How Often People in Various
Countries Shower
March 07, 2015
Story at-a-glance
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The average American showers nearly every day, which is the
global average as well
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Daily showering is a relatively recent phenomenon, and may
upset the balance of beneficial bacteria and oils on your
skin
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When you do shower, use soap only on your underarms and
groin area, not your entire body
By Dr. Mercola
The average American showers nearly every day, which is,
according to a Euromonitor poll, the global average as well.
Showering frequency is similar in Spain, France, and India, although
in Mexico, the Middle East, and Australia, eight showers a week is
the norm.1
This pales in comparison to Colombia and Brazil, where close to
10 and 12 showers are taken each week, respectively. Meanwhile,
people living in Japan, the UK, and China shower less frequently,
coming in at around 5 showers a week.
It wasn’t always this way. This daily shower, some might say,
obsession was virtually unheard of just 100 years ago.
As indoor plumbing became more widespread, it certainly made the
ritual of bathing more convenient, but the hygiene ritual most
people use today – soap included – is a fairly recent phenomenon.
The Selling of ‘Clean’
It wasn’t until the early 20th century, not coincidentally when
advertising became prolific, that Americans began to be very
concerned about personal hygiene. As Gizmodo reported, the
advertising industry created a “need” for newfangled products like
“toilet soap” and “mouthwash” where one had never before existed:2
“Americans had to be convinced their breath was rotten
and theirs armpits stank. It did not happen by accident.
‘Advertising and toilet soap grew up together,’ says Katherine
Ashenburg, author of The Dirt on Clean.
…Even our very notion of ‘soap’ changed. Until the
mid-19th century, ’soap’ meant laundry soap, the caustic stuff
used for scrubbing soiled linens and clothes.
A kinder, gentler alternative was invented for cleaning
the body, and it had to be called ‘toilet soap’ to distinguish
from the unrefined stuff. Today, ‘toilet soap’ is a superfluous
designation. Toilet soap is simply soap.
Advertisers did not invent a notion of cleanliness out of
a vacuum, but they did cannily tap into anxieties wrought by
social upheavals in the early 20th century.
As people moved from farm to factory to office, working
spaces became where they spent all day with strangers in closer
and closer quarters. Men and women began to work together.
Women, especially, were a target of ads playing on the theme,
‘Often a bridesmaid, never a bride.’
To this day, there are still discrepancies between how much
washing actually occurs in the shower, at least as far as shampooing
goes.
Most people do not wash their hair during every shower.
In the US, for instance, even though there are close to seven weekly
showers, on average, there are only four weekly shampoos.
Showering Daily Might Be Detrimental to the Beneficial Bacteria on
Your Skin
You’re probably aware of the beneficial bacteria in your gut, but
your skin is also teeming with bacteria, including some that might
help prevent infections. When you shower, you not only wash away
dirt but you also disturb this microbial balance, such that daily
showers might ultimately upset your health.
Dr. Richard Gallo, chief of the dermatology division at the
University of California, San Diego, told the New York Times:3
“Good bacteria are educating your own skin cells to make
your own antibiotics [and] they produce their own antibiotics
that kills off bad bacteria.”
It’s widely known that showering too often can strip your skin of
beneficial oil, leading to dryness and cracks (especially if the
water is hot and harsh soaps are used). However, excessive showering
may also make certain conditions, like eczema, worse. Dr. Gallo
noted:4
“It’s not just removing the lipids and oils on your skin
that’s drying it out.” … It could be ‘removing some of the good
bacteria that help maintain a healthy balance of skin.’”
Not to mention, if you’re on city water and you don’t
have a filter on your shower, showering is a major source of
exposure to
carcinogenic chlorination byproducts such as trihalomethanes
(THMs). THMs are associated with bladder cancer, gestational and
developmental problems.
Just the simple act of showering in treated water, in which you
have absorption through both your skin and lungs, may pose a
significant health risk to you—and to your unborn child, if you are
pregnant.
Numerous studies have shown that showering and bathing are
important routes of exposure and may actually represent MORE of your
total exposure than the water you drink. So in this respect, cutting
back on your shower time would be important to help limit your
exposure.
The Unwashed Revolution?
There is a growing minority of people who are bucking the
expectation of the daily shower. Some might even call it trendy to
wash less often. I happen to be one of them.
I am concerned with washing off beneficial microbes with soap so
I restrict using soap to my armpits (rather than use deodorant) and
to wash my hands when dirty. Also, I am barefoot most of the day so
I wash the soles of my feet every night before going to bed. All
this only takes a few bars of soap a year.
Thankfully there is a greater awareness and understanding that
beneficial
microbes are not the enemy the media has portrayed them to be.
The reality is that they are important for our health.
Others cite environmental concerns as their reason for fewer
showers, especially water usage. One seven-minute shower uses more
water than a bath, and it’s expected that water usage for showers
will grow five-fold by 2021.5
Still others are looking to cut back on their use of
chemical-laden body washes and shampoos, and note that their
skin and hair has never looked better since they’ve cut back on so
many showers.6
Remember, it wasn’t long ago that a once-weekly bath was
considered the norm. Daily (or more) washing is a relatively recent
phenomenon.
Even dermatologists tend to frown on daily showers, especially in
hot water and with harsh soap, because of the damage it can do to
your skin. According to John Oxford, professor of virology at Queen
Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry:7
“A vigorous daily shower would disturb the natural bug
flora of the skin as well as skin oils… As long as people wash
their hands often enough and pay attention to the area of the
body below the belt, showering or bathing every other day would
do no harm …Even twice a week would not be a problem if people
used a bidet daily as most infectious bugs hang
around our lower halves… We should wash to stop cross-infection,
not for grooming reasons.”
Avoid Lathering Your Whole Body When You Shower
Soap tends to remove the protective sebum that is full of
beneficial fats that your body uses to protect your skin. Yet,
many people regularly use soap to wash their entire skin
surface and remove this protective covering… and then pay money to
apply lotions to restore what they just removed. The irony is that
most of the lotions are far inferior to sebum and many, if not most,
are loaded with toxic ingredients that ultimately will worsen your
health.
Science is clearly showing that your body’s microbiome plays a
major role not just in your health, promoting or warding off skin
diseases for example; it can also dramatically alter things like
body odor. So, it’s really in your best interest to work
with your microbiome, rather than against it. The best way to
do this when you shower is to only wash the areas that really need
washing. In most cases, this would be your underarms, groin area
and, possibly, your feet.
As noted by Dr. Casey Carlos, assistant professor of medicine in
the division of dermatology at the University of California San
Diego School of Medicine:8
“It’s the hardest thing to get people to use soap only where
they need it… People don’t realize that the skin does a pretty good
job of cleaning itself.” As mentioned, about the only time I
use soap on any body part other than my armpit or groin is when I am
doing heavy woodchip work and am covered with woodchip dust.
Typically, simply washing my armpits with soap and water is enough
to stay odor free for me. Because I am barefoot most of the day I
also wash the soles of my feet at night.
It’s been well over 40 years since I quit using
antiperspirant or deodorant--even natural ones. I noticed they
would cause a yellow stain in the armpit of my shirts. At first I
thought the stain was due to my sweat but I quickly realized it was
the chemicals in the antiperspirants. Even as a college student, I
realized if the chemicals can destroy my clothes, it probably wasn’t
good for my body, so I elected to avoid it. I find that regularly
washing my armpits with soap and making sure my diet is clean with
minimal sugar and plenty of
fermented vegetables are all that is needed to keep my armpit
odor from being offensive. If you still need further help, try a
pinch of baking soda mixed into water as an effective all-day
deodorant.
Tips for Healthier Showers
When you shower or bathe, make the water warm but not hot, and
try not to linger. If you take long hot showers in the winter, your
skin will likely pay the price and you will be exposed to more
fluoride than drinking unfiltered tap water for several days along
with loads of disinfection byproducts. As soon as you’re done
showering, slather on some
coconut oil to seal in the moisture. Also, don’t simply shower
daily just because you think you should. In most cases, a
daily shower isn’t necessary, and a soapy washcloth can be used for
touch-ups. Both your body and the environment stand to benefit from
using your shower only when necessary.
As the Irish Examiner put it:9
“We lessen the effects of showers — on our body and on
the environment — by stepping under them for three minutes
instead of ten, by reducing water temperature, and by avoiding
harsh soaps and gels that exacerbate skin dryness. But, really,
Professor [Elizabeth] Shove, [a sociology researcher at the
University of Lancaster], says, ask yourself whether you need to
do it before you turn on and step under. ‘We are pouring so many
liters of water over ourselves to remove just a few specks of
dirt,’ she says. ‘It is an extraordinary thing to do.’”
Copyright 1997- 2015 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.
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