to think it wrong not to wash everyday?

[happyclappy]

I went to see my GP yesterday, I have some eczema on my legs and the usual creams are not doing the trick. he asked if I wash/ take a shower everyday, I said of corse, and he advised me to keep it to once a week! AIBU? instead of prescribing me some steroid cream which will ease the itching enough, so i can control it with moisturiser, he gives me useless advise which I'm not going to follow.
but seriously who would only wash their body onlt once a week?

Done many a bed bath and they smell just peachy afterwards. Don't need a actual bath or shower to be clean.

It takes me around ten minutes to have a shower and wash/condition my hair, and I do it every day. I'd feel gross otherwise plus it wakes me up for the day, and I can start off feeling fresh and clean.

I've had a stripwash on the very odd occasion when I've had no hot water, maybe 3 times since I've lived here (9 years) and I didn't feel clean, and it took 5 minutes and that was without a hair wash, so I see no time saving at all, and who really can't spare 10 minutes?

I used to work in a health food shop and we sold all sorts of natural lotions and potions for eczema. When I was being trained I was told to advise porridge oats to anyone who came in suffering from eczema, even though we sold things for it that were far more expensive!

The method is get an old pair of tights, put porridge oats in the foot and tie it up, hold it under the tap as you are running the bath water. The bath will go a milky colour, and your eczema should clear up really quickly ( you only need to repeat this if it comes back, not every time you bath). I have recommended this to a lot of my friends who have eczema themselves or their kids have it, and it has worked every time. Try it, it has to worth a go!

One area that women really have been duped by advertising is by the "feminine" sprays and wipes industries. Although I am the sort of person who likes to spend a good 20 minutes in the shower washing my various bits, I do feel that to use anything other than plain warm water on the vaginal area makes odours much worse. Having said that, I'll give a good soaping to everywhere else.

Psychologically, I think showering everyday provides a boost but I'd dispute that people who wash everyday actually smell- they probably don't smell at all.

jendaisy I will give that a go sounds very interesting!

Urgh! I shower morning and night I could not BARE to not atleast shower daily.

I think most people here ABU. I would feel SO dirty.

Well i have eczema and if i showered everyday my skin would be as dry as anything, even though i put emoliants on it and showering day and night forget it! I do however wash my vital bits every day, like face and down below as i would not feel clean otherwise but have a shower ever other day or every 2 days.

I agree with pagewatch the body produces natural oils that help keep the skin moisturised and showering or bather regularly can rid them of it. The advertising industry has done a very good job in convincing us that we have to wash every day with their products or else we will smell bad which is not always the case unless you have a problem. Think tof those femanine wases and sprays, you dont actually need them as the vagina is self cleaning, a bit of water will do the trick.

Seems like a waste of water to me.

yes, it's far better to live like in the 1950s and go around all stinking then 'waste' water to wash.

Well happy if you're using harsh bubbble bath type products in yr shower with hard water then as some OPs have said you could well be over drying yr. skin and not helping yr eczema
So yr G.P could well be right.

I used to have eczema and found that simply removing tomatoes and oranges from my diet completely cleared it up.

DS had eczema which was cleared by bathing in warm SOFTENED water and anointed with E45 cream also chickweed cream.

LeQueen

When a child we didn´t have a shower & didn´t all bath everyday.
When we got a shower, sister & I (teenagers), started to shower every day - & again in the evening if "going out".

But parents stuck to a shower a couple of times a week & a "strip wash" the other days.

I tend to think of it as a generational thing.

Now that I shower every day, I can´t see that that will change just because I get older iyswim.

LeQueen, I'm not originally from the UK, and was truly shocked at the number of properties we came across when we were looking to rent that had no shower at all. And then hearing stories from so many who didn't have such things as an indoor loo until the 80s!

So I think it might indeed by a generational thing.

My DSs get really bad eczema.

I now give them a bath only twice a week. On other days I just give their face and bottoms a wipe with a flannel. They wash their hands of course.

Their skins are SO MUCH BETTER for it, better than any amount of cream.

{sigh]
it is perfectly possible to wash thoroughly.

It may appear less convenient, it may not be everyones choice but unless people on this thread are suggesting that they spend most of their day feeling deeply uncomfortable because huge numbers of people around them smell - especially in the over 50's ctegory - then they are avoiding the fact that actually lots of people don't.

The types of people who may not will include full households, people who cannot afford hot water on demand, some carers, some old people, some disabled people, some who grew up perfectly clean healthy and fragrant without bathing every day and do not feel the need to add to climate change just to sooth their paranoia.

My only theory is that the " I have to shower EVERYDAY or it is just disgusting!!!" are people who naturally have very bad odour and assume that everyone stinks as badly as they do if not scrubed down every day.

Power showers are very energy efficient. We're dirt poor, but shower was extremely important to us, so we sold stuff on Ebay and in boot sales to buy one.

My theory is that if you're not bathing daily, your olfactory bulb has become accustomed to stale smell and you no longer realise you don't smell fresh or even stink.

OK. To fess up why this is annoying me.

When I was little I was one of ten in a household. We were what you you probably call back then the 'humble working classes' poor as fuck but determined to be self sufficient and respectable. We had not a bean but my mum scrubbed us from head to toe of a morning and the suggestion that any of us were grubby, that she was unclean, would have deeply hurt and shamed her.
She isn't.My father wasn't.
They were fastidious about cleanliness and neatness. My mother was giving him bed baths, in spite of being in her 70's until the day he died.

I just find all these jokes about how she stinks and doesn't realise it very difficult to find funny.
It is probably me. I do realise that.
I will hide the thread

Some people who have showers every day still stink its a physiological thing too. My skin is dry enough already without making it worse showering everyday.

Don't know LeQueen. We had both a bath and shower and were encouraged to use one or other every day, but we were pretty typically middle class. This has continued into adulthood.

HappyClappy, try avoiding anything with lanolin in it too, many people are allergic to it (like me) and don't realise how many things it is in.

pagwatch

Its alright pagwatch - they are wrong - people who dont shower everyday are completely normal smelling - they smell of people maybe and not shower gel (this is the fresh that people are referring to) but this is not altogether a bad thing.

Dont worry about it. Its like people who use very strong washing powders - I find it hideous but lots of people like it and get used to it.

Persoanlly all these artificial smellsd give me migraines.

I think powere showers are terribly inefficient as well - and I have one - have you seen the electric monitor when its on? Maybe its cos I spend far too much time in it though when I am in it...

I'd have kept meself clean if only me mam and da' didn't keep coal in t'bath. [tugsforlockemoticon]

Expat - For generations people have managed to exist in the US, Britain and many other less privileged places in the world without managing to be quite so ignorant and offensive as you.

I think some people on this thread should get out a bit more...go travelling, go to a festival...just live a little!

There's more to life than showering and fanny pampering.

I didn't have a bath for months on end, managed on flannel washes and showered in cold, Nile river water...had more sex now than I do then and no complaints from DP.

I shower more now than ever as I run most days but if no run then I would make do with a wash.

DD1 has eczema and has never had more than 2/3 baths a week...no-one has noticed and social services have not yet been knocking.