My No-Soap, No-Shampoo, Bacteria-Rich Hygiene Experiment

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/magazine/my-no-soap-no-shampoo-bacteria-rich-hygiene-experiment.html

by pavel_lishin • 12 years ago

335 261 12 years ago

tdaltonc• 12 years ago

It's always seemed odd to me that most people douse their skin in antibiotics every day. I'd love to see a study on flora, like this study on gut flora:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19018661

api• 12 years ago

Antibacterial chemicals, not antibiotics. But you're right in general. It's something that we do that we have no evidence is actually good for us. We live in symbiosis with bacteria. Sterilizing your gut would kill you.

npsimons3• 12 years ago

And if you look hard enough, you can find soap that doesn't have antibacterial chemicals (no triclosan). I carry around a small squirt tube of liquid soap for this reason, and also because most soap in public bathrooms is atrocious in other ways (doesn't lather, dries the skin, etc).

jastanton• 12 years ago

This is awesome to me mainly because I am just thinking of all the other undiscovered ways we are destroying natures answer to many of our man made solutions. My hope is that this type of science gets more attention every day.

buckbova• 12 years ago

The most extreme case is David Whitlock, the M.I.T.-trained chemical engineer who invented AO+. He has not showered for the past 12 years.

It's hard for me to imagine that these people don't stink and that after a workout, run or hike they don't smell "strongly". I guess you can still rinse off in the shower to get sweat and grime off, but not use any soap.

For the sake of my lady, I'd have to at least give the undercarriage a good scrubbing.

dllthomas8• 12 years ago

If most of the stink is ammonia related (and I have no idea if it is), then it's actually pretty easy to imagine that they don't stink.

collyw2• 12 years ago

Most domesticated dogs generally don't "stink", despite being bathed fairly infrequently by our standards. They have a bit of a smell, but usually it is barely noticeable. Ok maybe dogs were not a good example as they don't sweat, but the majority of domesticated animals don't stink.

Smudge• 12 years ago

As someone who doesn't live with dogs, the smell of a home with dogs (or cats, for that matter) is, in most cases, immediately apparent to me. If you're not habitualized to the smell, it does actually stink. Not terribly, but it's there.

wnevets• 12 years ago

They definitely stink. Its quite easy to figure out who owns one by the wet dog smell. Its no different than a smoker imo.

chm• 12 years ago

   I met these men. I got close enough to shake their 
   hands, engage in casual conversation and note that they 
   in no way conveyed a sense of being “unclean” in either 
   the visual or olfactory sense.

Apparently they don't, but that's not right after a workout.

trhway3• 12 years ago

(20+ years ago) during summers, while at college, working 12-14h a day on construction projects in Siberia sometimes we wouldn't have access to shower or similar facilities for a couple of weeks... We called it "dry cleaning" - meaning that beyond some threshold the dirt (like for example cement powder) doesn't accumulate on you anymore, it is just supposedly falls out, especially considering that heavy sweating during work washes the old dirt from you... I don't remember any stink from me or the people around me :)

viraptor• 12 years ago

I don't remember any stink from me or the people around me :)

I think it takes someone from outside to really tell the difference. It's like going to Iceland and realising the water in the north has a smell of sulfur. After 2-3 days of showering in it / drinking it you don't notice anymore.

ChuckMcM• 12 years ago

The thesis is that the source of the 'stink' is Ammonia and the bacteria are eating it and turning it into nitrides. The question is of course how quickly they can do that.

Its a pretty interesting theory.

a8da6b0c91d4• 12 years ago

The stink is often byproducts of anaerobic metabolism. Diet and stress greatly affects it. If you keep lipolysis and protein catabolism down, you really don't smell.

I've found it very noticeable how much I stink after stress, like public speaking. It's because cortisol and adrenaline ramp up inefficient anaerobic metabolism.

refurb• 12 years ago

It's an odd theory. Humans have very little free ammonia in their bodies. There are enzymes that quickly catabolize it to urea.

Second, nitrides seems like an odd product of ammonia metabolism. I've only ever heard of metal nitrides, nothing organic.

It's pretty well understood that bacteria on the skin metabolize the fatty acids in our sweat to short chain aliphatic acids (propionic acid, butyric acid, etc). If you've ever smelled those chemicals you'd see the resemblance.

JohnBooty3• 12 years ago

  It's hard for me to imagine that these people don't stink and that after 
  a workout, run or hike they don't smell "strongly"

My brother mentioned that his partner, who he'd recently separated from, almost never bathed and always smelled fine - even her armpits, and even after exercise. I saw her many times over the years they were together and never once did I notice any body odor, not even when hugging her hello or goodbye.

(I mention their recent breakup only because it made me believe him even more. He didn't have a vested interest in talking her up at that point!)

She was of European descent, by the way. I mention that because many Asians tend to have less body odor, for reasons that other responses have mentioned.

She was a vegetarian as well, though I'm not sure that's relevant.

SyncTheory13• 12 years ago

If it really does work (sounds like it!), they'll just need to invent something to help aid the transition, before it can be really find mass-adoption.

From the way it sounds now, I'd make the switch only if I could find the time to take a month away from life... Maybe a vacation where all I do is remodel my house and have groceries delivered.

graeme13• 12 years ago

I did this. I just showered more frequently for a month. No one noticed.

After that time, my hair and body odour are permanently better. In fact, I never have BO. (women have confirmed this).

I wash my hair with baking soda apple cider vinegar occasionally. If I eat well and sleep, it never gets greasy. If I eat poorly, it will grease up a bit.

jqm• 12 years ago

The unwashed hair seems it would be a problem. I have fairly oily skin and hair and a few days without shampoo, (even if I rinse) and my hair becomes extremely greasy and nasty looking. Maybe there are bacteria that would eat this oil, I don't know. Anything this strong could probably also be used for oil spill clean ups. (As long as it didn't get down into the salt-pit strategic oil reserves I guess).

I do find the basic premiss of the article interesting and agree. We do use too much cleaner and are probably doing ourselves a biological disservice.

peregrine• 12 years ago

I tried the r/nopoo suggestion of baking soda mixed with a bit of water and it worked very very well. I was surprised on how clean my hair felt with just baking soda.

The hard part is having a container convenient enough to house the baking soda and get it into my hair :)

beachstartup• 12 years ago

baking soda is amazing for many things. i have a box of it in my bathroom and one in my kitchen.

* deodorizes my dog in between baths * i put some on my toothpaste and it gets my teeth extra clean * or use as mouth wash/gargle with a cup of water * i pour some on my rugs and then vacuum 30 minutes later to de-odorize * de-odorizes my fridge quite nicely * cleans my porcelain sinks * sprinkle some in my hamper to keep my dirty clothes from stinking up while they wait to be washed

if you google uses for baking soda there's about a million more potential uses but this is the stuff that i use it for regularly.

aroch• 12 years ago

Stop by your local grocer/target/walmart/amazon.com and pick up a squeeze bottle[0]

They're ¢99 at my grocery store and as long as they're made out of PET, they'll be resistent to baking soda.

[0] http://amzn.com/B007OM9W2E

donpdonp• 12 years ago

What I think about is, what am I putting down the drain and ultimately into the river/water-table? I want it to be as biodegradable and non-poisonous as possible. Liquid soap made of plant oils (such as Dr Bronners) seems like a good solution.

maxerickson• 12 years ago

Most soap like things are pretty biodegradable. This is a frequent ingredient in liquid soaps and shampoos:

http://personalcaretruth.com/2010/05/a-closer-look-at-sodium...

They would rot in the bottle if there weren't some preservatives in there. After the soap gets diluted into water, the preservative isn't going to work anymore.

jugglingcode• 12 years ago

i tried for ~3 months towards the end of last year then gave up. I did the no shampoo AND no soap. Just showering and this was my experience.

The first week you will smelly a bit iffy (off). It's the transition period. Powered thru and was fine after a couple of weeks and smelled quite okay but my hair suddenly became this mop of oil,gooey gunk on week 4/5 and I couldn't get rid of wash it out. When hair gets that oily, all the dirt, dust and grime sticks to it and it's almost impossible to get rid of it. I tried baking soda, apple cide vinegar and few other things without much success. My hair had never been that oily. Off the NOPOO regiment I'd shampoo once a month and I'd be fine.

Even though my BO was quite good leading up to the sudden oily hair 'syndrome' it became very bad very quickly. It became bad because I couldn't really get clean because the oil from my hair would get onto my body and dirt would gradually layer from wash to wash. Try washing something oily with just water. Now I couldn't get my body clean effectively from the nowash protocol. So I gave up for the sake of my coworkers ( and my dating life).

Sadly the protocol doesn't seem to work for all skin and hair types out there.

commandar2• 12 years ago

I, too, had extremely greasy hair. I'm talking shower and shampoo in the morning and it would start becoming visibly greasy by the end of work that day. I stopped using shampoo about a year ago.

It was bad for about a week. After that, my hair has been more manageable and better looking than it ever has in my life before (I'm not quite 30). It takes a couple of days without cleaning for my hair to get as bad as it'd get after only hours in the past.

I still use body soap, but I don't do anything to my hair other than rinse thoroughly with water. It's been a seriously life-changing thing for me.

jstalin• 12 years ago

Same here. I stopped using shampoo a few years ago after reading an article claiming that it may contribute to acne. I did notice that my hair is now much more manageable when I don't shampoo. I'll wash my hair with soap maybe once a month, and then I notice that my hair feels awful for a day or two after.

ecdavis• 12 years ago

a few days without shampoo, (even if I rinse) and my hair becomes extremely greasy and nasty looking

Ideally you need to go a week or two without shampooing to allow your hair to adjust. The thinking on this (and I don't know if it's based in science) is that your scalp is producing excess oil because you keep washing it away. When you stop using shampoo your scalp will, over time, slow down its oil production.

I have very dry skin, so I can't comment definitely on whether those theories about oil production are based in truth. I can detail my own experience, though.

I used to shampoo daily and had terrible issues with dandruff. A couple of years ago I decided to stop using shampoo as an experiment. After about 3 weeks my dandruff cleared up completely. These days, the only time my hair gets shampooed is when I get it cut - around once every 6-8 weeks. For a few days afterwards my hair feels very limp and my scalp is very dry and flaky.

I do make sure to rinse thoroughly with warm water on a daily basis.

galvan• 12 years ago

Yup, that's the trick. I stopped using shampoo last year - my hair was greasy as all hell for around a month, then one day I noticed that it just stopped. Now, I just go into the shower and scrub thoroughly with hot water instead of shampoo. And it takes a couple days without showering for my hair to get oily and smelly now, instead of just one.

Oddly enough, my dandruff has stayed completely unaffected (and possibly gotten worse)...

Still use a plain bar soap on my body though, can't get past the self-stigma of the thought of only rinsing down there...

jcromartie2• 12 years ago

I second this. I used to fight the dandruff with shampoo, and then one day I just stopped, and used only water. There was a period where my hair got greasier, but then it changed and now it feels as nice and soft as it ever did with shampoo.

matwood• 12 years ago

When you stop using shampoo your scalp will, over time, slow down its oil production.

I think a similar thing works with anti-perspirant. I switched to deodorant only and after a couple weeks I noticed I sweat less. I now only use deodorant, and my t-shirts and normal shirts last a lot longer before getting nasty looking under the arm pits.

sliverstorm2• 12 years ago

Every time I try this, my scalp itches like crazy. I'm not sure if it is dead skin cells that I normally remove with shampoo, or the excess oils.

JohnBooty3• 12 years ago

  Ideally you need to go a week or two without shampooing
  to allow your hair to adjust.

Yes. Everything you say is true. I think many people give up after a few days, like the person you're replying to did.

jcromartie2• 12 years ago

You can think of it this way: our perception of attractiveness is the product of evolution and is really just the recognition of healthy individuals, and so every beauty product out there is designed to put back what other products take out. You shampoo your hair, and remove the oil, and so to get a nice healthy sheen you use conditioner, mousse, or pomade. It's a silly balancing act.

If you just leave it alone (assuming no other serious health problems) it should revert to a naturally attractive state.

sunseb• 12 years ago

I had the same problem. I solved it using Aleppo soap (100% natural) once in a week, and no more chemical aggressive shampoo.

Htsthbjig• 12 years ago

I had the same problem. one day I realized the oil in my hair depends on my food intake.

In particular, for me it has a huge correlation with the "glycemic index": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_index

Chocolate is the biggest scalp hair oil producer of all. For me it is incredible how fast it goes from my stomach to my hair, I feel my hair grease within hours!! of eating it. The same could be said about acme and skin pimples.

If instead of Chocolate I eat Apples or even sugar fruits like plums, I have no such a problem. It has to be something like the fiber controlling the sugar released on blood per second or something.

peterwwillis• 12 years ago

I color my hair with vivid colors, and shampooing daily quickly deteriorates the color. So I learned to start treating my hair less often.

It turns out that many male-grooming/hair care experts recommend you shampoo at most once or twice a week, and to not "lather" the shampoo, but instead rub it on top and downward to prevent breaking up the oils on your scalp & in your roots. The rest of the time you do the same procedure, but with just conditioner instead of shampoo.

Besides this method, I also use a kind of spray-on hair treatment and conditioner that's loaded with all kinds of healthy crap I don't understand, but basically keeps my hair healthy while also giving it weight so I can style it. By adding water I can comb out whatever dirt the conditioner+water loosens. So I don't need to wash my hair daily, and it doesn't get greasy.

I will say that without at least washing my hair it begins to itch after a week, especially if i've been exercising. So while this product is interesting, there's definitely some kind of cleaning that needs to be done on a regular basis.

sliverstorm2• 12 years ago

Plus the dead skin cells & dirt. You can get much of that with a rough brush, but I find I can really never get all of it without the help of SOME kind of soap.

DonGateley• 12 years ago

Is "extremely greasy and nasty looking" just a self evaluation or is it shared by others? It could be that it just violates your self image and because of that you are repelled by it.

avb• 12 years ago

Something like this might be a great product for camping and backpacking.

pling2• 12 years ago

2 weeks in the Lake district camping. Walked just over 80 miles and slept rough. Picked up food at local shops.

Didn't wash once. Stops bothering you after a couple of days.

Haven't used soap since this trip 11 years ago and all skin problems I had (bad Eczema) went away literally within a week.

johndevor• 12 years ago

How do you wash your hair? Do you wash your hair? Do you scrub with a non-soapy cloth on your body? Sorry for the intrusion, just very curious.

whateveraccount2• 12 years ago

I probably use soap on my body 3 or 4 times a year (still wash hands regularly), and shampoo once a week and notice no difference from how I smell from when I am using both.

In terms of hair-greasiness, when I began my hair was much longer and did feel greasier and appear more out of order, but with shorter hair there is not much of an issue and the shampoo once a week can stave it off.

Anyways, it seems like he is greatly exaggerating how badly he smelled. I smell no different, granted I apply deodorant to my underarms once a day but probably would not have to. Nobody I know comments on any bad smells either.

ZoFreX3• 12 years ago

I smell no different
Nobody I know comments on any bad smells either

I'm not claiming you are wrong, but I don't believe these are strong arguments in your favour. I can recall many instances of "the smelly kid" throughout my life - people who appeared to be totally oblivious to the fact that they stank, and very rarely did people around them ever mention it - to their face.

whateveraccount2• 12 years ago

That's the most common response I receive but I don't think it holds true in my case. For example my current girlfriend was extremely surprised when I told her I didn't use soap or anything about 6 months into our relationship. Same sort of surprise amongst my housemates since I am pretty hygienic and well-groomed.

Angostura• 12 years ago

Same here. I've probably applied soap to my body a handful of times in the last 40 years, apart from handwashing or after camping trips when I'm caked in mud. Shampoo needs depend very much on the environment. I worked ina rainforest reserve for a year and experimented successfully not using shampoo. Back in London my hair needed shampooing again.

My wife would certainly tell me if I ponged.

logfromblammo4• 12 years ago

My wife would also relish enumerating the various stenches that my stink could surpass at that moment.

Usually, I just get "you smell buttery", and that does not seem from context to be any sort of objectionable smell.

But when it comes to smells, it would be better to rely on someone not already habituated. You almost have to walk up to a complete stranger and ask their opinion.

fragsworth• 12 years ago

Just to be contrarian...

What if our culture of daily washing with soap contributes to our health in positive ways? If we make our bodies generally inhospitable to bacteria, we are probably inhospitable to many kinds of deadly bacteria as well.

It might be that if we all abandon soapy showers, we'll have a new era of diseases on our hands.

a8da6b0c91d4• 12 years ago

Washing with soap disrupts the endocrine function of the skin, which doesn't fully recover for a couple days. It's not a matter of bad chemicals in the soap; stripping away the natural oils messes up synthesis of things like Vitamin D. The article didn't even touch on this and instead just talks about bacteria.

Frequent use of soap is going to impair the skin's barrier function and leave you more susceptible to infection. You should really only be soaping up as needed.

Personally, once a week is fine for me. I'll just rinse off as needed the rest of the week, which in winter might be once.

hatu• 12 years ago

You sound stinky

NoPiece• 12 years ago

There is some evidence that triclosan, and ingredient in antibacterial liquid soaps, might be an endocrine disrupter. But a regular bars of soap don't contain triclosan, so you can soap up if you want.

scotty792• 12 years ago

If we make our bodies generally inhospitable to bacteria, we are probably inhospitable to many kinds of deadly bacteria as well.

Strongly disrupted ecosystem is probably more prone to invasive species. I'm quite surprised that we are getting away with daily washing let alone antibacterial soap. Burning meadow to the ground every few months would let only the most resilient weed to survive and flourish. I think we are just lucky that none of the bacteria that are less prone to washing away, that we allowed to flourish to unprecedented levels by washing away their competitors is not fatally harmful to us. I hope we will get to undestand this whole thing better before some of that resilient fairly harmless bacteria evolves flesh eating capabilities.

trendoid• 12 years ago

bacteria that are less prone to washing away

The only reason a bacteria will be less prone to washing away is if its useful for our skin in some way and has a symbiotic relationship with it. In which case its highly unlikely if it will turn out to be harmful in the long run.

In any case, is there any evidence that we do have some skin microbiota that sticks even after good soap wash?

jrabone12• 12 years ago

So anybody who happens to have a compromised immune system gets to fight your personalised microbes, perhaps fatally? How very ... Darwinian ... of you.

Soap and water have saved more lives than any medication, ever. I now have no spleen (6 months ago I lost spleen, gallbladder and half my stomach as well as sundry peritoneal membranes to cancer) and nearly died as a result of post-operative infections. I take daily antibiotics, possibly forever. As a society, we don't just cleanse ourselves for our own well-being, we wash for others.

Steer2• 12 years ago

I am sorry that you got cancer and had to remove those parts of your body. I am also happy that you now seem better (and I am guessing and being hopeful here).

That said, I do not think it is right to try to guilt people into using things they do not want to use because you think it could possibly aid your health. If you had provided links to research that proved that soap and shampoo use in the larger population made people with a defective immune system safer I would not have a problem with your comments, but I am just not sure that is the case.

If I try to give an example, there are people that are hyper-allergic to peanuts and they will die if they are exposed to peanuts. Why do we, despite this, allow peanuts in our society? It is not a necessity.

Edit; Just to be clear; we are not talking about vaccination; I think that is a completely different thing.

edoloughlin• 12 years ago

That said, I do not think it is right to try to guilt people into using things they do not want to use because you think it could possibly aid your health

There is a case to be made for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

jrabone12• 12 years ago

I'm still alive, that's as far as it goes. 30% + chance of recurrence and it's not like I can have those organs removed a second time. However, it's an improvement on the initial diagnosis which was stage 4 adenocarcinoma with peritoneal metastasis (ie. a Kaplan-Meyer survival of about 5 years max).

It's not just immuno-suppressed people, it's everyone, and a risk/benefit comparison with peanut allergies is spurious. If everyone smeared themselves in peanut butter before they left the house each morning, you'd have a closer comparison.

Plenty of studies at http://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/publications-data-stats.html - click on "Improved Health".

Fomite3• 12 years ago

"Edit; Just to be clear; we are not talking about vaccination; I think that is a completely different thing."

Why? We're talking about controlling someone's potential infectiousness in the name of public health.

While I might disagree with the OP, the principle looks pretty similar.

dragonwriter• 12 years ago

If I try to give an example, there are people that are hyper-allergic to peanuts and they will die if they are exposed to peanuts. Why do we, despite this, allow peanuts in our society?

Because the combination of decent emergency response and site-specific limitations on peanuts in places where there is a particular likelihood of them affecting someone who is hyper-allergic is currently viewed as an effective- enough mitigation to the hazard posed, not because people have an unrestrained entitlement to act as they want even when it is harmful to other's health.

dublinben• 12 years ago

we are not talking about vaccination; I think that is a completely different thing

Why is it so different? They both contribute to societal health, and personal hygiene is much less painful than getting your complete battery of vaccines.

logfromblammo4• 12 years ago

I also find the argument to be spurious. Indiscriminate disinfectants kill benign microbes as well as pathogenic microbes, leaving a clean surface to be colonized by the first species that land on it, whether good or bad.

The fine article details a practice wherein rather than apply a scorched-earth policy to all microbes, known good species are intentionally cultivated to both deny a beachhead to invading pathogenic microbes, and for other benefits, such as removal of unpleasant body wastes.

Centuries of scientific inquiry has shown that there really is no such thing as a clean and sterile surface outside of certain specially-constructed rooms with carefully managed airflows. Soaps and shampoos simply favor species able to spread and multiply quickly. when used frequently enough, they also prevent humans from becoming a disease vector.

That frequency is a matter for investigation. It may be that only physicians, nurses, and hospital staff who always wash thoroughly before each and every patient contact are actually contributing to public health, and that people who wash every time they pass a sink during the day--maybe once per 3 hours--are simply breeding for triclosan resistance and favoring the tenacious and rapidly multiplying species.

FreedomFiber5• 12 years ago

When you have a population of beneficial microbes, they push the harmful ones out. The ones that cause acne, odor, etc...

When you take antibiotics it kills bacteria nonselectively, good and bad. This can lead to an overgrowth of harmful bacteria when you stop taking the antibiotics. Also good luck when the strain of bacteria you're fighting become resistant to the antibiotic you're taking... Maybe then you'll reconsider microbiomics.

jrabone12• 12 years ago

Your fecal coliforms will kill other people, simply because they're yours, not theirs. They'll kill you if they don't stay in the gut (mine tried, along with a carbapenem-resistant strain of streptococcus introduced via a central line).

keithflower2• 12 years ago

Please stop spreading harmful misinformation.

Antibiotics do not and never have destroyed "all bacteria".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_antibiotics

ekianjo5• 12 years ago

When you have a population of beneficial microbes, they push the harmful ones out. The ones that cause acne, odor, etc...

What is your basis to say that the ones that cause odor are harmful ? It's a pure hypothesis.

ufo• 12 years ago

Fair enough. However, it is possible that the microbiome that results from showering could be more deadly than the one that results from not showering - its not only a matter of how many bacteria there are but also what kind of bacteria they are.

pinko• 12 years ago

This is the key point many people miss.

Assuming a basic level of sanitation, less faecal contamination (there is never zero) + less bacterial competition may be worse in practice than more faecal contamination + more bacterial competition.

The key advance in urban human sanitation, as I understand it, was not the use of surfectants so much as getting the open sewers off of the streets.

But I am not an expert on such things. I'd be grateful to be corrected by anyone who is.

rsync• 12 years ago

"So anybody who happens to have a compromised immune system gets to fight your personalised microbes, perhaps fatally?"

Yes, and that is true ipso facto whether they are using soap or not. You will also be fighting the microbes of school aged children (a preschool is one hell of a petri dish), animals (domestic and wild), as well as the entire biosphere you inhabit in general.

If you have a compromised immune system, your neighbors decision to follow a soap-free cleansing regime (which is NOT appealing to me, btw) is the very least of your worries.

jrabone12• 12 years ago

Soap and water is very good at removing faecal contamination. In the absence of small children and pets, and the taking of a prophylactic dose of antibiotics daily, my main concern is whether the people I share work and living space with are spreading their own faeces over surfaces I interact with. If their cleansing regime is as effective as soap and hot water, all is well.

jerf2• 12 years ago

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Nitrosomonas+eutropha+inf...

Note how first Google can't find any results, then redirects you, and how none of the redirects I see are talking about any infection either.

I doubt an ammonia-eater is very long for the inside of our bodies, regardless of the status of the immune system.

The whole "life will find a way" concept is really a horrible way to understand bacteria. Bacteria are, in fact, incredibly fragile, almost incomprehensibly so. They gain strength both in their sheer numbers, which makes it hard to get all of them off or out of something, and the sheer diversity of the various species (and to a lesser extent, within species), which means that for any given condition, there's probably some species that can survive or thrive there. Bacteria in general are extraordinarily powerful and resilient... but those properties do not extend to bacteria in specific. In specific, I see no reason to suspect this species even shows on the threat meter, as compared to any ol' cold virus or conventional bacteria infection. I reserve the right to change that assessment if someone provides more evidence.

jrabone12• 12 years ago

Not talking about the bacteria in the product, I'm talking about the faecal bacteria (your own personal gut microbes) that are still stuck to the skin afterwards due to not using a surfactant-based washing product. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7785997 further down the thread.

dbingham4• 12 years ago

There are many bacteria that are not the sort that are going to attack your immune system, defective or not. No matter how much you wash or use antibiotics you never eradicate bacteria from your environment. Rather, you select for the bacteria most resistant to the chemicals you apply to them.

The bacteria in the sorts of microbiomics discussed in this article are (usually) totally symbiotic. They aren't going to harm you, they are going to help you. They are going to be a secondary immune system and provide you a layer of protection. Removing them is actually more dangerous for you than encouraging them. In removing them, you create a vacuum that is easier for harmful and parasitic organisms to invade.

Edit: I haven't actually seen the research (and it might not have been done yet) on the specific species mentioned in the article. So I edited to speak more generally.

The idea many of us have been indoctrinated with that all microorganisms are potentially harmful invaders is not only completely false, that belief has lead us as a society to take action that was potentially very harmful to us. There's an entire ecosystem down there, and much of it evolved in symbiosis with us. We provide them a home, and in return they protect and clean us. They don't want to destroy their home, they would die, too.

We could learn a thing or two from them in that regard.

jamesaguilar• 12 years ago

I don't think this is accurate. Many bacteria that are symbiotic with immuno-normal humans are parasitic and harmful to immunocompromised humans.

That said, it's unclear that regular washing with soap removes the kinds of bacteria that have the potential to be harmful -- I know for sure that skin is constantly covered with bacteria, with and without washing. So I don't know if GP's objection is realistic.

jrabone12• 12 years ago

We provide them a home, and in return they protect and clean us. They don't want to destroy their home, they would die, too.

Sorry but that is absolute, unmitigated rubbish. I spent 2 weeks in intensive care, with a surgical scar from my sternum to my groin which de-hisced (burst open) because my own bacteria tried to kill me.

While they might be symbiotic in the right place (eg. the gut), they'll kill you pretty quickly if they get out.

msandford• 12 years ago

I didn't see anything in the article that said "I stopped washing my hands after I used the bathroom" but I did see plenty about "I stopped using soaps and shampoos and other SHOWER related items".

I think you misunderstood the goal of the experiment and the method by which she did so. Culturing less-harmful bacteria which might crowd out more-harmful bacteria is actually a great thing.

The ultimate situation is where we're all covered in incredibly weaksauce bacteria that can be killed quite easily if need be, but in the meantime they out-compete all the truly nasty ones which are antibiotic-resistant. That way if someone gets an infection antibiotics (or scrubbing) will go a long way towards curing it in the rapidly-post-antibiotic era that some doctors think we are entering.

pbnjay• 12 years ago

There's a blog post with more quotes: http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/julia-scott-on-...

Specifically, she did wash her hands with soap:

Every time I touched my hair, I had to wash my hands (I did wash my hands with soap).

jessaustin2• 12 years ago

I haven't had a spleen in over twenty years. In my experience, asplenia has not led to sickness any greater than the norm. I have kept up with recommended vaccinations, but I'm personally not a very "clean" person. I get sick a couple of times a year, which seems typical, and I've only been memorably sick a couple of times since I lost my spleen. Certainly you and others have different experiences. Perhaps your antibiotic requirements are more related to surgical wound healing?

jrabone12• 12 years ago

No, it's standard UK practice, especially for the first 2 years after splenectomy. It does seem to vary around the world though.

criley23• 12 years ago

"So anybody who happens to have a compromised immune system gets to fight your personalised microbes, perhaps fatally? How very ... Darwinian ... of you."

What a sadly unscientific and ignorant answer.

There are literally MILLIONS of types of bacteria. We REQUIRE millions of bacteria to simply exist and live as human beings.

Not all bacteria is evil and will kill you. Most won't! In fact, if you kill all of your personal awesome bacteria, the harmful stuff can move in because you don't have any anymore. (Well if you "killed all of your own bacteria", you'd very likely be dead as well...)

You get to fight my bacteria, and every humans bacteria, every day of your life. It's as normal as breathing air and eating food. Your mother colonizes you with bacteria at birth and through feeding. Our foods help us build immunities. Our friends and being outside and playing and working and everything we do exposes us to bacteria. Being exposed to bacteria isn't evil or wrong. Being weak to bacterial exposure is like being weak to sunlight-- it is going to dramatically change your life and make you very "abnormal" as a human. That's not our fault.

"Soap and water have saved more lives than any medication, ever."

Proper hygiene has saved those lives, of which soap and water played a role. You put the cart before the horse. HYGIENE saved lives -- soap and water was the mechanism used to achieve hygiene.

" I take daily antibiotics, possibly forever. As a society, we don't just cleanse ourselves for our own well-being, we wash for others."

This article isn't about giving yourself leprosy and then infecting immunocompromised people.

For you to conflate "bad" bacteria with "good" bacteria is ignorant and massively hurtful to the cause of human health.

If you had read the article, you would know that they're supplementing personal flora with Nitrosomonas eutropha.

If Nitrosomonas eutropha can hurt you, you need to be in a bubble and NEVER exposed to any air, or the outside, or dirt, or any other humans.

Herd immunity won't save you from something so common, normal and helpful to humanity. And hurting all of us just to help you, denying us the necessary and amazing flora that makes our lives possible, is selfish and Darwinian in it's own way.

PLEASE respect that bacteria is ESSENTIAL to human life, and managing our own flora is ESSENTIAL to health and thriving. Just because someone wants to be healthy doesn't mean you have a right to accuse them of attacking you. If you're that sensitive, you need to protect yourself with heavy isolation. We're humans, not hermetically sealed robots. We are alive because of bacteria. Period.

XorNot5• 12 years ago

The article is about surface external bacteria - which are very, very different to the bacterial colonies which live inside your digestive system (and also only there - if any of those get inside your circulatory system that's where most "flesh eating bacteria" horror stories start from).

There's a naturalistic fallacy heavily at play here, because humans have never before lived in such close proximity in such high density dwellings as they do today. The idea that this doesn't merit some forward thinking on how we manage personal hygiene standards is ridiculous.

jrabone12• 12 years ago

You get to fight my bacteria, and every humans bacteria, every day of your life.

Not to a significant extent. In cases where people are exposed to other people's bacteria in quantity, they generally become (mildy) ill quite quickly while developing immunity - see fresher's flu etc.

If you had read the article, you would know that they're supplementing personal flora with Nitrosomonas eutropha.

And HOPING that N.Eutropha will out-compete their dangerous-to-others bacteria.

And hurting all of us just to help you, denying us the necessary and amazing flora that makes our lives possible, is selfish and Darwinian in it's own way.

I'm not suggesting you shower in bleach, just that you wash yourself with something more effective than fairy dust.

tripzilch4• 12 years ago

Actually the above commenter is kind of right.

Why do you think we wash our hands after toilet usage?

It's not because touching your own genitals, urine or even faecal matter will make YOU ill. You are most probably clean to yourself. We promote the habit because if we all do it, we are much less likely to make each other ill.

Same goes for infectious diseases. You wash your hands because even though you might have a healthy immune system (as do I), some of my colleagues might not. Or my grandma. Or in fact some random person I shake hands with.

The concept of herd immunity doesn't just apply to vaccinations. We do keep clean for others.

Periodic• 12 years ago

There is apparently problems with the opposite that may be occurring now in our society.

The bacterial ecosystem of our guts is very poorly understood. However, we are starting to discover that some forms of obesity, irritable bowl and related disorders such as Crohn's Disease may be linked to an imbalance of gut bacteria. Possible culprits include overuse of antibiotics particularly in milk and meat; extreme cleanliness; and Cesarean sections as your gut bacteria is inherited from your mother during birth. We also know that there are some bacteria which have very positive effects, the so-called probiotics.

We need these things to survive properly and in a lot of cases it is more about having the right balance than getting rid of them.

I speak as a spouse of someone with Crohn's Disease who has been largely treated through diet and bacterial management. I don't have quite the grounding in the science as she does, but we have seen the effects.

In short, excessive cleanliness in our modern society may actually be making people ill. We need to find the right balance.

XorNot5• 12 years ago

Crohn's disease is an autoimmune condition.

It's managed through diet and fauna control, but it sure as heck isn't caused by bacterial imbalance.

It's also worth noting that bacterial imbalance is usually treated with gut-balanciing antibiotics, which a single course of did wonders for me when I used to suffer severe gutache nearly daily.

Articles like the one here though sound far more ideological then scientific though.

EDIT: Also worth noting, there's scant scientific evidence that probiotics do anything. Near as anyone can tell the only effective things have been antibiotics, or faecal transplants.

headShrinker7• 12 years ago

I'm really sorry to hear of your condition and hope you recoup as much as possible. Without being cruel, I would like to point out the irony that it is likely antibiotics that will do us in and not lack of hand washing. Really hope you get better.

lightblade• 12 years ago

I'm sold! How do I get a bottle?

DanBC3• 12 years ago

And this thread is why I never shake hands with people.

trhway3• 12 years ago

one can easily see importance of decreasing bacteria load for existence of a species in big colonies/cities on the example of ants vs. other insects - the ants are the only insects having glands producing antibiotic

arbutus• 12 years ago

I'm curious how this works for people with long hair. To a certain extent, shampooing less can be great for your hair, for a lot of the reasons discussed in the article about skin care. Sulphates strip out your natural hair oils and do a bunch of bad things, so sulphate-free shampoos are a lot better. Additionally, once you get your scalp accustomed to less frequent shampooing and it stops producing tons of oil to compensate, life for your hair can be pretty good.

That said, I can never seem to get onto a cycle of more than just a couple days without shampooing before my hair is just too oily. Washing with just water isn't super sufficient either when you have long, thick hair.

adunaway2• 12 years ago

It's not pleasant, but if you gradually wash your hair less and less frequently the oils in your hair eventually find an equilibrium.

At least this is how it's turned out for me. I generally only wash my hair about once a week or less. At first it was crazy oily and frustrating, but gradually the amount of oil my head produced lessened.

mpg33• 12 years ago

Same...I used to shampoo my hair EVERY time I showered (everyday) and was confused why it was always so dry and frizzy. Now I just rinse it daily when I'm in the shower and shampoo it once every 5 days or so and my hair is much less frizzy.

JohnBooty3• 12 years ago

Except for the long hair, I was in a similar boat.

I found that Johnson's "No More Tears" baby shampoo is very effective and gentle and CHEAP. I don't have long hair but I just use that once or twice a week.

There are a lot of expensive shampoos that are equally gentle, but with those I think you're mostly paying for the brand name and the fragrances.

dbingham4• 12 years ago

I'm extremely disappointed by the number of highly upvoted responses in this thread that seem to come from a gut-level "Ewww... gross!" response, instead of a rational examination of the science.

Recent medical and biological studies are showing that we are, in fact, evolved to live with an entire symbiotic ecosystem of fungus and bacteria. And the total war we have waged on all things microbial in the last century may have been to our detriment.

I would expect a rational discussion of exactly what the science has an has not revealed along these lines from HN.

Instead, what I'm reading is a lot of posts along the lines of "Smelly dirty hippies" or "Oh my god, dangerous microbes! Unclean people!"

Come on HN. We're better than this.

adunaway2• 12 years ago

It seems like the loudest outcries are people afraid of others not washing their hands after using the toilet.

The article doesn't explicitly say anything about it, but I didn't get the impression that any of those people (even the ones that haven't showered in years) weren't washing their hands after going to the bathroom.

graeme13• 12 years ago

I stopped using soap in the shower, and shampoo in my hair. My hair is much nicer, and my BO disappeared entirely (women have confirmed this). No one noticed I stopped using either.

I can only speak for myself, but I still use soap after using the washroom and when handling food.

There's pretty clear scientific evidence for the use of hand-washing in specific cases. I think most of the people trying the no-soap, no-shampoo thing are actually rather empirical and respectful of science.

I used to work on repairing old newspapers in an archives. I saw the old ad campaigns for soap. We originally started using soap due to marketing, not due to scientific studies.

At the time, people didn't bathe that much. Ads recommended bathing regularly with soap. This improved odour. People fell for a correlation and thought it was soap that was the cause. This knowledge "wash yourself with soap!" was handed down through successive generations.

This belief was strengthened due to a TEMPORARY increase in BO if you stop using soap, once started. Takes about 1-4 weeks before the body adjusts and you become LESS smelly than you were before. Few people would have tried going without soap that long, so naive empiricism backed up marketing and tradition.

In other words, our current "soap everywhere, every day!" habits were not formed due to empirical inquiry and scientific study.

Here's one of the soap ads. These ran between 1920-1950:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y1yyuz0p6ybhby3/Soap%20Ad.jpg

electromagnetic• 12 years ago

Northern Europeans didn't bathe regularly, it was seen as sinful. However there's records in medieval England that people washed their hands before and after meals back to the (iirc) 10th century.

Washroom hygiene is different than if you wash between your toes or not. No one on earth has died from Cholera of the pinky toe gap.

glormph• 12 years ago

Even though bacteria that grow on skin may be beneficial, I assume hands need washing since they are more prone to act as interfaces for pathogens. E.g. handshaking, food handling is usually not done with other body parts, and may spread disease. When talking about skin, you pick up pathogens with your hands, and you pass them on. Not with your armpit, back, etc.

headShrinker7• 12 years ago

I think it's important to point out that 30% of men do not only not use soap, they don't wash at all. And with that, the point about people not using soap in the bathroom is lost. If people are that concerned, they should be and should have been concern about the epidemic amount of people simply not doing any form of cleansing, which is a completely different and much worse problem than simply not using soap.

Theodores• 12 years ago

My favourite 'did you know' factoid:

'there are 10 times more bacterial cells in your body than human cells...'

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-h...

(Article explains: bacteria have smaller cells than our own and that they would fit inside a 1/2 gallon jug. Note to those outside of the U.S.A., Burma and Liberia: 1/2 Gallon = just under two litres).

pooper• 12 years ago

I didn't know about Burma and its problems with metric system. Apparently[Burma], they started the process in late 2013. Given that the US started this in 1975 and still hasn't made much headway, I am not too optimistic about it.

[Burma] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_units_of_measurement

aaron-lebo3• 12 years ago

You aren't being very fair to people.

There is a scientific reason for the gut-level responses - human beings evolved or have been socialized to associate certain senses of grime or uncleanliness with something that could hurt them. Maybe it goes too far at times, but it has worked remarkably well.

Part of the scientific process is not just a hard question about whether it works or whether it doesn't, but is instead a psychological evaluation of how do we as people adjust to that if it is the case.

When you start saying you are disappointed in others and that we're better than this, you are getting on an intellectual/moral high horse which stifles discussion.

jljljl• 12 years ago

> human beings evolved to associate certain senses of grime or uncleanliness with something that could hurt them.

Given that bathing habits and frequency have varied widely by time period and region, I doubt this gut level response is the result of some biological evolutionary process. It seems much more likely that the response is cultural in nature.

zapt02• 12 years ago

There's a great book written about exactly this that I highly recommend:

http://www.amazon.com/Epidemic-Absence-Understanding-Allergi...

frozenport• 12 years ago

We have evolved while living in fear of the leopard that stalks the night. What is the meaning of evolutionary history? We have seen life expectancy go up with good sanitation.

SoftwareMaven2• 12 years ago

But is bathing with soap "good sanitation" or are we doing more harm than good, harm that happens to be masked by improvements in e.g. good sanitation?

dagw• 12 years ago

We have seen life expectancy go up with good sanitation.

Sure, but to what extent is it causation and what extent simply correlation. Also "sanitation" covers a huge range of improvements and activities, and just because some can directly be linked to life expectancy, doesn't mean that they all can.

asperous• 12 years ago

Recent medical and biological studies are showing that we are, in fact, evolved to live with an entire symbiotic ecosystem of fungus and bacteria. And the total war we have waged on all things microbial in the last century may have been to our detriment.

Aren't we living much longer then before though?

4t4g24h3• 12 years ago

Aren't decreasing infant and child mortality rates making it falsely appear so to some extent?

mattlutze• 12 years ago

My understanding has been that we live longer because we get kids through childhood (vaccinations against diseases they can't yet handle, antibiotics for the particularly nasty bugs) and are now much more effective at treating acute trauma, cancers and such.

How much your armpits smell doesn't really have a lot to do with longevity...

ekianjo5• 12 years ago

Recent medical and biological studies are showing that we are, in fact, evolved to live with an entire symbiotic ecosystem of fungus and bacteria. And the total war we have waged on all things microbial in the last century may have been to our detriment.

Antibiotics, maybe. Probably. As for soap usage on skin, the question is definitely more difficult to answer and certainly not as simple as you want to put it. There are tons of people out there who have no problem bathing every day and using soap very regularly. If it were really a direct cause of skin issues, you'd hear a lot more about it.

kamaal2• 12 years ago

>Recent medical and biological studies are showing that we are, in fact, evolved to live with an entire symbiotic ecosystem of fungus and bacteria.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Wasn't it common in the days of the past to see frequent outbreaks of contagious diseases?

Agreed that part of it is due to bad sanitation. But then one could argue that was a part of the symbiotic ecosystem too.

Perhaps we are meant to just die if get diseases until we evolve to tackle them. But then most people won't agree with you on that. Especially those who are dying due to those diseases.

Houshalter2• 12 years ago

Well many of the diseases we had are relatively recent on an evolutionary timeline, coming from our domestication of animals. Concentrated populations of humans living in cities is also relatively new. Diseases wouldn't spread as easily before that.

headShrinker7• 12 years ago

This isn't about "bad sanitation". In the olden days they didn't have clean water nor did they bathe on a daily basis. I don't think anyone is saying stop bathing or stop using water. The point of all this is water is a really good solvent for cleansing while still leaving your skin and it's support system intact. Soap is unnecessary and even harmful.

netcan• 12 years ago

It's not an either/or question.

People died from starvation in the past. That doesn't mean that unlimited and unexamined calories are always good.

Similarly, treating serious bacterial infections with antibiotics is a good things. Sterile surgery is a good thing. Microbes don't know if that they are supposed to be symbiotic. Sometimes they can be both. They harmful in certain amounts or circumstances and helpful in others.

BTW, the idea that killing all microbes is bad is not really a controversial one. It's just the specifics that need to be worked out. For example, we know that sterilization an antibiotics raise the risk of harmful fungal infections (thrush, ringworm, etc). Wrestlers or other especially at risk of ringworm (for example) avoid anti-bacterial soap.

chongli2• 12 years ago

I've got an open mind to all this; I'm just skeptical of some things. The article made mention of greasy hair but offered no solutions whatsoever. Another big thing that was overlooked is menstrual blood. Are we supposed to believe women are going to be happy with not using any hygiene products during their period?

ghshephard• 12 years ago

The article was not about not following basic hygiene, but was about allowing certain very specific epidermal bacterial cultures to survive.

And I have zero idea how you made the leap to menstrual hygiene, which is a completely unrelated topic.

pierrebai• 12 years ago

IIUC, this firm would like to replace soap with a micro-biological mono-culture mist. Given that our skin is in direct contact with a lot of external bacteria and virus, this seems to be a biological disaster in the making if it were to take off.

Haven't we learned that mono-culture is a bad idea yet?

stretchwithme• 12 years ago

My Dad always claimed that daily showering killed off all the bacteria. I think we thought he was crazy.

tokenadult2• 12 years ago

The author of the story kindly submitted here begins by writing, "I was Subject 26 in testing a living bacterial skin tonic, developed by AOBiome, a biotech start-up in Cambridge, Mass. The tonic looks, feels and tastes like water, but each spray bottle of AO+ Refreshing Cosmetic Mist contains billions of cultivated Nitrosomonas eutropha, an ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) that is most commonly found in dirt and untreated water. AOBiome scientists hypothesize that it once lived happily on us too — before we started washing it away with soap and shampoo." So what we are particularly talking about here is an early-phase human trial of a cosmetic product (which is regulated in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration under the Food, Drugs, and Cosmetics Act) which may or may not have the benefits claimed by the manufacturer. The trial is to find out if the new cosmetic does anything at all beneficial, without too much harm. Getting news coverage like this is of course public relations gold for the manufacturer.

I read most of the comments here before reading the article and then posting my later comment. A lot of the comments revolve around the issue of the health effects of "modern" human life. All epidemiological evidence to date suggests that living like a middle-class or wealthier person from a developed country is good for health. An article in a series on Slate, "Why Are You Not Dead Yet? Life expectancy doubled in past 150 years. Here’s why."[1] refers to the steady long-term upward trend in healthy lifespan in the United States. Whatever we are doing about washing our bodies or our hair so far doesn't have any harmful effect that isn't swamped by the generally helpful effect of all the other changes of modern life. Life expectancy at age 40, at age 60, and at even higher ages is still rising throughout the developed countries of the world.[2] The overall trends are so favorable to further improvement to general health that if the observed facts about people who are already born and conservatively projected current trends continue, we can expect that girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long. The article "The Biodemography of Human Ageing"[3] by James Vaupel, originally published in the journal Nature in 2010, is a good current reference on the subject. Vaupel is one of the leading scholars on the demography of aging and how to adjust for time trends in life expectancy. His striking finding is "Humans are living longer than ever before. In fact, newborn children in high-income countries can expect to live to more than 100 years. Starting in the mid-1800s, human longevity has increased dramatically and life expectancy is increasing by an average of six hours a day."[4]

On evolutionary grounds, there is every reason to expect that human beings have haphazard adaptations through natural selection to survive to reproductive age despite a world full of microorganisms that were neither created nor evolved to benefit human beings, but rather just to survive and reproduce themselves. There is no evidence whatever that there are any large number of bacterial species or other microorganisms that are actively "beneficial" for human beings, rather than simply being well tolerated by human hosts. To live to healthy old age and greater enjoyment of the natural world and all its wonders, human beings may very well be better off continuing the human way of shaping their environments and culturally transmitting environmental interventions that lead to "unnaturally" good health and longevity.

AFTER EDIT, TO RESPOND TO QUESTION BELOW: Yes, I am saying there is weak or no evidence of "beneficial" bacteria for human beings. This is to be expected from the consilient findings of evolutionary theory. (Human beings have had to live in highly microbe-free environments, for various reasons.) I am specifically asking for evidence, from medical review articles, that there are well accepted "beneficial" skin microbes. Which are they? What is the evidence that shows the benefit?

The author of the article seems somewhat convinced by her personally experienced anecdote. It would of course take much more long-term study (not to mention more double-blind study designs) before we will be sure what is beneficial for human skin in particular and human health in general by way of applying bacteria intentionally to our skins. Suffice it to say that I am not afraid of washing my hands with soap nor afraid of washing my hair with shampoo. The book The Checklist Manifesto reports on an experimental study in a poor country of promoting hand-washing with soap, and how that showed evidence of improving health outcomes. Let's not throw out good hygiene with the bath water until more research has been completed on this interesting topic.

[1] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_...

[2] http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box...

[3] http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2...

[4] http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity....

graeme13• 12 years ago

I believe you're conflating two issues. Few people argue against hand-washing with soap. The benefits are proven.

But where did you get the notion that washing the whole body with soap is beneficial or even benign? You've cited many studies, but they all deal with aging and not with skin flora.

Skin flora is complex. I know of no scientific study that has looked into whether skin flora or hygiene is improved by full body soap washing.

Full body soap washing began in the early part of the 20th century, following a steady marketing campaign with ads such as this:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y1yyuz0p6ybhby3/Soap%20Ad.jpg

At the time, people bathed little. When they bath more frequently, with soap, odour improved. Soap usage became widespread.

It seemed a reasonable inference that soap was the cause. Particularly since if you stop using soap, you get smellier, even if you bathe.

I believe this inference is wrong. I stopped using soap in 2011. For the first 2-3 weeks, I smelled worse. Then I smelled better. I have had practically no BO since, even in the most sensitive regions. Women have confirmed that I smell good, spontaneously. If you saw me, you would never know I don't use soap.

I'm using an N of 1, but it seemed like the bacterial balance of my skin improved. It also became less oily. I can only speak to my own example, but I have seen many reports from others who went through the same transition as me.

So I'll repeat: where is your evidence that full-body soap washing offers benefits? Are there any scientific studies that support your position?

My hypothesis is that full body soap makes us worse off and that we don't realize this due to the transition period. Our habit was begun by marketing and cemented by tradition. (our parents washed us when we were young)

Edit: I just noticed this sentence:

"There is no evidence whatever that there are any large number of bacterial species or other microorganisms that are actively "beneficial" for human beings"

This seems rather unsupported. Are you saying we do not require intestinal or skin flora?

Second edit: In response to your edit, I found this article:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2133.2008....

It has been cited 182 according to Google Scholar. I can't access the full text, but it claims that many skin flora are mutalistic.

GuiA• 12 years ago

"I stopped using soap in 2011. For the first 2-3 weeks, I smelled worse. Then I smelled better. I have had practically no BO since, even in the most sensitive regions. Women have confirmed that I smell good, spontaneously. If you saw me, you would never know I don't use soap."

Do you still wash your hair? Do you still shower (i.e. rinse) once a day? How do you wash after when you're especially dirty? (e.g. dirt, grease, etc.)

I'd be curious to hear about your hygiene routine in a little more details.

gandalfu• 12 years ago

Another anecdote, I had a very bad acne back in secondary school, I tried everything and I did not get better. Our of frustration I stopped all treatment and I stopped using soap in my face. At some point the acne fixed itself but I never got back to the soap. All in all I have been soap free in my face for 15 years, I do shave with hot water.

tokenadult2• 12 years ago

Thanks for the link in answer to my question. A tip: if you know the title of an article (here, "Skin microbiota: a source of disease or defence"), and put that article title into a Google Scholar search, you will often find a copy of the article that is not behind a paywall (here, because it is also hosted on the Pub Med Central public access website). Now I have to read the full text of the article, and see what subsequent articles say on the issue.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2746716/

hudibras3• 12 years ago

Just wanted to make N = 2: I haven't used soap or shampoo since 2010. My skin and hair feel and look great and nobody's ever said anything about my smell.

I honestly think I won't use soap or shampoo for the rest of my life.

sanoli3• 12 years ago

Some studies claim it's not that bacteria are good, but that the lack of them causes an imbalance in our immune system, as they have evolved over millenia to co-exist with this huge diverse flora of bacteria. Apparently, if they're absent, immune me can run amok.

danielweber• 12 years ago

I did not realize my teenage son could be used as a science experiment.

thret• 12 years ago

I can see how this could be useful on a cross-country trek, on the ISS, or in areas where clean water in short supply.

For the rest of us though, showers and baths are too much fun to give up. I'd still shower every day if it were bad for my hygiene.

ekianjo5• 12 years ago

It's funny that people who claim that you don't need soap to wash yourself simply justify their action by "I smell good now" - so what ? How does smelling good mean anything about how healthy your skin actually is ? For all we know it may be the exact opposite.

huehue• 12 years ago

Well, it doesn't work for everybody.

I gave no-poo a go for four months. My hair started to shed, got dandruff breakouts and going to the hairdresser was an embarrassment due to oily hair (machine got stuck frequently).

Tried many tricks, vinegar+baking soda and all that, to no avail.

I finally stopped when hair loss started to be noticeable.

I’ve ditched commercial shampoos since, and found that using plain baby shampoo everyday with ketoconazol every third day gives me the best results.

elementai2• 12 years ago

I have similar story, probably cultivating beneficial flora is the missing part.

DigitalSea• 12 years ago

I don't understand why the general consensus seems to think this is gross. I ran a similar experiment where I stopped washing my hair, after I detoxed from shampoo/conditioner, my hair stopped smelling. It only smells for a few days and then the natural oils take over and do their job.

My fiance who is currently becoming a registered nurse said her teacher ran an experiment which concluded that if you wash your hands properly and long enough (at least 30 seconds) using water, it does as good a job as soap/antibacterial handwash. To prove this he swabbed students hands and also ran them under a light to inspect for anything foreign. He of course also made sure to mention that in a hospital using water would not fly, but I thought it was an interesting result.

What did we use before shampoo, soap and conditioner? Nothing. Mankind has lasted this long without buying antibacterial products, hasn't it? I think if anything, antibacterial handwashes, shampoo and conditioner have contributed to our unhealthy society, especially when put into combination with our zero nutritional diets and pollution-led lifestyles. I think we all get so sick because we don't expose ourselves enough to the common bacteria and germs that lurk in our everyday lives. At the end of the day we as humans are nothing more than bacteria. Look up a video of what happens inside of our bodies when we digest food, we are bacteria ourselves.

jsudhams• 12 years ago

I am sure natural way is better in long run, than lab produced chemicals. I use natural powder created from dry Acacia concinna[0] and Hibiscus rosa-sinensis[0] and for the smell part in India every used to use coconut oil but now a days youngster dont like though majority of school going children are apply coconut oil to the hair after head-bath

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia_concinna

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibiscus_rosa-sinensis

ashutoshm• 12 years ago

don’t apply something on your skin which you theoretically can’t eat. http://easyayurveda.com/2012/05/16/are-soaps-and-shampoos-re...

andor• 12 years ago

What about chlorinated water? Would these bacteria survive swimming in a pool?

headShrinker7• 12 years ago

If any one is interested in a sort of guide on why or how, and what to expect when you stop using body soaps and shampoos...

It's also about all these products we buy because are told to, that are completely unnecessary. It's as if no one questions it,which I think is Weird

http://fritzw.com/2014/02/10/4-things-you-buy-that-are-ruini...

omilu3• 12 years ago

Homeless people smell and overall look grundgy. According to this article they ought to smell fine, have beautiful hair, and skin.

My No-Soap, No-Shampoo, Bacteria-Rich Hygiene Experiment

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