Are You Lazy Showering? How Often Do You Shower? Let See

Did you shower this morning?

Yeah?

Gross.

Ok, I confess, I showered this

morning too. But I feel pretty

weird about it.

That’s because of surprisingly

compelling argument that regular

showers – AKA the harsh, scalding

scour of essential oils and

organisms from your skin – is bad

for your health, your scent, and the

balance of life on your body.

But it’s a difficult subject to write

about, because there isn’t a body

of research to point to that can tell

you exactly how often you should

cleanse yourself, or with what

methods. In fact, this posed a

problem for even writing this

article; the original premise, a

clear answer to the question “How

often should I shower?” just does

not appear in any of the available

research.

What does exist is a growing body

of evidence to suggest that our

shampoo-scrubbed lifestyles, along

with a number of other factors, are

damaging a complex system

science does not yet fully

understand: the human

microbiome.

Showering too much can mess with

your skin, and even the way your

body functions

The microbiome is the collection of

bacteria, archeae, viruses, and

other microbes that live in and on

your body. We know that these

little foreign critters are deeply

important to your health. Without

them, your immune system,

digestion, and even your heart

would lose function or fail

entirely.

It might make sense to understand

the microbiome as a parallel and

complementary organ system

intertwined with the bulkier bags

of wet tissue we typically

understand to make up the human

machine.

But researchers say the state of the

science only offers a small slice of

the full picture of the role our

microbiomes play in our lives.

(Part of the problem? There’s little

in the way of a focused effort to

fund research into the subject,

with grant structures siloing

microbiome investigations into

other, narrower specialties . The

result is that it’s difficult for

interested scientists to launch

coordinated, multi-disciplinary

studies.)

There’s compelling indirect

evidence to suggest that showering

damages your microbiome on your

skin, which in turn damages your

skin health.

At the broadest level, it’s fairly

clear that indoor, urbanized and

sterilized (crudely: Westernized)

living leaves people with less

complex and robust microbiomes.

A study of the people of Yanomami

village in the Amazon, who had

“no documented previous contact

with Western people ” found their

skin, mouths, and feces hosted the

richest complement of bacteria in

any human population examined

until that point – a complement

that included antibiotic-resistant

species, despite no known contact

with antibiotics.

And it’s well established that a

shower with shampoo and soap

strips your hair skin of much of its

microbe complement, as well as

necessary oils – which the cosmetic

industry then attempts to replace,

using conditioners and

moisturizers.

Further, there’s good reason to

think that the common skin

conditions of everyday life, like

acne, emerge from disruptions to

the normal microbiome.

What to do about the stink

All those dots in a row sure look

like an arrow pointing toward the

conclusion that showering too

often is a bad idea for your health.

But there’s no published research

that I’m aware of drawing a clear,

bright line between them.

(If I’ve missed something, I expect

I’ll hear about it soon via all-caps

notes in my inbox, and I’ll update

accordingly.)

Part of the problem may be that

it’s difficult to assemble a large

enough body of subjects willing to

skip showering for a long period of

time to conduct a high-confidence

controlled study. Instead, the

published science on shower-

skipping is mostly a stack stories

of self-experimentation .

These stories, anecdotally at least,

answer the most important

question about shower-skipping:

What to do about the stink?

Here’s the problem: Some of the

bacteria that make up your

microbiome excrete nasty-smelling

chemicals that add up to odors

wafting from your body’s folds and

creases. Stop rinsing them away, or

killing them with deodorant, and

things could get pretty gross.

Still, shower skippers say that

problem only exists because our

microbiome is so disrupted in the

first place.

The most prominent example is

probably James Hamblin of The

Atlantic, who published an essay in

June 2016 explaining is decision to

gradually give up the daily scrub.

“At first, I was an oily, smelly

beast,” he wrote .

But the theory goes that your body

adjusts to the new shower-free

normal, and your renewed,

recalibrated microbiome smells a

lot more pleasant – if a bit more

earthy than Old Spice.

That seems to have worked out for

Hamblin:

I still rinse off elsewhere when

I’m visibly dirty, like after a

run when I have to wash gnats

off my face, because there is

still the matter of society. If I

have bed head, I lean into the

shower and wet it down. But I

don’t use shampoo or body

soap, and I almost never get

into a shower…

…And everything is fine. I

wake up and get out the door

in minutes. At times when I

might’ve smelled bad before,

like at the end of a long day or

after working out, I just don’t.

At least, to my nose. I’ve asked

friends to smell me, and they

insist that it’s all good.

(Though they could be allied

in an attempt to ruin me.)

Is a shower-free lifestyle actually

healthier?

While it’s not entirely clear that

people like Hamblin are healthier

than the rest of us (that is such a

fuzzy concept), there’s certainly no

clear reason to think they’re less

healthy either. And, as he points

out, they sure do save a lot of time,

water, and money getting up in the

morning.

If you decide to cut down on your

showering, or start skipping it

entirely, it’s probably a good idea

to avoid being around people you

want to impress for a while.

Hamblin spoke to Julia Scott, a

journalist who documented her

own transition to shower-free

living for The New York Times

Magazine . Scott used products

from a company called AOBiome

intended to promote a healthy skin

microbiome, and found that she

smelled of onions for a little while,

at least to some of her friends,

while her body adjusted.

She also found that just a week of

showering at the end of the

experiment destroyed her newly-

cultivated colony entirely.

So here’s the deal: I’m sold on the

idea that scrubbing soap and

cosmetics into my skin every day is

probably a bad idea. But if I’m

being honest with you, I’m not

brave enough to switch over to a

shower-free regime just yet.

In the meantime, I tweeted at

Hamblin asking him if he’s kept up

his no-shower routine, but he

hasn’t responded.

ACCORDING TO INDEPENCE

There are conflicting views as to how

many times a week we should shower.

Depending on your hair and skin type,

you may be told that showering every

day could be better for your skin – or,

in fact, worse for your skin if it’s

particularly sensitive.

Overshowering can cause adverse effects

to hair such as causing split-ends, while

excessive use of product could result in

product build-up.

A survey last year revealed that four

out of five women don’t shower every

day , while a third said they could go

three days without washing.

Another study , conducted by

researchers at the Universities of

Manchester, Edinburgh, Lancaster and

Southampton, showed that three-

quarters of respondents had at least

one shower or bath a day.

But are we overshowering? And is there

a ‘correct’ number of showers or baths

we should be having a week?

According to Professor Stephen

Shumack, President of the Australasian

College of Dermatologists, you should

only shower when you need to.

Speaking to the Sunday Morning Herald,

he said: “It’s only in the last fifty to

sixty years (since the advent of

bathrooms with showers) that the idea

of a daily shower has become

commonplace. The pressure to do that is

actually social pressure rather than

actual need. It’s become popular

because of the social need to smell good.

But it’s only the glands in your armpit

and groin that produce body odour.

They’re not all over the body.”

Shumack also warned that a hot daily

shower could do more damage than

good, saying: “Overwashing causes

‘defatting’ of the skin – getting rid of

the natural body oils we produce to

protect the skin cells. This can cause

actual damage making them more

permeable to bacteria or viruses,

precipitating itchy skin, dryness,

flakiness and worsening conditions like

eczema.”

One professor argues that as long as

you’re focusing on the ‘right areas’, you

shouldn’t need to shower too often.

John Oxford, Professor of Virology at

Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and

Dentistry, told the Daily Mail: ‘As long

as people wash their hands often enough

and pay attention to the area of the

body below the belt, showering or

bathing every other day would do no

harm.”

For those of you that worry you may be

spending too long in the shower, a new

showerhead from Hydrao can alert you

to when you’ve spent too much time

washing by changing colour. By using

your smartphone, you can set your

desired water consumption rate which

then syncs with the showerhead.