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From a scientific perspective, showering too much absolutely does strip your skin of the oils your body is producing to protect itself as well as stripping your skin of healthy bacteria and other healthy flora.
I never in my life bathed more than once a week, except for showering off each time after going into a swimming pool and sometimes a lake.
I prefer baths, but I do use the shower to wash off the soap after a bath and to rinse out my hair.
Why shower or bathe daily if it's not necessary? I usually only bathe when I can smell my armpits with my nose about 4 inches or more away from my armpits. Sometimes I can go up to a little over a month without bathing.
I don't use soap on my face which I wash daily, sometimes twice daily, and I only use soap on my hands after I get back home from anywhere or my hands got noticeably dirty from working on something oily, greasy and/or dirty. Otherwise I just wash my hands with water.
I use castille bar soap for soap and as a shampoo, and baking soda for my hands after dirty work.
I tried the no soap/water only thing for my hair for a long while, and I liked how my hair would stay however I styled it (I mess it up like I just woke up in an alley) and how stringy it got if I didn't brush it, but I noticed my scalp itches much less and few hair strands fall out when I keep my hair clean using soap and keep my scalp dry. I don't like how my hair tends to want to become a puff ball when clean & dry, but at least it can still be made messy and isn't making me feel like it's thinning like it seemed to be when I wasn't washing all the oil out. The castille soap doesn't make my hair as dry as shampoos but dry enough.
There's no need for me to bathe or shower right after a sweaty bike ride nor to use deodorant. I get by washing my face & forehead with plain water, wiping my armpits with paper towels, changing my t-shirt, changing my socks, applying baking soda to my armpits, and putting baking soda in my shoes. If the sweating was profuse, I then also change my outer shirt and boxers.
Thankfully, I don't know what funk smell after sex is because I don't do sex (asexual).
Maybe other people can smell odors on me, but nobody complains, and even if they would I really wouldn't care. Most people don't care about their overuse of cologne, perfume, lack of rinsing most of the laundry detergent out of their clothes, use of smelly & toxic fabric softeners, etc, and a lot of the apparently incontinent elderly people don't seem to care about smelling like urine, so why should I care if people don't like any mild sweat smells emanating from me?
Can't believe the hygiene of some of the posters here. I shower and wash my hair at least once a day, in the heat of the summer sometimes twice. On occasion I have skipped a day but that is very rare.
Just because you don't think you smell others might. I for one definitely call out people that have bad BO. I shouldn't have to smell someone elses offensive odor, just like I wouldn't do that to someone else.
I haven't regularly used shampoo since about 2006-ish. I mean... I do use it, but not very often. Sometimes hair gets dirty - like if I go into the city, or if I'm cooking with something funky, or after getting sweaty. One of those V05 bottles lasts me about six months or even longer sometimes. Whenever I go to get my hair cut, they always tell me my hair is super healthy, and to keep doing whatever I'm doing. I have thick, sort of wavy hair halfway down my back - it would either look frizzy or super oily - nothing in between - when I shampooed regularly. I had to use ethnic hair stuff to get it to look even halfway decent, and it would take at least 2 hours to style nicely. Now I just spend... maybe half an hour a week on it, usually Sunday nights. I'll wash it with water and then flat iron it with a bit of argon (?) oil, and that's about it.
re: bathing - I bathe (not shower) daily, sometimes even twice. (It gets cold here in the winter and only a hot bath really warms me up!) I only use soap maybe once a week or so, though... I don't stink. I do use deodorant daily, though. I need it. And I don't use anything on my face except for water. Back in college I did use this little foamy thing which was kind of awesome, maybe I should get that again... but any kind of lotion or cleanser or anything stings my skin. So, just water works.
I shower once a week, apply coconut oil for deodorant, and shampoo my hair every other week. My hair does not get greasy. If I work out or have sex (cuz ya, ewwe), I rinse off in the shower but don't use soap.
I don't stink.
Most people are being duped and the cosmetic and beauty industry is laughing their way to the bank.
My sister would argue that conditioners are not good for males and that we should stick with shampoos. Ukh!...
Shampoos did worse to me--over time they made my scalp extremely itchy with dandruff. I found out it was the sodium laurel sulfate in it. Evidently, sodium laurel sulfate is a sensitizer. My theory is that shampoo manufacturers put the SLS in the shampoos to cause scalps to become sensitive so scalps produce oil sooner between washings and consumers feel the need to shampoo more often.
It took a while, but over time of using simpler soaps, such as castille soap, that aren't laden with chemicals, my scalp health dramatically improved. I found that even using no soap/only water was way better than the SLS shampoos, but now I use simple castille soap.
Agreed. After runs, I am drenched in sweat, suncreen, bugspray, etc. It's not a pleasant smell.
Anyone who doesn't bathe daily should be shot. Don't agree with me? Sit between two of them on a trans-pacific flight and you'll come around.
It can't be done as my odoriferous stench fumes act as an invisible force field.
Seriously, I don't sweat much unless the weather is hot and/or I do strenuous exercise (such as cycle up steep hills), and the baking soda I use under my armpits and in my shoes prevent them from smelling... for a while.
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I do use deodorant daily, though. I need it. And I don't use anything on my face except for water. Back in college I did use this little foamy thing which was kind of awesome, maybe I should get that again... but any kind of lotion or cleanser or anything stings my skin. So, just water works.
