Showering in Stuff

Not so long ago my boss at work had noticed a particular smell coming from a warehouse worker and proceeded to go on a rant about the importance of showering daily. Another of my coworkers chimed in with a comment that he showers twice per day, which my boss eagerly supported. She went on to talk about how gross it is for anyone not to be clean by her standards.

I remained awkwardly silent through this whole experience. I’m acutely aware of how repulsed she would be if she knew the details of my personal hygiene. But I’m also confident that I am clean and that I don’t smell. And by at least one school of thought, my practice of not showering daily is actually believed to be a healthy choice.

To be clear, at points in my life when I am exercising and/or working out regularly, I always shower afterward. And there have been times in my life when I have exercised every day and therefore showered every day. I completely understand that if you do something that specifically gets you dirty or sweaty, it’s time to clean up.

But my daily life these days involves very little of anything that gets me dirty or sweaty. And I’m so programmed to the shower after a workout routine, that then I get to points in my life when I’m not exercising, I don’t have that trigger to remind me to shower, and I forget.

“Forget” seems like too innocent of a word. It’s somewhat of a conscious decision. I’m not dirty, I don’t need to shower. A typical day for me involves driving to and from a climate controlled office where I sit at a desk all day, then an evening at home with the kids usually with dinner, home work, and television. I don’t do almost anything physical. I don’t get sweaty or dirty.

I have no set schedule for showering. Usually I shower because one of two things happens:

1. I’m in a situation where I think I might have sex with someone. I’m not in a relationship and my current lifestyle doesn’t really lend itself to casual sex, but it happens. If I’m headed out for an evening with some girlfriends and I think there’s a possibility I might encounter someone and experience some chemistry, I will shower first. The truth is this situation is happening less and less these days, and I’m due for a whole other entry exploring my disappointment in that.

2. I stop at some point during my day and think to myself: I can’t remember the last time I showered. This is the most common scenario that leads me to the bathtub. It’s not a case of feeling dirty or noticing I have an unpleasant aroma, its honestly a realization that so much time has passed that I don’t recall my last shower. So I go ahead and do it,

I could defend myself with research that is all over the internet about why showering daily destroys the microorganisms that live on your body and actually do good things for you. But that bores me and I don’t want to talk about the science of this. I just know that it works for me.

And I know that some people will read this and think well, this is good for her but it would never work for me. My skin or hair is too oily and I would be disgusting without my twice daily showers. But it really does feel like we create a dependence on showering that can only be broken by taking a real break from it and suffering some withdrawal symptoms. Yes, your hair and skin will get oily at first because your body is accustomed to over-producing to make up for the fact that you constantly wash it away. You eventually reach an equilibrium.

I almost deleted that above paragraph because it sounds preachy and that’s not my point. My point is simply to share that this works for me.

I’ve avoided saying specifically here how often I shower because there’s no specific answer. I’ll leave it at this: every 7-10 days is probably a safe estimate. I’m extremely unlikely to shower more often than once per week, but it’s not at all unlikely that I’d go longer than that.

Last updated September 23, 2017