How Often Should You (Yes You) Shower?

The tease on The Atlantic’s Facebook page was simultaneously tempting and disgusting: “What Happens When You Quit Showering?” It’s just one more that’s trickled out through the years, including Chip Bergh, CEO of Levi Strauss & Company, telling people never to wash their jeans, or Buzzfeed citing that beloved go-to, “science,” to tell Americans we shower too often. A real cottage industry has developed recently selling the idea that we just don’t need to bathe frequently.

I understand the mindset behind this thinking. Where Americans once bathed about weekly, unless they carried an absolute reek, major corporate products like Ivory soap and Listerine mouthwash have convinced us our bodies are petri dishes of disgusting microorganisms, and we need to confront BO and “halitosis” daily, if not more. Nor is it just Americans. Per The Atlantic again, the global average includes a shower or bath daily, and a shampoo every other day.

Besides the health concerns of ordinary people washing necessary, symbiotic organisms off their bodies, this anti-bathing trend also reflects a pushback against advertisers who profit from our insecurities. I certainly don’t mind seeing corporate profiteers getting a firm public comeuppance for peddling self-loathing to the public. But I spot an unexamined class-based assumption in these articles. They implicitly believe typical Americans don’t get dirty and sweaty enough to even require that much bathing and laundry.

Since I reluctantly accepted my move down society’s economic ladder, and got a blue-collar job, I’ve come to understand that sweat and dirt delineate American social class. When I worked in the factory, indoor temperature often approached eighty degrees Fahrenheit even in the dead of winter; in summer, temperatures nearing a hundred degrees weren’t uncommon. And that’s nothing beside conditions working construction, where we’re expected to work in blazing summer sun and Arctic winter chill.

If I don’t shower daily, I smell like somebody left bologna on the kitchen counter for about a week. Sweat pours off me in quantities you’d not believe without seeing it. Many joggers, cyclists, or  other high-impact aerobic workout fanatics think they sweat; I certainly did when I worked white-collar and biked regularly. But I didn’t discover what sweat meant until it bucketed off me for eight hours or longer like wringing a kitchen sponge.

Showering isn’t optional for people who work like that. Since humans expel nearly a third of our bodily waste through our skin, the exceptionally moist environment of a sweaty construction worker creates a thriving breeding ground for microorganisms that, yes, produce an odor. Many of these microbes are necessary for human health… in limited quantities. But my sweat-soaked body creates conditions where my otherwise healthful, necessary microbiome makes me stinky, and could unbalance my health.

And that’s saying nothing about other class markers. I remember watching Star Trek years ago; Dr. Crusher complained to some hirsute crewmates that, since the invention of the razor, having facial hair was an affectation. I wondered then why the hair growing naturally from men’s faces was affected, while barbering it daily was not. Now I realize something deeper: facial hair keeps hostile conditions, like wind and precipitation, off my skin. Shaving jeopardizes my safety.

Considering that Levi Strauss invented his heavyweight dungarees specifically to withstand the punishment gold miners put their britches through, Chip Bergh’s whine that washing your jeans seems remarkably obtuse. My jeans get battered, torn, grease-stained, and worse, daily. If, atop that, I had to slip them on without thoroughly washing my microbiome off (remember what we said about bodily waste above), that would be like wearing the same tattered, shit-stained BVDs, every day, for years.

So when The Atlantic and Buzzfeed insist I should stop showering, they clearly think people like me don’t read their content. They occupy a rarefied world where pundits in suits scold one another about internalizing commercial hype and selling their self-esteem to our corporate overlords. If they realize people like me exist, they certainly don’t give us further thought. They accept the hierarchy, where building structures and making stuff is too menial for their audience.

Maybe bankers and attorneys could afford showering every two or three days. Many probably should. But audiences are diverse, and many haven’t achieved the lofty standards high-gloss magazines promised us in college. These one-size-fits-all hygiene tips innately assume wealth, and indoor work, are normal. And they exclude the people who build their offices, maintain their server farms, and cook their cafeteria dinners. People like, well, me. Do I need to explain why that’s a problem?