Splish splash, I was taking a bath

I only shower once a fortnight.

There, I’ve said it. It will turn noses up. Chairs will be moved away from me. Delicate sensibilities have been offended.

But why the gap between showering? Don’t my friends say something? Don’t I smell?

No, I don’t smell. I’ve asked my friends and they are always brutally honest with me, as good friends should be. I don’t smell.

In truth, I don’t sweat easily, and do little to build up a sweat these days. I wash my armpits every two or three days, and I take a bath once a week. And I am lavish with the application of underarm deodorant every morning.

So, why not more frequent showering?

What I find annoying about the shower is the cold air that envelops me once I get out of the shower. Icy tentacles wrap their evilness around me and I shiver. I prefer not to feel cold, so I limit the number of times I have to endure it. And I find the heat just seeps through me when I have a bath, keeping me wrapped up in warmth when I’m done bathing.

So, I prefer bathing. I take my waterproof ereader in with me and wallow in a luxuriating bath whilst having a good read of a pulp crime novel.

I’m not alone in not showering. Doctors throughout the Western world advise us to not shower every day, and it’s not just because they want us to save water. Washing and scrubbing removes the skin’s oil and healthy bacteria, and it can become dry, irritated and itchy. Dry, cracked skin can allow bacteria to get through, causing infections and allergic reactions. This is particularly true among older people, whose skin grows thinner, less hydrated, and more sensitive. And I am older, a pensioner, so this point is salient to me.

What would happen if I never showered? Well, skipping my shower could lead to an excess of dead skin cell build up, says Amy Wechsler, a New York City dermatologist. Hyperkeratosis, which is the thickening of the outer layer of the skin, would probably occur. Rashes and itchy irritation will occur. Not pleasant, so that’s why I haven’t stopped showering all together. But I do prefer baths, baths with Epsom salts and baths with Himalayan bath salts in them. It’s just that in water-sensitive South Australia––the driest state in the driest continent on Earth––drawing a bath every day would be prohibitively expensive.

So, what are some good reasons to consider not showering, or not showering every day?

Well, there’s the genuine possibility that you’re not dirty if you’re an office worker. Sure, if you work with chemicals, or in construction, or on the land, or you go the gym every day or night, you are more likely to need to remove dirt and grime from your body but even then, some dermatologists say, the risk of stripping your body of natural oils is greater than the benefit of losing some of that dirt.

There’s a very delicate balance of microorganisms on the skin, and if it’s disrupted––by a harsh soap, say––we leave ourselves open to invasion by other, more harmful, bodies. Dr. Robert H. Shmerling, MD, reported in the Harvard Health Publishing Blog that ‘our immune systems need a certain amount of stimulation by normal microorganisms, dirt, and other environmental exposures in order to create protective antibodies and immune memory.’ And stripping away those microorganisms leaves us, over time, more and more susceptible to a malfunctioning immune system.

You might love a long hot shower, but the chances are good that your skin doesn’t. The hot water strips the skin of those essential oils, which protect your skin and keep it healthy. Strip those oils away and you risk skin infections and acne. Should you have eczema, stripping away the oils will exacerbate the condition, leaving you with inflamed, itchy skin after a hot shower. Experts don’t suggest hot showers at all to people with skin conditions––cool or warm showers only to help keep the skin calm.        

The same warning about washing our skin applies to washing our hair. According to the International Association of Trichologists, we should only wash our hair twice a week, especially if our hair is thin, damaged, or fine. We can still moisturise our hair by using conditioner on the days we’re not washing it. The scalp is a delicate ecosystem; if it’s washed too often it loses valuable protective oils, but if it’s not washed enough those protective oils build up. If, through too much washing, the oils are stripped away and the skin dries out, then flakes arrive––hello, dandruff!

Now, I’m guilty of running my bathwater at too high a temperature. My skin crackles when I gingerly ease myself into my piping hot bath. I should lower the temperature in order to protect the delicate oils that protect my skin, but I enjoy being warmed up by the bathwater, to where, when I step out of the bath at the end of my pampering session, the cold air of the bathroom doesn’t assail me. A shower doesn’t have that same warming effect.

But one thing I don’t enjoy about my baths––the icy cold tiles on my back when I lay back in my bath and attempt to cover my chest with water. Those tiles at the head of the bath just don’t heat up, even from the steam rising from the water, and I suffer a sharp intake of breath and a knee-jerk recoil back out of the water, sitting bolt upright to regain my composure. I’ve taken to using a jug to pour hot bathwater over the tiles to raise their temperature first, before leaning back onto them.

Now you know why I don’t shower anymore. It’s not that I’m unhygienic, it’s that I get all the cleaning I usually need from a weekly bath. And let’s face it, if a weekly bath was good enough for our grandparents, it is good enough for us. After all, who benefits from daily showering and hair washing but soap manufacturers and water utilities? Liberate your body, shower less. Or as they used to say in the 70s, shower with a friend.