I realised most of my basic health routine was useless to detrimental:
- Soap: it disrupt the skin microbiome. Only useful for hand washing and to clean private parts / the bottom. Even then use high quality soap like Marseille soap or Aleppo soap.
Note: Also as mentioned in the comments if you avoid soap / deodorant you *will* probably need to shower two times a day even without doing physical activities. Three times with physical activities.
You may also need to particularly rub the smelly parts of the body (e.g. the armpits) with a clean sponge, use mild to hot water (cold water doesn’t do it without soap) and trim your body hair. There is no magic. People use soap for a reason: it’s more “practical” and it requires less care to stay clean
And if you are used to wash yourself with soap and you brutally stop you may smell a little the first month until your microbiome is able to handle all the waste and your skin to balance its oil production. Even if you shower multiple times a day.
- Shampoo: Most shampoos are very a agressive for your scalp / hairs and should be avoided. Especially if you have fragile / curly hair. You can wash them with plain water or conditioner instead.
Note: Using a gentle shampoo without silicones and surfactants can still be useful from time to time. Especially to reset the pH of the scalp.
Also using a shampoo rarely and co-washing instead can be impractical if you have long hair as it’s way harder to clean and takes far longer to dry
- Toothpaste: it can be useful but it’s not so important. What really is important is to brush your teeth energetically to remove by mechanical friction the dental plaques and to change toothbrush frequently. Avoiding for a time to use toothpaste and using dental plaque revealer can be a great way to learn how to properly wash one’s teeth
Note: As someone else noted “energetically” means speed and taking your time. *Not* applying pressure on your teeth. Also toothpaste helps the teeth by providing fluoride. It’s just that using it every time may not be so useful and do not replace brushing your teeth effectively
I’ve met a few people in my life that avoid deodorants and soaps and claim they don’t need them and don’t stink. They all did. My theory is they get used to their smell after awhile and can no longer smell it.
That is an interesting and seemingly likely explanation. I've had this "debate" with entire groups of people who live in much cooler environments and claim they don't have body odor, but they most assuredly do. I never understood whether they "don't stink when they're in their normal environment" or just couldn't smell it anymore.
Humanity ignored soap for significant amounts of its existence. Nearly everyone stunk. There are likely very very few people whose natural body microbiome won't end up stinking. You (the reader) are probably not one of those people.
I indeed tends to get “dirty” and smell faster and I indeed feel it. However I wash myself more often. Usually in the morning and before bed. After sport sessions also
These are not universals. I’ve seen the no-shampoo meme repeatedly in online comments. As someone with long, fine hair, I’ve made two attempts to go without, waiting almost a month for my scalp to “reset”. It always looked extremely greasy (like Gary Oldman’s character in Slow Horses).
I have had luck opting for gentler shampoos and not using them every wash, but I wouldn’t speak for anyone else. There is large variance in peoples’ bodies.
Same, except I get very dry and frizzy hair. I only wash mu hair 2 times a week already & tried other crap for months with no difference in how shitty my hair is
I concur that my takes largely depends of my own situation. Long hair is tremendously more difficult to wash and takes way more time to dry. Just co-washing them is often impractical. When I had longer hair I usually used shampoo once every two to three days instead of once every two weeks. Very gentle ones however
I indeed did asked friends. They couldn’t tell the difference. That’s why I stocked to it. However I indeed need to wash myself more often, especially when the temperature is kinda hot
I asked friends which I know to be brutally honest as I was both skeptical and worried.
And you indeed smell if you don’t shower two times a day without soap and deodorant.
And even by showering two times a day you will smell the first month until the skin regulates its oil production and the microbiome is able to handle skin wastes.
Strong disagree on toothpaste. Toothpaste is more than just a physical abrasive, it’s also a source of fluoride that makes your enamel far more resistant to acid erosion.
If you sweat and you don't use soap and you don't want to stink you need to wash every 4 hours or so. If you don't sweat you need to wash every 8 hours or so. Soap adds about 50% to those numbers.
If you're not dancing closely with people maybe you can extend that time a little bit, but those are the numbers we settled on as a dance community who regularly had dances longer than 4 hours...
> Soap: it disrupt the skin microbiome. Only useful for hand washing and to clean private parts / the bottom. Even then use high quality soap like Marseille soap or Aleppo soap.
> Shampoo: Most shampoos are very a agressive for your scalp / hairs and should be avoided. Especially if you have fragile / curly hair. You can wash them with plain water or conditioner instead.
Wait, what? I would love to see some supporting evidence for all this.
I'm going to point at a company and product that I am aware of, but have not personally experienced. AOBiome Therapudics has a list of its published research, [0], on its website. They helped develop the mother dirt body wash product, [1] [2].
Not research backed, but to add one data point, I bought into the whole "I need a three-step skincare routine" trend (which I think is positive, people should care for their skin as they should any other organ). However, after trying ~5 different cleansers (varying in ingredients, lathering vs non-lathering, and oil cleansing), I realized my acne is best when I cleanse twice daily with water.
On the other hand, moisturizing and sunscreen has helped with dryness and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation from acne.
I used to think I had oily skin, and so I would use harsh cleansers to cut through that oil. They didn't help at all, and I had bad skin for years. It took a skin conscious girlfriend to make me realize that I actually have dry skin, which produces an excessive amount of oil to compensate for the dryness. Just keeping my skin regularly moisturized and using a gentle soap or cleanser before bed/as needed cleared my skin.
Just in case: for many people with acne problems, changing the pillowcase daily (or every other day, turning your pillow over the second night) seems to make a clear difference.
Not research-backed, but you can google "Curly Girl Method" for much of the reasoning, and probably many examples of people who avoid shampoos to great success, so it's at least true for some.
Soap is a rather recent invention (the Romans didn't have it until later in their Empire), and one that until 1-2 centuries ago people used sparringly. And yes, they did clean themselves with bathing, even in medieval times, despite the prevalent myths about those times.
Also, the last 80 years or so, after TV became popular soaps and fancy shampoos have been marketed to death with BS snakeoil claims. 99% of what you hear in those ads is bogus, including claims about the efficacy of their fancy sounding ingredients...
I think this is an example of overly pushing everything to the demand of science.
It obviously depends on your body, diet, and microbiome.
There's no definitive answer like if Earth was balls around the Sun. The answer is personal. Does that work for you or not? What have you tried and what works and what doesn't
I think the problem is that everyone knows “that person” who thought they didn’t need soap/shampoo etc. but it turns out they just have a terrible sense of smell and are deluded
Like the friend of mine who told me she never used shampoo in which my immediate reaction was “no shit..”
On the flip side, I do have a close friend who admitted he only showers every three days or so, and smells impeccable (which is extra funny because he has anosmia)
I would add flossing on a daily basis to the list. In between every single teeth - I missed that part when I was in my 20’s and now have bone loss in my jaw due to gum disease. Also why most old people loose teeth at some point.
You might have something meaningful to contribute to the discussion, but using a "word" like "innit" is not going to get anyone to take your comment seriously.
Flossing can be sort of boring, so I purchased one of those electric water-piks to floss using blasts of water. It’s similar to the little water gun they use at the dentists. It works really well, kinda fun, and makes your mouth feel super clean. Can’t recommend it enough.
> I would add flossing on a daily basis to the list.
As something to do, or something to avoid? Most tribespeople and animals don't floss and have healthier teeth than modern people. I'm not sure sawing between ones gums is the ideal way of removing plaque, and I suspect is not been tested properly because I don't believe people actually do floss every every day.
If you are going to compare to tribes people or animals then you are going to have to completely avoid refined sugar. Which may be more unrealistic than flossing every day...
>> Which may be more unrealistic than flossing every day...
>Why?
Assuming your question is in good faith, because refined sugar is everywhere. Not just in sweet treats which are commonly part of cultural celebration but also in a wide range of processed and prepared foods.
That was my thinking when I was younger but I was definitely wrong. My gums are objectively healthier now than back then.
The problem with this comparison is that most tribespeople had kids by 18-20 so health issues that come much later don’t have much of an evolutionary hit. Losing teeth at 40 was not going to change things much for their genes.
Most tribespeople have diet that basically has no sugar, no processed carbs, and most men died by 40-50 due to intertribal warfare/infection so it didn’t matter much if you lose some teeth at 50. When you see documentaries of tribespeople almost all the old people have some missing teeth. If you don’t mind loosing teeth when you get older then I guess you can ignore that advice.
Ha, I learned about no soap on HN some years ago, a HNer claiming their lovers thought the no-soap skin smelled great. I guess it's likely that other bacterial species may thrive on your skin when not washing with soap (soap washing would remove more bacteria, only allowing fast-multiplying bacteria to repopulate the area, while water-washing would leave more different species). Not sure if the microbiome difference is better/healthier/nicer smelling. I jumped at the "my lovers loved it" recommendation and gave it a try (still used shampoo, no success excluding that, washed hands, used deodorant and paid extra care to smelly areas), and the armpits definitely smelled differently (but hardly like flowers) after a while of this practice, __to me__. As pointed out already, that may be have been my olfaction getting used to my newly acquired BO, like not noticing the smell of your own house, but others' houses smell different. My post-training clothes still smelled terrible.
I shower before any type of socialization (including work), and after any type of exercise. That's multiple times a day and similar to most westerners.
The big thing some people don't do is shower after work before going out for the evening. Women might be able to get away with that, but if you're a man and you occasionally sweat you can't, soap or not.
I only used soap on my hands and bottom. Usually I shower in the morning, then after sport if I am doing a sport session and then before going to bed. Showers take far less time as you don’t use soap, however you need to use mild to hot water as cold water won’t wash anything without soap
I stopped washing my body with soap 3 years ago. Now I just wash my nether region. I also wash my hair once a week. My skin isn't dry and scratchy and my hair is strong and silky. Kind of amazing that marketing has us all thinking that hygiene means soaping everything everyday. Just water will remove most things. Soap is to remove oil and fat.
1) Soap/Shampoo: I stopped using fancy perfumed big-brand shampoos (Dial/Dove/Pert/etc. filled with things like Methylchloroisothiazolinone which, despite being an endless source of literary entertainment, is just a preservative) and started using very very simple soaps, like Dr. Bronner's all-purpose castile stuff, and I've found my hair/body is just as clean and doesn't turn to oil/grease after a skipping one day
2) Toothpaste: I switched to a brand that does NOT have sodium lauryl sulfate (which just makes fake foam) and any minor bumps or scratches (from an awkward tortilla chip chomp, for example) no longer cause days worth of pain. MAJOR life improvement.
Most conditioners are filled with silicones that are not water soluble. But after a while, they break down and make your hair look dirty.
The solution is to remove them, but you can only do that by using strong solvents.
So you use shampoos that contain strong solvents. This damages your hair, so you make sure to use conditioners to repair the damage. Except they don't repair, they fill in the holes with silicones. The silicones are now deeper into your individual hair strands. It looks good, but after a while, they break down. So you use solvents, deeper this time.
This damages your hair. Then you use conditioners. Most conditioners are filled with silicones that are not water soluble. Yet, after a short time...
That doesn't mean you shouldn't cowash, it means you should upgrade to products that do not have silicone (also phosphates). There are various haircare forums that will give you the specific ingredients to look out for.
The comment we are commenting under is not even saying that but recommending that we pay attention to the ingredients: "Most shampoos are very a agressive for your scalp [...] Using a gentle shampoo without silicones and surfactants"
Here is an interesting web application that allows you to scan products to know their ingredients. It tells you if they contain hard to remove silicones or harsh solvents. https://curlscan.com/
Using it to scan the brands at the stores that are local to me reveals that only a small minority of product do not contain the silicone-solvent circle.
Anecdotal, sure, but I have been teaching this to all the women in my life and they all report back that they are able to go longer without washing their hair with products now that they pay attention to the ingredients. Turns out that for a lot of people, we were going through the motion of adding a coat of product and removing that coat of product daily instead of actually fighting grime and sweat.
Exactly. There is a world between “don’t use soap on your body” and “never shower yourself or change your clothes”. I often wash myself with water two times per day
> What really is important is to brush your teeth energetically
Potentially bad advice. If you apply too much pressure or use too hard of a toothbrush you will get yourself early gum recession. Brush gently using a soft brush, ideally electric because it cleans better. Lots of info available on this online, or ask your dentist.
Not sure why this received so much flak. I have been soap and shampoo free for 15 years or so. Have seen no issues. I do use soap for washing hands after meals to get rid of oils and stuff. Its not like I have perfect skin or hair. Just average perhaps but not bad either. At 42 I have only 4 gray hair, probably its just genetics.
I had a bad experience using Dr. Bronner's as body soap. It really disrupted my natural barrier. However, for non-skin purposes, I think it's an excellent general purpose soap.
This is actually something I found myself doing the past few years. A good wash cloth and self made products are 1000x better than the heavy duty chemicals we put on our bodies everyday. I have a rule: If I can't eat it, don't use in externally either.
- Soap: it disrupt the skin microbiome. Only useful for hand washing and to clean private parts / the bottom. Even then use high quality soap like Marseille soap or Aleppo soap.
Note: Also as mentioned in the comments if you avoid soap / deodorant you *will* probably need to shower two times a day even without doing physical activities. Three times with physical activities.
You may also need to particularly rub the smelly parts of the body (e.g. the armpits) with a clean sponge, use mild to hot water (cold water doesn’t do it without soap) and trim your body hair. There is no magic. People use soap for a reason: it’s more “practical” and it requires less care to stay clean
And if you are used to wash yourself with soap and you brutally stop you may smell a little the first month until your microbiome is able to handle all the waste and your skin to balance its oil production. Even if you shower multiple times a day.
- Shampoo: Most shampoos are very a agressive for your scalp / hairs and should be avoided. Especially if you have fragile / curly hair. You can wash them with plain water or conditioner instead.
Note: Using a gentle shampoo without silicones and surfactants can still be useful from time to time. Especially to reset the pH of the scalp.
Also using a shampoo rarely and co-washing instead can be impractical if you have long hair as it’s way harder to clean and takes far longer to dry
- Toothpaste: it can be useful but it’s not so important. What really is important is to brush your teeth energetically to remove by mechanical friction the dental plaques and to change toothbrush frequently. Avoiding for a time to use toothpaste and using dental plaque revealer can be a great way to learn how to properly wash one’s teeth
Note: As someone else noted “energetically” means speed and taking your time. *Not* applying pressure on your teeth. Also toothpaste helps the teeth by providing fluoride. It’s just that using it every time may not be so useful and do not replace brushing your teeth effectively