As babies, we took baths, but as we grew older, we turned to showering, and the bath became a luxury we could have when we wanted to waste some water and let that decision lay on our conscience for the evening.
At some point, people decided they needed to shower every day—two to three times a day in some cases—and ignored the fact that maybe they were just wasting a lot more water than necessary. But no one is concerned about this, because they may not understand the significance of wasting water.
For the most part, due to the way we have been conditioned by our ignorant society, we believe showering is a necessity to being healthy. Jeremy Levinson ’18 said, “I like to shower before I sleep because it rids your body of the evil toxins.”
Parker Hill ’19, who had a better outlook on the matter, said, “I shower every day, but I only use shampoo once every three days.”
Contrary to popular belief, showering is not good for you. Showering too much is awful for your skin and hair. If we think back to hundreds of years ago, they did not have the knowledge or opportunity to take showers or bathe other than at a nearby lake or river—if at all. Studies show that showering too much causes hair to weaken and, eventually and inevitably, leads to baldness.
Dermatologists say that the more you shampoo, the more you potentially remove oils needed to protect hair shafts and keep the scalp healthy and moisturized. In response to that, some may say, “Well, I shower every day, but I do not use shampoo and conditioner every day.” That is a good start, but it does not excuse the fact that your skin acts as a natural protector for your body against disease.
Everyone has a top layer of skin consisting of dead cells held to together by fatty compounds that maintain moisture to protect the next layer of skin—the live skin. So “scrub a dub dubbing” in the tub is breaking apart that layer and exposing the vulnerable layer that produces natural oils and disease-fighting bacteria that now fail to regenerate.
David Whitlock, an innovative chemist, has recently released a line of products from his company AOBiome which help to reestablish that top layer of disease-fighting bacteria permanently. In fact, he has not showered in 12 years and he still does not smell one bit using his formula called Mother Dirt.
Moral of the story is that one does not need to shower and one does need to drink water. Do humanity a favor and stop showering.
A version of this article appears in print on November 24, 2015, on page 9 of the Stentor with the headline: Seriously, stop showering!
