Article: There’s no need to shower every day – here’s why

A few years ago, I stopped taking daily showers. Pandemic-induced work from home, moving in with a partner who showered less than me and pure, middle-age laziness pushed me to abandon an almost three-decades-long habit: So long as I don’t exercise, I now shower only around three times a week.

Some of my friends shower as little or even less – a few just once a week in winter, occasionally because of skin problems or a dislike of having wet hair – but others fail to align with me, or are even icked out. “I can’t wake up properly without my morning shower,” they say. “Every day has to start with a shower and a cup of tea.” “There’s no way I’ll lay in my bed [unshowered] after commuting in London.” “Three times a week? Yuck.”

Us infrequent showerers are quite often regarded with suspicion. That does not only go for nature-loving, tent-dwelling hippies but also for low-showerer TikTok users and even celebrities. Last month, British TV presenter Jonathan Ross caused headlines by stating that he sometimes washes less than once a week, and in 2023, actor America Ferrera astonished her fellow Barbie castmates in an interview when admitting that she occasionally skips the shower.

In 2021, a mini furore broke out when actor Ashton Kutcher horrified commentators with his routine of washing his “armpits and crotch daily and nothing else ever”, and fellow actor Jake Gyllenhaal said he believed bathing was at times “less necessary” (only to later claim he had been sarcastic). As other celebs chimed in, the compounded upset became so great that actors Jason Momoa and The Rock soon had to clarify that they themselves shower a lot.

I’m not alone in [not showering every day] – what I am alone in is being bravely willing to talk about it – Donnachadh McCarthy

But while frequent washing of hands is key for stopping the spread of germs, according to most medics there is no inherent physical health benefit to the daily shower. In fact, it can even be bad for you by drying out your skin and undermining your immune system. Still, studies indicate that more than half of Americans and Brits shower every day. Is it time to scale back?

These days, it’s around once a month. He sink washes daily, using a cloth to clean his entire body, and shaves using one cup of water. Nobody says that he smells.

“If you go to an old building, in the bedrooms you’ll see these lovely wooden tables with bowls sunk into them,” he says. “People used water from the bowls, and had a face cloth for the face and body. … Obviously, having running water is a huge positive. But it means you use much more of it.”

‘Performative’ showering

Our passion for the daily soap-and-water rebirth is also a surprisingly infrequent focus of academic interest. So much so that a report from 2005 is seemingly still a benchmark in shower research circles. It is common in Britain to shower once or sometimes twice a day, the report states. For many, this has “become such a normal routine that it is socially and physically uncomfortable to wash any less often”.

Dale Southerton, Professor of Sociology of Consumption at the University of Bristol, is one of the co-authors. “We wash our bodies so much more than we did in the past,” he tells the BBC. The change has mostly come about over the past 100 years, and it was not planned. In fact, it seems to have happened almost by accident.

The social contract aspect of frequent showering becomes evident when we put ourselves in environments like trekking holidays or music festivals.

Traditionally, people cleaned themselves by taking baths. The culture around bathing is rich – from the taking of healing waters in a spa town to the more modern relaxation in a bubble bath with a glass of wine or cup of tea and a book. (Which of showering or bathing requires less water, and is cheaper and more environmentally friendly, depends on the duration of the shower. And while some say a shower is more hygienic since the dirt is flushed away, others indicate the difference is too small to matter.)

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