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It's Okay if You Don't Have Time to Shower
November 25, 2008 at 9:30 AM by Cafe Kristen - Comments (11)
Talk about a busy, short week. You have dinners to make, kids off from school, company coming to town. If you're swamped this holiday week, it's okay if you don't have time to take a shower.
Katherine Ashenburg, author of the book I recently covered called The Dirt on Clean, says we really don't need to be such clean freaks anyway.
Cafe Kristen: Do you think our society bathes too much?
Katherine Ashenburg: North Americans definitely bathe and shower too much. It's bad for their skin, for their immune systems if they're children, and bad for the environment-- we're washing far too many chemicals and other toxins down the drain.
Cafe Kristen: What got you so interested in cleanliness?
Katherine Ashenburg: A five-minute audiotape in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, which indicated a few of the twists and turns this history has taken in past centuries. I'm not a clean freak or obsessed with cleanliness, but I was struck with how much social, everyday history (which I love) there was in their subject.
Cafe Kristen: What can we learn from the incredible, quirky history of bathing and showering?
Katherine Ashenburg: That human beings are very suggestible and adaptable, that doctors in the past were often at the forefront of mistaken beliefs, and that moderation is as good a thing in cleanliness as it is in other areas of life.
Cafe Kristen: What's the funniest bathing secret that one of your readers has shared with you since you wrote the book?
Katherine Ashenburg: Readers have mostly shared with me that they do not follow our North American insistence on at least one bath or shower a day. One woman did tell me her husband was TOO clean, showering about three times a day, and after 25 years of marriage she would love to know what hr really smells like. But the funniest thing was from my reading-- the in the Renaissance and to the 19th century in some classes, people thought changing their linen shirt cleaned them better than soap and water.
Cafe Kristen: What's the very best plan today for staying clean and avoiding illness?
Catherine Ashenburg: Wash your hands frequently. Wash the rest of yourself when you feel like it or feel others would like it, but beware of advertising propaganda that wants to sell product, not keep you attractive or healthy.
Have you ever been too busy to shower? One anonymous CafeMom asked this very question recently in the Health Questions section. I know I've been guilty, and this week's a killer. I'm hitting the steam right now. How about you?
FILED UNDER: bad habits, healthy habits, products, time for you
Comments:
I totally agree with her. I stopped washing my hair every day after looking into this a bit (and now i used baking soda to wash it instead of shampoo) and it is so amazingly better to deal with it's not even funny!
I still wash my body every day, because i feel grody if I don't, and I don't know if that will ever change, but I do realise that is a culteral thing more then a reality thing.
Sorry, if I don't have my shower first thing every morning, I am miserable. I feel icky and can't stand it ! We are going to my sisters for Thanksgiving, but we are staying at my other sister's house 45 minutes away, there will be 11 of us at her house. I was already planning yesterday who would shower the night before (my kids) and who would be showering in the morning before we leave (definitely me) ! I am trying to come up with a schedule so we will all feel clean, and will all have hot water when showering. LOL
It's part of the germophobia culture here in America. I'm all for washing hands and obvious filth and stink off your body, but bathing 2-3 times a day just to smell fresh is starting to go to the other extreme of not bathing for a long time.
OK, apparently, I'm the oddball here. I don't shower everyday. I have very dry skin which has been exaserberated by a recent move to the desert. If I bathed/showered everyday, not only would my hair turn into straw and fall out, but my entire body would become one big flake of dry skin. I bathe every other day..and depending on how my hair isholding up, I don't wash it but 2-3 times a week. My hubby on the other hand works in construction and must bathe daily...but he is very oily and probably would anyway. Our kids bathe on the "T" days...Tuesday, Thursday and SaTurday...but more often during the summer when they play outside from sun up to sundown. I think it IS a cultural thing and highly overrated. When exactly did we decide that chemicals smelled better than fresh skin?...or that styling products smelled better than clean hair? Hmmm....
Blessings,
Kristy
KayMMIV I am very intersted to know about the baking soda? How much do you use? Do you mix it with anything? Do you do it daily? Is it okay to use on color treated hair?
Daily baths/showers are an absolute must for me and my houshold.
I love a nice, long, hot, kid-free showers. Ahhh. If I only had more time. Yes, I want to hear more about the baking soda, too, please. 
I don't know 'bout this one...lol! I like to smell good, and for my hair to be non-greasy.
Okay, I admit though, there have been days when I knew I wasn't leaving the house for anything that I skipped a day....
KayMMIV I am very intersted to know about the baking soda? How much do you use? Do you mix it with anything? Do you do it daily? Is it okay to use on color treated hair?
I would also like to know these things... please pm me with answers, thank you!
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Hmmmm, I'm still going to shoot for that shower every day! I'm sorry, I just don't feel right if I don't feel clean. I can't do it, I just can't do it.
Peajewel Nov. 25, 2008 at 9:43 AM