Can you get away with skipping your daily shower?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: What's That Rash?

Episode Title: Can you get away with skipping your daily shower?
Date: January 14, 2025
Host: ABC News (Tegan Taylor & Norman Swan)

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Overview

In this episode, the hosts tackle a quintessentially personal and much-debated health question: Is it really necessary to shower every single day? Drawing from history, microbiology, dermatology, cultural norms, and environmental concerns, Tegan Taylor and Norman Swan discuss whether daily showers are a health necessity or more a matter of social conditioning. Listener questions and misconceptions are addressed, with candid anecdotes and a healthy dose of humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Listener’s Question: Is Daily Showering Necessary?

[01:23]

• Ingrid writes in, admitting she often skips daily showers (especially in winter), sometimes re-wears clothes, yet stays healthy.
  • She does clarify: she always wears clean underwear and notes her habits exclude teenagers, those doing heavy exercise, and people in hot weather.

2. Cultural and Historical Context

[02:12]

• Norman emphasizes hygiene is deeply cultural:
  • "When I think about it, I think about wanting to appear groomed, which is a cultural thing. Wanting to not smell, which is a social thing, wanting to feel clean, which I think is something that we’re probably conditioned to. And then like, pretty low down on the list is any true health motivation."
    — Norman Swan [02:19]
• Personal hygiene practices throughout history:
  • Most cultures historically did not practice full-body wet bathing—not due to morality but resource and health risks (dirty water).
  • Ritual baths (e.g., Roman baths, Middle Eastern hammams) were social, not just hygienic.
  • Religious and class beliefs: Some nun orders avoided whole-body washing for reasons seen as moral or health-based.

3. The Rise of Soap and Cleanliness

[06:00–07:06]

• Cleanliness as moral superiority, tied to 20th-century Western notions (e.g., "cleanliness is next to godliness") and workplace proximity trends.
• Capitalist influence—soap and hygiene products marketed for profit by leveraging social self-consciousness.
  • "If you make people feel self conscious about something, you can sell them a product."
    — Norman Swan [06:46]
• Historical belief in some peasant classes: dirt as protective, sweat as cleansing, and body odor as a sign of health/virility.

4. What Soap Does (and What Dermatologists Say)

[07:39–10:05]

• Soap emulsifies (breaks down) the natural oils (and some bacteria) on the skin; helpful for pathogens, but can disrupt the skin’s microbiome.
  • Protective oils and "commensal" bacteria can be lost.
  • "Dermatologists strongly argue that you should use non soap cleansers. And in fact some would argue that you can use something like sorboline to clean yourself..."
    — Tegan Taylor [10:31]
• Frequent soap use: May increase risk of skin conditions (e.g., eczema, infections), especially if it causes over-drying and skin breakdown.

5. Health Risks and Benefits: When to Shower (and When Not to)

[08:21–09:31]

• The need for hygiene changes based on environment:
  • In clean, urban environments with regular clothing/linen changes, less showering is often fine.
  • In hot, humid, or less sanitary environments, pathogens thrive—washing more often can prevent infections (e.g., strep, staph, trachoma).
• Daily handwashing (especially after bathroom use and before food) is non-negotiable.

6. Cultural and Climate Influences on Bathing Frequency

[10:55]

• Shower frequency varies by country and climate:
  • Japan, China, UK: ~5/week; Brazil: ~12/week (climate plays a big role)
• Social acceptance also sways perception—if you look clean, people assume you are clean.

7. “No Soap, No Problem?”

[12:18–13:33]

• Some claim the body “adjusts” if you stop soaping—though there’s a “deconditioning” period of oiliness or odor.
  • "Let’s be honest. They probably stink to high heaven."
    — Tegan Taylor [12:33]
• Evidence is thin on whether skin microbiomes really recover/adapt, but most agree: over-washing is likely unnecessary, under-washing is only risky in certain contexts.

8. Environmental Considerations

[13:33–14:16]

• Showering habits and product use have environmental impacts: water use, chemical runoff, microplastics.
  • "So I’m not saying that us all not showering twice a day is going to save the planet, but it’s not a zero impact habit."
    — Norman Swan [13:49]
• General conclusion: “For the good of the planet, probably once is enough [per day].” — Tegan Taylor [14:16]

9. Practical Advice: What’s the Minimum?

[14:37–15:01]

• Skipping the odd day won’t hurt most people, especially in clean, cool environments.
• Key pieces of advice:
  • Wash clothes regularly as they pick up odors.
  • Always wash hands before food and after toilet use.
  • Clean underwear daily is smart.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Cleanliness is in the nose of the beholder." — Norman Swan [14:33]
• "Wash your hands, you filthy animals." — Norman Swan [15:01]
• "I do like that idea that your body odour is somehow connected to your sexual power." — Norman Swan [07:01]
• "If you look clean, people think you are clean." — Tegan Taylor [11:54]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:23] Listener Ingrid’s question: Do I have to shower daily?
• [02:12] Cultural and personal motivations for showering.
• [03:35] A historical view: Hygiene pre-modern era.
• [06:00] The morality and capitalism of “cleanliness.”
• [07:39] How soap works & dermatologists’ advice.
• [08:21] Good bacteria vs. pathogens; disease prevention.
• [10:55] Global and climate differences in shower frequency.
• [12:18] The myth of “deconditioning” away from soap.
• [13:33] Environmental costs of showering.
• [14:37] Final advice: Can you skip showers? (Yes, sometimes.)
• [15:01] Universal tips: Clean clothes, handwashing.
• [15:13] Tangential follow-up: Blue Zones and the Mediterranean Diet (brief segment).

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Takeaways

• Skipping a daily shower is usually fine for healthy adults, especially outside of hot/humid conditions or strenuous activity.
• Hand hygiene and clean clothes are more fundamental to health than full-body washing.
• Soap can be over-used; consider gentle, non-soap cleansers to protect your skin’s natural barrier.
• Historical and cultural factors shape our shower habits much more than health science alone.
• Environmental impact is real—every shower and soap bottle has a footprint.
• When in doubt: Wash hands, change undies, and shower as needed for comfort, climate, and culture.

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Transcript

[Podcast Host]

This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fusions. New Welch's Fusions are not your little brother's fruit snacks. They're a combination of one fruit flavor on the outside and a different fruit flavor in the juicy inside. Watermelon and lemon, peach and green apple, blueberry and raspberry. These delicious combos are for experienced taste buds only. Please fuse responsibly. Welch's Fusions are available in store and online at major retailers, ABC Listen, podcasts.

[Norman Swan]

Radio, news, music, and more.

[Tegan Taylor]

So I'm going to ask you a very personal question.

[Norman Swan]

Oh, normally I'm asking you personal questions.

[Tegan Taylor]

Well, you live. I don't know if the audience actually knows this, but, you know, I'm in Sydney, you're in Brisbane. You live in hot and sweaty Brisbane.

[Norman Swan]

Yes.

[Tegan Taylor]

How often do you kind of shower?

[Norman Swan]

How dare you, sir? This is the episode where I out my. This is the episode where I out myself.

[Tegan Taylor]

This is where I'm gonna be glad that you're in Brisbane and I'm in Sydney.

[Norman Swan]

Okay. During this time of year, I'm absolutely bathing frequently. And I also am swimming regularly as well. But I love not bathing. And I think that the science will back me up on this one.

[Tegan Taylor]

Okay. Because that's what we're going to be talking about on today's what's that rash?

[Norman Swan]

Where we answer the health questions that everyone is asking.

[Tegan Taylor]

Including Ingrid.

[Norman Swan]

Ingrid is asking, does it matter if one does not shower every day? Does it matter if one doesn't wear clean clothes every day? Ingrid is conducting an experiment of one. Here we love our N equals one studies. Ingrid does not shower every day mostly applies to winter, and she's one of the healthiest people she knows. She rarely gets sick. She definitely wears the same clothes for a few days. But she does hasten to add that she does wear clean undies.

[Tegan Taylor]

And so what Ingrid doesn't tell us is what age she is, because if she was 15 or 16, that would work, but I suspect she isn't.

[Norman Swan]

Well, she does say that this does not apply to teenage boys, people doing extreme exercise, or a hot summer's day. But she's asking if you've had a solitary day indoors, is it necessary?

[Tegan Taylor]

Well, this is up your alley, so to speak. There's a history here, isn't there?

[Norman Swan]

There's a cultural lens here. And I think it's interesting to kind of ask ourselves what we're trying to do when we wash ourselves, because when I think about it, I think about wanting to appear groomed, which is a cultural thing. Wanting to not smell, which is a social thing, wanting to feel clean, which I think is something that we're probably conditioned to. And then like, pretty low down on the list is any true health motivation. I think most of it is about how you're perceived by other people.

[Tegan Taylor]

You think? I don't know. I think it's partly health too. But then I'm an obsessive compulsive.

[Norman Swan]

I know that you love brushing your teeth multiple times a day and no shade. I don't think there's anything wrong with showering a lot. I just wonder whether.

[Tegan Taylor]

Well, some people think there is.

[Norman Swan]

Well, yes, there are. And there have been some people who've done some n equals 1 experiments on this. And they're always very like, oh, I did it and I don't smell anymore. And I just wonder whether having gone.

[Tegan Taylor]

Through three years of losing all your.

[Norman Swan]

Friends, everyone else is sort of just taking a couple of steps back from them.

[Tegan Taylor]

Yeah. Well, you should tell us, because you're the history buff on this. What's the history of hygiene? And we should separate this out from what one microbiologist, late Professor Nancy Millison, University of Melbourne, used to say, the project of separating the mouth from the anus. We're not talking about that. In other words, sanitation. We're talking about personal hygiene here. What's the history here? How long.

[Norman Swan]

Oh, gosh, how long do you have? Like, how far back in evolutionary history do we go? Because we've got evidence of microorganisms like single celled organisms back in the beginning of life. We have waste removal systems even in these small organisms. And you see other species having really quite fastidious hygiene habits. Like anyone who owns a cat knows how carefully they groom themselves. You see birds preening themselves, we see apes cleaning each other. And humans have kept ourselves clean in all sorts of different ways over the years. But again, like I say, it's a cultural thing. And so depending on the time or the place that you lived, a lot of the sort of history around this that I could find is very Eurocentric. But a lot of it involves wiping yourself down, maybe with a cloth or a dry cloth, like rubbing yourself down, or perhaps just washing your face and hands and maybe your feet relatively frequently, but hardly ever immersing yourself in a body of water. And apart from cultures like, you know, the Romans who have their baths or the hammams or something like that in the Middle east, getting naked, A, very frowned upon by lots of cultures until very, very recently, and B, the idea of getting your whole body wet all at once is a resource thing that most people didn't have the time or energy for and also was a health risk if you were using dirty water or if you lived somewhere really cold.

[Tegan Taylor]

Yes, but the Roman baths and the hammams, they had other purposes. So the Roman baths is where you did business, it was a social occasion and so on. But we too easily ignore in a sense the ancient wisdom of non Anglo, non Christian traditions. So for example, if the west had accepted smallpox inoculation, which had been done for centuries in places like China and the Middle east, then we would have been spared major smallpox outbreaks. But because it came from the east, it was considered superstition and not effective. And the thing about Haman's is that it was about cleanliness, scrubbing you down, but also about this physiological thing about water. So I'm not sure the hygiene thing is just something about Christian morality, which is what some of the historians argue, that it emerged in the United States in particular that there was some moral superiority about being clean and smelling clean.

[Norman Swan]

Well, even that, even that quote. So it's kind of attributed to John Wesley, but I don't know if it originated with him, this idea of cleanliness being next to godliness. But at that time people weren't bathing full body immersion as the Baptists would say. They were just, they were keeping a clean home and they had clean hands and that sort of thing. So I'm interested, interested to call out the fact that in the more recent history, a lot of the hygiene trends that we've seen in sort of the 20th century are a product of, well, people working more closely together in offices and perhaps having a bit more self consciousness that you really are going to be sitting in quite close quarters with the same people again and again. And capitalism. You can sell soap, you can sell mouthwash. If you make people feel self conscious about something, you can sell them a product.

[Tegan Taylor]

Yeah, and there was a. Peasant classes felt that dirt was protective, sweat was cleansing, and if you had a strong body odor, that was a sign that you were healthy and virile.

[Norman Swan]

I do like that idea that your body odour is somehow connected to your sexual power.

[Tegan Taylor]

Friday night at the nightclub, I'm not sure it was going to work too well. But then you have religious orders, particularly nuns, who did not wash their entire body because it was considered unclean or immoral to do so. So it is a relatively recent phenomenon where we wash ourselves in such a regular way with substances which emulsify the fat on our skin and wash it off so that you are taking the natural fat and organisms off your skin. And dermatologists decry that.

[Norman Swan]

Yeah, I think it's good to remind people how soap actually works. So you think about having an oily fry pan and you put some detergent in it, and you can sort of see the oil kind of run away from it, and as you scrub it, it turns into a sudsy foam, and that's the oil bubbles kind of breaking down because of this detergent. And soap is kind of just a milder form of that. And of course, our skin's covered in protective oils, like you say. But then also the membranes of a lot of microorganisms are a fatty, oily layer as well, which is why washing your hands can be so effective in killing things like bacteria and viruses. But like you say, Norman, it can kill ones that maybe you want to keep part of your natural microbiome.

[Tegan Taylor]

So there are organisms called commensals, and those are the ones, the natural ones that don't cause disease. And then there are pathological organisms, fungi and other organisms on your skin, like streptococcus and staphylococcus, which can cause disease. So, for example, skin infections, which then go on to cause rheumatic fever, eye infections, which go on to cause blindness, trachoma and so on. I mean, there are. We can get too romantic about this because there are, particularly in warm climates, there are organisms which grow on our bodies which actually cause disease. And washing our bodies helps to get rid of them and prevent those diseases from occurring because of the pathological organisms that are around. So it's very hard to generalize about it. And what you've got at the moment are people living in New York or famously, Steve Jobs was one of these people who never washed or rarely washed, who say, well, we get away with it. We can change our clothes every day, we change our bed linen regularly. Our clothes that smell, it's not us. And eventually that smell goes away. That's fine, because we're living in a relatively clean environment. But when you're not necessarily living in a clean environment, it can cause disease.

[Norman Swan]

Yeah. So I think what's interesting is we've got a spectrum here. On one end of the spectrum, you have people who perhaps never have the opportunity to wash in safe ways and so are at risk of serious infections, like you say. And at the other end of the spectrum, we've got this fetishisation of everything being clean and smelling like a flower. And perhaps you're showering multiple times a day using lots of different products, a lot of deodorizing products, perhaps antibacterials or antimicrobials. Somewhere in the middle of those two is probably the sweet spot in terms of health. I guess the question from Ingrid is, where is that?

[Tegan Taylor]

Well, let's start with dermatologists, skin specialists. They would argue we shouldn't be using soap, we should be using non soap cleansers to preserve that fatty layer in our skin, to preserve the commensals, reduce the risk of conditions like eczema and itching, which might lead to skin damage and skin infections.

[Norman Swan]

Alright, so you've got itchy skin, you scratch it, you open that skin layer up and then an infection can get in.

[Tegan Taylor]

That's right. So dermatologists strongly argue that you should use non soap cleansers. And in fact some would argue that you can use something like sorboline to clean yourself, which is a very cheap moisturizer which helps to cleanse the skin. But there are others as well. And not to shower too often, but it's pretty hard in a country like Australia where you're getting very hot, very sweaty and you feel uncomfortable.

[Norman Swan]

Yeah. So there was a really useful article that we found in the Atlantic, basically charting how many showers a week on average people had in different countries. And it varies quite a lot. Some of it's cultural, but I do think some of it is definitely climate based, like you say. So at the lower end of the spectrum, in terms of weekly showers and weekly shampoos, Japan, China and the UK were down around about 5 a week and then Brazil was up at around 12 a week. And so you've got to think, at least in part, there is a climate thing at play because Brazil's a country that's pretty hot in most of the country for most of the year, versus somewhere like the UK or Japan, which for a large part of the year it's very cold.

[Tegan Taylor]

When I was a wee boy, we had two baths a week, there was no shower in the house. When I went away from home to university and went into digs, we were allowed one bath a week.

[Norman Swan]

What?

[Tegan Taylor]

Which is why visiting Australians would say, oh, I understand that one. And it was extraordinary. Compare that to now, I will sometimes shower twice a day and I'll certainly wash my hair every day. I mean, people who'd be horrified by that. I mean, there's interesting stories about people who haven't showered for years and say they. The acceptability of it is cultural as well, that if you look clean, people think you are clean.

[Norman Swan]

Part of the narrative around the people who do say that they've sworn off showering or they don't use soap or shampoo anymore is that they'll often talk about there being a period of time that's like a deconditioning period where your body kind of freaks out. And maybe you do smell and maybe you are kind of have oily skin or oily hair.

[Tegan Taylor]

Let's be best. They probably stink to high heaven.

[Norman Swan]

But I'm interested to know whether there is a kind of your body reaches an equilibrium after time when you're not using those products anymore or if that is part of their propaganda.

[Tegan Taylor]

Well, some people swear by that, that they reach this equilibrium where they no longer smell and they've got this natural smell about them. The anecdotes about Steve Jobs was he was always pretty unpleasant to be around environmentally. So who knows, it may be different for different people. But look, I think the basic thing is true here, which is that if you use soap a lot, you are actually destroying the natural surface of your skin and you probably are removing handy bacteria as well as others. Although there have been studies suggesting that when you look at the skin of people who've washed in plain soap, there's not that much difference in their microbiomes compared to people who've just washed with water. So like many of these things, they're not incredibly well studied.

[Norman Swan]

The other thing I would like to call out here, if we are taking a health lens to this, is that there are bigger health impacts of regular showering and regular use of commercial soaps and that sort of thing than just my own personal health of protecting myself from infection. Such as, well, we're using water. You're putting products down the drain that have conditioners and they've got fragrances in them. There's been a lot of concern in the past about microplastics in say, an exfoliating scrub that's not in Australia anymore. The resources that are used to produce those products, the resources that are used to treat that water has an environmental impact. So I'm not saying that us all not showering twice a day is going to save the planet, but it's not a zero impact habit.

[Tegan Taylor]

I mean, I think that for the good of the planet, probably once is enough in terms of when you're in.

[Norman Swan]

The shower once a year.

[Tegan Taylor]

That's right. But you know, having grown up in Scotland with two baths a week, I've flipped to the other end of the scale. There's just no way cleanliness is in.

[Norman Swan]

The nose of the beholder. Near you.

[Tegan Taylor]

That's right.

[Norman Swan]

But for health reasons, I'm guessing that skipping the odd day every now and again isn't going to do Ingrid too much harm.

[Tegan Taylor]

No, it's not. Ingrid can cut back if she likes. Probably from the advice we've seen around the place, you want to wash your clothes regularly because it's your clothes that do carry the smell to a significant extent. And all of us should be washing our hands before cooking and after being to the bathroom.

[Norman Swan]

Absolutely. Wash your hands, you filthy animals. If you are like Ingrid and you have a question for us, you can email us. We are thatrashvc.netau and no question, it's.

[Tegan Taylor]

Too personal for Tegan and I.

[Norman Swan]

And we've also been receiving your feedback at the same email address. A couple of people, Norman, have been seeking some more information about yours and my favourite diet, the Mediterranean diet, and specifically about the IG Nobel Prize winner that came out a couple of months ago, which was all about a related phenomenon called the Blue Zones, which are basically parts of the world that seemed to have a lot of people who lived beyond 100. And so the Ig Nobel Prize was awarded to a scientist who actually had an Australian connection who basically debunked it. And Libby has accused us of not talking about it. And you. And I said, well, we did. And then I remembered that we actually talked about it on other podcast, the Health Report. Right.

[Tegan Taylor]

So the question is, some of these Blue Zones are places where they eat a Mediterranean style of diet. Even in Japan, where the Japanese diet and the Southeast Asian diet in Vietnam can look a bit like the Mediterranean diet when you analyze fruit, vegetables, amount of red meat and so on. So just to go back over the Blue Zone myth, most blue Zones were where poor people lived. And it goes against all the evidence from around the world that poverty is associated with a shorter lifespan. And it turns out that people were lying about their age to get pensions. The recording of births accurately was not done, therefore you never actually knew the age of people. It doesn't actually necessarily call into question the idea of the Mediterranean diet. The Mediterranean diet's actually been studied quite a lot. There's been even some randomized trials of it. So the evidence around the Mediterranean diet is pretty solid, but the evidence around the Blue zones is far from solid.

[Norman Swan]

I think part of the problem here is that a lot of the imagery that's used when talking about either of these things are beautiful Mediterranean islands of old people sitting on these islands being old and healthy. But two different kind of data sets that have gone into this in the Mediterranean diet is still out on top. Well, thank you so much to everyone who sent in questions about the Blue Zone diet. Of course, if you want to send us a line, you can do so at [e-mail] au in the meantime, happy eating. Happy eating. And we'll see you next week.