- Soap: it disrupt the skin microbiome. Only useful for hand washing and to clean private parts / the bottom. Even then use high quality soap like Marseille soap or Aleppo soap.
Note: Also as mentioned in the comments if you avoid soap / deodorant you *will* probably need to shower two times a day even without doing physical activities. Three times with physical activities.
You may also need to particularly rub the smelly parts of the body (e.g. the armpits) with a clean sponge, use mild to hot water (cold water doesn’t do it without soap) and trim your body hair. There is no magic. People use soap for a reason: it’s more “practical” and it requires less care to stay clean
And if you are used to wash yourself with soap and you brutally stop you may smell a little the first month until your microbiome is able to handle all the waste and your skin to balance its oil production. Even if you shower multiple times a day.
- Shampoo: Most shampoos are very a agressive for your scalp / hairs and should be avoided. Especially if you have fragile / curly hair. You can wash them with plain water or conditioner instead.
Note: Using a gentle shampoo without silicones and surfactants can still be useful from time to time. Especially to reset the pH of the scalp.
Also using a shampoo rarely and co-washing instead can be impractical if you have long hair as it’s way harder to clean and takes far longer to dry
- Toothpaste: it can be useful but it’s not so important. What really is important is to brush your teeth energetically to remove by mechanical friction the dental plaques and to change toothbrush frequently. Avoiding for a time to use toothpaste and using dental plaque revealer can be a great way to learn how to properly wash one’s teeth
Note: As someone else noted “energetically” means speed and taking your time. *Not* applying pressure on your teeth. Also toothpaste helps the teeth by providing fluoride. It’s just that using it every time may not be so useful and do not replace brushing your teeth effectively
They don’t smell it because their olfactory neurons have habituated.
I have had luck opting for gentler shampoos and not using them every wash, but I wouldn’t speak for anyone else. There is large variance in peoples’ bodies.
Or maybe until you stop noticing the smell? Ask a friend perhaps.
For example, if you've been asking "I don't smell bad right?? I smell great, right!?" you're unlikely to get honest replies.
Reminds me of "The Mom Test" [1]. The book has a few tricks that can help with asking tough questions and receiving an honest feedback.
If you're not dancing closely with people maybe you can extend that time a little bit, but those are the numbers we settled on as a dance community who regularly had dances longer than 4 hours...
> Shampoo: Most shampoos are very a agressive for your scalp / hairs and should be avoided. Especially if you have fragile / curly hair. You can wash them with plain water or conditioner instead.
Wait, what? I would love to see some supporting evidence for all this.
[0] https://www.aobiome.com/published-articles-and-papers/
[1] https://mightynest.com/shop/bath-body/skin-care/soaps-bodywa...
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20181116064007/https://motherdir...
On the other hand, moisturizing and sunscreen has helped with dryness and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation from acne.
Soap is a rather recent invention (the Romans didn't have it until later in their Empire), and one that until 1-2 centuries ago people used sparringly. And yes, they did clean themselves with bathing, even in medieval times, despite the prevalent myths about those times.
Also, the last 80 years or so, after TV became popular soaps and fancy shampoos have been marketed to death with BS snakeoil claims. 99% of what you hear in those ads is bogus, including claims about the efficacy of their fancy sounding ingredients...
Might also want to check the book "Clean"
It obviously depends on your body, diet, and microbiome.
There's no definitive answer like if Earth was balls around the Sun. The answer is personal. Does that work for you or not? What have you tried and what works and what doesn't
Like the friend of mine who told me she never used shampoo in which my immediate reaction was “no shit..”
On the flip side, I do have a close friend who admitted he only showers every three days or so, and smells impeccable (which is extra funny because he has anosmia)
As something to do, or something to avoid? Most tribespeople and animals don't floss and have healthier teeth than modern people. I'm not sure sawing between ones gums is the ideal way of removing plaque, and I suspect is not been tested properly because I don't believe people actually do floss every every day.
The problem with this comparison is that most tribespeople had kids by 18-20 so health issues that come much later don’t have much of an evolutionary hit. Losing teeth at 40 was not going to change things much for their genes.
Most tribespeople have diet that basically has no sugar, no processed carbs, and most men died by 40-50 due to intertribal warfare/infection so it didn’t matter much if you lose some teeth at 50. When you see documentaries of tribespeople almost all the old people have some missing teeth. If you don’t mind loosing teeth when you get older then I guess you can ignore that advice.
1) Soap/Shampoo: I stopped using fancy perfumed big-brand shampoos (Dial/Dove/Pert/etc. filled with things like Methylchloroisothiazolinone which, despite being an endless source of literary entertainment, is just a preservative) and started using very very simple soaps, like Dr. Bronner's all-purpose castile stuff, and I've found my hair/body is just as clean and doesn't turn to oil/grease after a skipping one day
2) Toothpaste: I switched to a brand that does NOT have sodium lauryl sulfate (which just makes fake foam) and any minor bumps or scratches (from an awkward tortilla chip chomp, for example) no longer cause days worth of pain. MAJOR life improvement.
The solution is to remove them, but you can only do that by using strong solvents.
So you use shampoos that contain strong solvents. This damages your hair, so you make sure to use conditioners to repair the damage. Except they don't repair, they fill in the holes with silicones. The silicones are now deeper into your individual hair strands. It looks good, but after a while, they break down. So you use solvents, deeper this time.
This damages your hair. Then you use conditioners. Most conditioners are filled with silicones that are not water soluble. Yet, after a short time...
Soap and toothpaste are good things. These are miraculous modern inventions. Use them.
Potentially bad advice. If you apply too much pressure or use too hard of a toothbrush you will get yourself early gum recession. Brush gently using a soft brush, ideally electric because it cleans better. Lots of info available on this online, or ask your dentist.
