It's a staple of the modern morning routine: Wake up, hop in the shower, lather with soap.
But is that morning scrub-a-dub really necessary?
One man claims not. David Whitlock, a chemical engineer in Boston, has not showered for 12 years.
Whitlock isn't running an experiment in extreme water conservation. Rather, he believes that humans don't need to shower to be healthy, and that a daily soap scrub may actually remove a beneficial type of bacteria that keeps the bacteria that contribute to B.O. in check.
To boost the presence of odor-eating bacteria, Whitlock has designed a bacterial spray called AO+ Mist, which is now sold by the company AoBiome under the brand Mother Dirt. The company hopes this bacterial spritz could reduce the need for products such as soaps and deodorants and potentially even reduce or eliminate the need for showering for those so inclined.
His theory is that your skin will control odor-producing bacteria if left to its own devices, and that soap kills off good bacteria your skin needs.
(Score: 5, Informative) by nitehawk214 on Sunday November 08 2015, @07:10PM
Well duh. Humans existed just fine for tens of thousands of years before plumbing was invented. Grooming isn't for physical health, its for everyone else's mental health.
However do notice that running water was a thing as large societies became a thing. If we would like to continue to be a society, take a bath you filthy bastards.
Also "Mother Dirt"? This is just an attempt to cash in on hippie nonsense.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2015, @07:13PM
The showering, odor issue is mostly due to living/working indoors. That is not natural in the first place. Many other unnatural behaviours are to compensate for that one. Most do not want to give it up.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Sunday November 08 2015, @08:58PM
Yes, humans don't naturally smell bad, even when not showering or bathing regularly. Most of those really obnoxious odors aren't the result of bad hygiene practices, they're because the balance of bacteria has changed or you're eating things that cause the problem. Either we've killed the wrong bacteria or we've eaten things that cause the bacteria to emit smelly byproducts.
I used to spend many weeks in the back country where the only bathing available is the local lake and where soaps are strongly discouraged. Peak stench seems to come at about 4-5 days. After that people don't seem to smell any worse. And that's in the middle of summer doing hard work.
(Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Sunday November 08 2015, @09:29PM
The question is whether you emit less smell, or your nose gets less sensitive to the smell.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Sunday November 08 2015, @11:47PM
The answer may lie in the fact that "pomanders" were commonly worn in the days before washing was commonplace. And that disease was thought to be spread by "miasmas".
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 1) by Francis on Monday November 09 2015, @12:03AM
There's probably an element of that. However, also keep in mind that the human body is finite. After a few days the entire surface area of your body is going to run out of space to hold more bacteria and for more excretions to stick. No matter how long you go without a bath, you won't wind up with several inches of bacteria and salt sticking to you.
5 days is probably longer than it takes to fill all that area out.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @12:49AM
The latter. I've been around people who haven't bathed in weeks - the parent post is true that one loses the rank body odor we're all familiar with, but as the natural bacteria/oil/sweat combination returns to natural equilibrium, people end up instead smelling like animals. Not the familiar BO but still not anything I want in my nostrils.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @07:14PM
I don't know about you, but I don't exactly find the smell of onions and dirty socks appealing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2015, @07:34PM
>Humans existed just fine for tens of thousands of years before plumbing was invented.
But rivers and lakes existed for billions of years before humans were invented. :)
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday November 08 2015, @08:43PM
Spoken like a true urbanite. It's not so simple to bathe in a river or lake. There's freezing weather, floods, crocodiles, piranhas, moccasins, leeches, mosquitoes, and mud, muck and poop and disease. People mostly stayed out of rivers, a bath wasn't worth the trouble.
Ask why humans have gone to great efforts to stay out of the water. Why build bridges? Why row a boat, why not swim with flippers and tow a boat behind you?
(Score: 5, Informative) by BK on Sunday November 08 2015, @07:55PM
Consensus is the life expectancy of humans before showering or at least bathing with soap was somewhere around 35 years. Shower or die early: choose one.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bziman on Sunday November 08 2015, @08:48PM
Citation needed. Here's one that indicates that is not true: Human Lifespans Nearly Constant for 2,000 Years [livescience.com]. Here's another: The life expectancy myth, and why many ancient humans lived long healthy lives [ancient-origins.net].
Also, bathing seems to have been a part of most cultures going back over thousands of years - and only briefly fell out of fashion in Europe a few hundred years ago, before coming back. At least according to wikipedia [wikipedia.org].
There are plenty of good arguments for bathing, but a connection with long life isn't demonstrated here.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Sunday November 08 2015, @09:56PM
if you are going to cite, try peer reviewed journals. The mortality statistics of the last few centuries make grim reading, until the development of 1) segregated sewage 2) hot water (including clean drinking) 3) anti-biotics.
The Romans had almost all of these and used to have bath houses to sweat and using salt (an anti-biotic) and olive oil (an emolient) for scraping their skins clean.
Hence, hot water and soap have been around for millennia. As with most of the modern world, these things were only rediscovered post-renaissance, and improvements continue with scientific refinement.
The parasites that humans can get infected with, often shorten life. The most common one , malaria, is still a major killer. Don't think there aren't others waiting to dine on you....!
These articles trying to propagate the myth that there was some golden age in the past are total rubbish. It never existed.
To be balanced though, showering every single day of your life is probably not necessary.
But then again, depends on your personal hygiene tolerance, and of those around you!!!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2015, @11:37PM
Occult anti-vaccism like yours is on the rise.
(Score: 2) by BK on Sunday November 08 2015, @09:57PM
I'm happy to concede that averaging in the zeros and ones infant mortality does skew the numbers, but the BCE urban societies were almost entirely slave based. Would you care to hazard a guess as to life expectancy of a Greek miner or Roman galley slaves? The ones who lived long were the ones who bathed... In these societies, half or more of the adults were slaves.
The preceding hunter gatherer societies were also unlikely to produce long lives. This is and to say that there weren't individual long-lived members, but rather that they were the exception not the rule. I suppose it's tough to prove it without a time machine, but as we continue to find artifacts and examples of members of the societies, it seems like we don't find very many skeletons of 70 and 80 year old members.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @12:59PM
Are you suggesting that not bathing were the reason slaves and miners worked to death, starved or several other ways of dying prematurely?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday November 09 2015, @08:54AM
Part of the downside to being 2400 years old is that you mostly likely live to see, and/or smell, some things you rather wished you had not. I was in Europe during that period when bathing fell out of fashion, and let me tell you, there were no jets or high-speed trains back then, nosiree! Oxcart! Through one smelly village after another! After a few months, and a Channel crossing, I finally made it to the Anglish town of Bath.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @12:53AM
The average human lifespan before the modern era was 35 years. Just like the average human being has one testicle and one ovary.
In times past, infant mortality and death from illness during childhood drove down the average lifespan. A family might have eight kids and only two would make it past 10. People have always, provided they made it through childhood and didn't later die of violence, made it into their 60s and 70s just fine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2015, @08:12PM
Modern man used to also poo in the streets. Just because we 'did it for a long time and survived as a race' doesn't make it right, or healthy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @03:24AM
There was a story in the previous week about a painting that had been owned by George IV.
In the process of cleaning it, they discovered that a portion of it had been painted over with foliage.
Detail of "A Village Fair with a Church Behind" by Isack van Ostade [orientaldaily.on.cc]
...and, once again, "human" is not a race; "human" is a species.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2015, @10:32PM
However do notice that running water was a thing as large societies became a thing. If we would like to continue to be a society, take a bath you filthy bastards.
Society won't fall apart without bathing. That's a serious case of mixing up correlation with causation.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday November 11 2015, @06:09AM
Fine, then when society falls apart, people will stop bathing.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh