2023-04-22
I think our modern society has veered into overwashing.
Obviously, basic hygiene is extremely important for preventing diseases. Several efforts for teaching hospital doctors in emerging countries, for example, have significantly decreased the morbidity and mortality rate, especially for surgical procedures.
But how do we know how much is too much? We have specific products for washing our hands, body, face, hair, “intimate areas”. It’s basically just all soap and maybe a little fragrance (that, or it’s specifically marketed as fragrance-free, for double the price). I’m surprised Big Marketing hasn’t come up with different products for your right hand and left hand.
The effect on the environment, if you multiply by the number of people and the number of events per day, is huge.
Several years ago, more driven by laziness than by scientific experimentation, I had already tried to wash my hair less often. I lack actual data to back this up (more serious and much cleverer people have done this better, for instance this book Clean I read a little later, written by a doctor), though in my experience, when you wash your hair, it feels extremely smooth and silky and shiny, but only for a couple of days, and then it feels kind of oily. That prompts us to wash it again. But if you wait a bit longer and let your scalp some breathing room to regulate itself, then it feels fine again. Of course the hair won’t get back to its overly smooth and shiny state by itself, but it will feel normal, clean, and not oily at all.
The same applies to the rest of the body. For several years now, I’ve only been taking a full bath or shower every few weeks, if that. And when I do, I usually just use water. On the other hand, I wash certain particular areas multiple times a day. Hands, face, feet, “private parts” (it helps that I have access to a Japanese-style washlet in most places I go), armpits. I’ve actually been epilating (not shaving, epilating — yes it’s painful the first time) my armpits for more than a decade now, and even when I sweat a lot there, the smell is very very mild (I won’t claim it’s nonexistent, but it certainly does not linger at all). As one person says in the “Clean” book I mentioned above, all these places are important, but do I really need, every day, to clean here [pointing at middle of forearm].
The social pressure for overwashing is so strong that initially I thought it was shameful not to take a “full shower” every day. I also wondered whether my sense of smell was blunted or accustomed so I wouldn’t smell myself. Nope. Well, it was blunted for a while because of Covid but that was very noticeable and it’s another story. I asked people around me (close people, not strangers ;-P ) to tell me if I smelled bad. They all said either that I didn’t didn’t smell at all, or that I just smelled like… a person, a healthy human. A very mild smell; not completely odor-free (that would probably not be normal?), not an overpowering chemical peach fragrance. You know that impression when you like someone, and you’re happy to detect their smell on a scarf they left behind and it reminds you of them? That type of smell.
Again, no data to back this up except my anecdotal experience, but it seems like by overwashing, we are taking away all the secretions that our body needs to maintain itself, in particular at the skin level, and we are pulling all the chemical reactions towards that side so that it will actually produce more. Leave the system alone for a while, and it will regulate itself just fine.
If anything, it feels like I’m dirtier a few hours or a day after taking a full shower, than several weeks later.
Our species has a long evolutionary history leading to it after all, you might think your body is able to sustain itself in an acceptable state without a gazillion artificial products. But of course that doesn’t increase GDP.