Poll: How often do you bathe?

I think it's hard to draw conclusions from this level of data without being able to correlate with daily levels and degrees of social contact and intimacy, regional climate and weather, activity levels and exercise, and so on.

I voted 10 but it's closer to 15.

Wednesday (night), Friday (night), Saturday (afternoon), Sunday (morning - depending on physical activity, which depends mostly on weather). They're all based on sports activities.

For some lucky reason, I don't naturally stink - and I do work with people who would definitely let me know if I did, plus family members where various judgements are pretty no-holds-barred.

I think many people shower too often and needlessly waste water and heating energy. I shower when I begin to itch or smell. Showering when you're not dirty is wasteful.

Lots of variables, but I voted "~30".

In general, every day. I hate feeling dirty and am self-conscious about odor in general.

More realistically, every other day in winter. Winter is cool and dry, so I don't really sweat much. If I'm sitting at home and not doing much physical, it might stretch to three days; any more than that and I feel dirty even if I'm actually not.

In the summer, daily is more of a minimum. I live two hours ahead of most of my colleagues, so my day is often split: I'll get up early and do yard work, bathe, then work for the day. If I have to go out for an event or something in the evening, I'll often bathe again if I've gone outside even once. You sweat almost the instant you hit the outside air here.

That's a topic I actually put a lot of thought, coming from South America living in Europe, I see an extreme contrast in shower habits. In the north of Brazil, people would take 2~3 "cold" showers a day--most people don't even have warm water, because it's over 30 degrees Celsius pretty much at any time of the day, at any time of the year, so you sweat a lot. Now here, I see people are mostly fine with 2~3 showers a week. Sometimes less.

Initially that was a shock for me, until I understood it's a lot related to climate, job, activities, social life, etc, but also because in South America people rely more on the showers for their overall hygiene. They just shower for anything. Ate something too fatty that got your hands and face greasy? Time for shower. In Europe I see people taking more care of their hygiene other ways, like washing themselves, changing underclothes more often, etc.

HN has polls?

It really depends on the weather and what I'm doing. When I'm sailing in summer (windsurf/wingfoil), I can shower thrice in a day, easily (I have a 20 minute bike ride with my board and sail). When I'm sailing in a cruiser, probably two showers a week, sometimes none depending on our travel time. Per month statistics are impossible for me, but over a year, probably a bit over 300 times.

I struggle with habits a lot, but this is one of the few that work for me. I think the kids call it "habit stacking"?

Basically, I have to brush my teeth and shower before going to bed. It's all one package, and I'm very efficient at it.

So it's at least once a day, more if I was sweating a lot.

Another one: brush teeth before leaving the house for the first time that day. ...that used to work better before working from home.

I've added a lot of other habits since then, using an overcomplicated system of deadlines and rewards.

For anyone interested in the over use of soap (and other chemicals), this book from a clinical/practicing dermatologist (and medical prof) is worth checking out:

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35733533-beyond-soap

* https://drsandyskotnicki.com

I don't mean this as flamebait but my pet theory is that showering and washing your hands is the 1800s version of wearing covid masks (except it stuck around as a permanent feature). It's more of a public safety thing you do for other people than for yourself and doing it twice a day is probably way excessive. It's probably closer to once every two days or less depending on how easily you generate body odor.

Is this making a distinction betweeb bath and shower? If yes, I bathe almost never. If no, I bathe (shower) everyday.

I came from a South Asian country and we normally have showers every day. I'm continuing to do the same in the Netherlands.

Can people sleep without having a shower?

I shower every day, ideally in the morning. Nothing really wakes me up like a hot shower. Hot shower and a cup of hot coffee is a great start of the day for me.

Every day. Now that I am in my own home I actually have a warm bath every evening, it’s a great way to end the day. I can skip one day in rare occasions but feel too uncomfortable going more than that, not because of stink or others noticing but because I just don’t feel clean

I can definitely say that on a hot day I shower like three times a day

The need for bathing varies greatly depending on whether you use soap or not. It's possible to not stink if you don't use soap, but it requires very frequent bathing. In my experience if I actively sweat for any reason and it's been more than 4 hours since my last soap-less bath, my odor will be offensive to some people. If I can avoid actively sweating, I can get through a work day.

I'd go with 15 times per month on average, every other day except when I did something physical that day.

I was showering daily because of excessive dandruff and dry skin, and what in fact helped was to actually not shower as often.

Most of the year, I shower 2-3 times a week, but I wash myself with a washcloth on the non-shower days before going to bed. It's faster, cheaper, better for the environment, and probably better for my skin.

However, in the really hot weeks of the summer (we don't have that many of those here), I shower daily, sometimes even two times a day.

Every day I soak myself in an extremely hot bath, just bobbing around like a spineless deep sea creature. Sometimes I watch old star trek episodes from the bath. An indulgence, a waste of energy and drinking water, is not very nice from a sustainability point of view. But it is one of the day's great pleasures, a nice way to unwind, the dual to my first cup of coffee of the day.

It somehow made me giggle that you put "month" as reference. I'd hardly be able to wake up if I wouldn't take a shower in the morning.

Also, we don't use the poll feature enough! (my 2 cents)

I usually exercise ~5 days a week and on those days will shower or bathe twice. On days when I am doing yard work or grilling it might bathe 3 times depending on how poorly I planned out my day.

It's not that straightforward I don't think. I rinse off before and after the hot tub, and after a run, but I only shower with soap and shampoo 1-2x per week. So am I 10x or am I 50x?

This should include full remote status, I do shave some days because I'm home and I only go out that day to walk in the mountains. Something I would not do when I had work in office.

Sadly because of mental and physical illness, not as much as I should

almost always twice a day. wake up in morning, again home for the day. extra for sweating.

Seems to me that if I go to bed dirty then I will be contaminating my bed with all the bacteria and viruses and stuff I've accumulated throughout the day.

Surprised to so many people showering more than once per day. For people that do that, is that due to morning showers coupled with post-activity shower?

Thanks for this poll, I'm baffled to see people not showering every day, but what do you know !

i feel like this scale should have been logarithmic

What's interesting is a big representation of users who bathe on workdays only...

Cold showers in hot weather actually makes you hotter, as your body raises its temperature when under the cold shower

Whilst a hot shower makes your body try to lower its temperature to cool off

You shower at night — so your bed doesn’t become a biohazard from all the filth you dragged home from being out in the world (and so maybe your partner will actually want to get dirty with you). Then again in the morning — to wake up (and wash off last night’s sins). And of course after the gym — so you don’t walk around smelling like a teenager. This is all basic hygiene, not advanced calculus.

A surprising number of stinkers around here. Matches my experience of tech conferences so I guess it checks out.