The case for taking fewer showers.

last updated 8 January 2015

United Kingdom

There is no earthly need to take a shower every day, said Michele Hanson in the London Guardian. I bathe only once a week. “Sometimes, with a bit of luck, I do not bathe for 10 days. I play with the filthy dogs and I have no deodorant.” Yet I am not malodorous. I know this because my daughter, who showers “a squillion times a week,” would not allow me out of the house if I stank. Nor am I alone in Britain. Those of us who remember “the old days, when life was harsh,” grew up with the ritual of a weekly bath because it was expensive to heat the water. One elderly gentleman I knew bathed only twice a year. He wasn’t unhygienic; he was merely “keen not to destroy his natural body oils.” Indeed, doctors are now advising parents not to bathe infants every day. “Some sensible news at last!” It turns out that washing “hands, faces, necks, and bottoms” is quite sufficient. So join me in giving up the daily soaks. “I always knew they were bad for one’s skin.”