Do we need to wash that often? Some experts believe that people take daily showers more because of established rules of behavior in society than actual needs.
A few years ago, I stopped showering every day.
Due to working from home during the corona virus pandemic, moving in with a partner who showered less often than me, and classic, middle-aged laziness, I broke an almost three-decade old habit: If I'm not exercising, now I only shower about three times a week.
Some of my friends shower as much or even less often - a few of them only shower once a week in winter, sometimes because of skin problems or because they don't like to get their hair wet - but others have completely different habits than me, and even the thought of it makes their stomachs turn.
"Without a morning shower, I can't wake up properly," they say.
"Every day has to start with a shower and a cup of tea".
"After going to work in London, there's no way I'm going to bed [without taking a shower]."
"Only three times a week? Phew".
- It's not just hygiene - is a cold shower good for health?
- "I'm a doctor and I haven't taken a bath in five years"
- He did not bathe for half a century, he died at the age of 94
- Why do we use so much water?
Those of us who rarely shower are often looked at with suspicion.
This applies not only to nature-loving, tent-dwelling hippies, but also to TikTok users who rarely shower, and even celebrities.
British TV presenter Jonathan Ross' admission that he sometimes showers less than once a week was one of the main news, and the actress' statement America Ferrera that she occasionally skips the shower, stunned the cast of the 2023 film Barbi.
Three years ago, many were appalled by the actor's statement Ashton Kučer to only wash his armpits and clean his crotch every day.
His co-star Jake Gyllenhaal said he thinks bathing is sometimes "not really necessary" (although he later said he was being sarcastic).
As other celebrities got involved in the controversy, so much dust arose around this issue that actors Jason Momoa and Rock (Stena) soon had to confirm that they shower very often.
However, although frequent hand washing prevents the spread of germs, most doctors believe that daily showering has no essential physical health benefits.
In fact, it can even be bad because it dries out the skin and undermines the immune system.
Yet studies show that more than half of Americans and Britons shower every day.
Is it time to change habits, that is, to thin out the shower?
It's not very easy to find someone who is willing to publicly admit that they don't shower regularly.
Chemist David Whitlock made headlines in 2015 when he announced that he hadn't showered in 12 years.
Instead of showering, he sprayed himself with good bacteria, and even launched a skin care brand based on that philosophy.
A year later, physician James Hamblin wrote that he, too, had stopped showering.
Upon the publication of his book Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less (Cleanliness: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Lean Hygiene) 2020, he told the BBC:
"I have my own scent, and my wife says it's just clearly recognizable. But she likes it. Other people say it's not bad."
When I emailed him a request to talk, mentioning that I shower three times a week, he replied that he was too busy and didn't have time.
But he gave me advice: "You tell anyone who makes fun of you that they know next to nothing about the skin microbiome, and you just walk away."
I finally managed to find an interlocutor, environmentalist Donahad McCarthy.
"I'm not the only one [who doesn't shower every day]," he tells me.
"But I am the only one who is ready to speak about it bravely".
Eight years ago, in an article for the British The Guardian, McCarthy wrote that he showers once a week and occasionally cries over the sink.
He says that it was not easy to publicly admit that he rarely washes, because he knew that many people would call him derogatory names and make fun of him.
However, after the article was published, he says people secretly confessed to him that they had similar showering habits.
While he was a professional ballet dancer, before his injury, McCarthy showered regularly.
After spending two weeks with the indigenous Yanomami people in the Amazon rainforest, he decided to contribute to the preservation of the environment, and in his house in London he installed a device to collect rainwater and a solar water heating system.
So he could monitor water consumption.
During the following years, he showered less and less, and today he does it about once a month.
Every day, he closes himself over the sink and uses the same towel to wash his entire body, and only uses a cup of water to shave.
No one tells him he stinks.
"If you go into an old building, you'll see these wonderful little wooden tables with wash bowls in the bedrooms," he says.
"People used water from those basins and had the same towel for their face and body... Obviously, running water is a big advantage. But that means you spend a lot more of it."
- Strengthening the movement of people who do not wash their clothes
- Why the yellow duck is dangerous
- Does cold water hold the key to a cure for dementia?
- Salvation for women - a urinal that will reduce queues in front of the toilet
'Showering as a show for others'
It is surprising that professors and teaching assistants in universities rarely deal with the human passion for soap and water.
So rare that a study from 2005 still seems to be a reference for those researching showering habits and attitudes.
According to the report, people in Britain usually shower once or sometimes twice a day.
For many, it "has become such a normal routine that showering less frequently is socially and physically unpleasant and unacceptable".
One of the co-authors of the research is Dale Southerton, Professor of Sociology of Consumption at the University of Bristol.
"People wash a lot more today than they did in the past," he tells the BBC.
Change happened in the last 100 years, and it was unplanned.
In fact, it seems to have happened almost by accident.
People bathed in the bathtub for a long time.
The culture of enjoying a bath is rich - from bathing in healing water in spas to more modern relaxation in a bubble bath with a glass of wine or a cup of tea and a book.
(Whether more water is used by showering or bathing in a bathtub, and which is cheaper and more environmentally friendly, depends on the duration of the shower. And while some believe that showering is more hygienic because the dirt is washed away immediately, others indicate that the difference is so small that taken into account at all.)
In the 1950s, British people got running water in their bathrooms, recalls Southerton.
A new invention soon arrived: a hose, attached to a faucet, with a shower.
Today, many houses are being built and dormitories are being renovated so that every room has its own bathroom.
"If there's only one shower in a family of five, there's less desire to shower," Southerton explains.
"But if you jump out of bed and walk into just your shower...".
The very availability of showers, which are installed to make it easier for us to maintain hygiene, means that we now shower more often.
The shower also took on a new meaning.
An advertising campaign during the 1900s gave new symbolism to our bathrooms.
The shower is marketed as a time-saving and revitalizing tool, says Southerton.
Around 1970, shower ads featured just simple tubs with showers, but by the 1980s, they featured women relaxing in a cloud of steam.
Showering has become a kind of leisure activity.
In addition, it helps us to change our everyday life.
During the day, people often do various things and change roles: sit at the desk in the office, go to tennis, be parents, go to dinner with friends.
Showering is an activity between those roles.
The shower cabin is a portal that transforms us from one personality to another.
"If we go back 100 years, we didn't shower every day, because a shower wasn't available to everyone," says Professor Kristen Gram-Hansen from the Department of Urban Planning at Aalborg University in Denmark.
"We don't shower for health reasons. We shower because it's normal."
That frequent showering is a rule of social behavior becomes apparent in certain settings, such as hiking or music festivals, she says.
There are different rules and suddenly it's okay to shower less often.
What does the future hold? Will we all be avoiding the shower soon"?
It's unlikely.
Experts do not notice that people shower less often for environmental reasons.
"This is not a case where something slowly grows and then we all say, 'Oh, that was a bad idea! Let's stop,'" says Southerton.
"You can't turn back time. Showering rules are now embedded in our society."
It seems that my habit of showering less often will still bother some.
I agree with McCarthy.
"I think showering often is a kind of performance," he says.
"Why do we wash? Mainly because we're afraid someone else will tell us we stink...
"I faced that fear and here I am alive".
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube i Viber. If you have a topic proposal for us, contact us at bbcnasrpskom@bbc.co.uk
Bonus video:
