didn't rush about all day, I know I sweat when I sleep. I have to have a shower before I face the world or I feel increasingly sticky and uncomfortable.

It's more than once a day if taking part in sports, or suffering through a heatwave. I can just tell I'm going to hate the menopause.

Re the weight comments - back when I was a young, slim size 10, I felt exactly the same about showering. The only difference is I washed my hair every other day rather than every day, but I suspect that's because I didn't live in London rather than anything else. The tube just clings to you.

Bertie
I most certainly had showers on a daily basis prior to going into Nursing and that was 1982.
The Nurses accomodation had showers and I was upgraded into a room with a shared shower between 2 .
My DC were born in the 90s and everyone showered daily .

I absolutely agree that children should be bathed daily and clean clothes to cut down on illness, hands washed before a meal .

Good old fashioned soap and hot water
You cant beat it

I didn't have a shower until I bought my first house in 2003. Prior to that it was baths and flannel washing.