141–150 of 218 posts
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Oh, I also stopped brushing my teeth, I just wash them with water. The first month I had halitosis, but it gradually went away. I'm also more productive than ever because my coworkers have started to send me emails instead of having meetings!
We are descended from at least 7000 generations of man, and 99.9% of these ancestors had never even heard of toothpaste.
I stopped washing with soap 6 years ago and never looked back. For the first month, my skin was so greasy all the time that it felt like I'd been wearing the same clothes for a week, just an hour after putting them on, but then my skin finally adjusted to the new normal. My skin is soft - much too soft for a man of my age, according to my wife. I have no body odor, even after a heavy workout where I'm still covered i…
It is possible to wipe it out permanently, though difficult, as it has to be done on everything that might touch the area, i.e. clothes, new deodorant, etc, to prevent reinfection.
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My guess would be that my skin was used to having all its natural oils washed off regularly, and had compensated by overproducing oil. Once I stopped washing the natural oils off, it took awhile for it to readjust.
How would skin know that it should overproduce oil? Does skin know if it's not oily enough?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, I also stopped brushing my teeth, I just wash them with water. The first month I had halitosis, but it gradually went away. I'm also more productive than ever because my coworkers have started to send me emails instead of having meetings!
We are descended from at least 7000 generations of man, and 99.9% of these ancestors had never even heard of toothpaste.
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No kidding? Did you do anything else to treat it? I thought diligently cleaning my feet with soap would be helpful. I think it has been, but it's recently started coming back a little bit, so I'm not sure. I've tried a whole bunch of other things too, but didn't do anything other than constantly soap for a while because it didn't come back for so long. And now it's coming back....
I started using boric acid about 6-7 years ago. I’m nit talking about those ineffective foot powders, just straight pure boric acid (looks like powdered sugar), about a teaspoon every 2/3 days in my shoes. Basically stopped all smells, no fungal infection of any kind for years, and at the end of the day, my socks still smell of fabric softener. Doesn’t prevent sweat but the boric acid completely blocks the proliferat…
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How we smell depends a lot on our activities. It's really the bacteria that cause sweat to smell bad, so it depends a lot on a physical activity and how long it's been sitting on the body. When a person sweats a lot, like during sports, sweat contains much more water and less food for bacterias, so the smell is less intensive. In high-school I used to spend whole summer on the beach playing sports, sweating like a pi…
Indeed, I remember hearing about a product being researched which was a spray made from a certain kind of soil that promoted a different bacterial population on the skin to reduce malodor. Unfortunately I can't find any references now. Still, it actually works pretty well to go to the beach for a while and then you will smell better for days, so I think there's something going on there, whether it's the ocean water o…
Always wash your hands with soap and water.
Just if you try it, or something like it, do not get excited and jump in head-first like us humans are wont to. And like this[1]. A month is not enough... Like, slow roll 6 months or a year.
Some people are like, "Oh, cool. Stop bathing. That's easy." No. Actually it's more like slowly cut back on detergents. Then slowly cut back on showers. Always be increasing the time and effort used to check if you're a presentable human for society today.
1: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/magazine/my-no-soap-no-sh...
It's quite remarkable how successful the marketing campaign against bar soap has been such that it's somehow thought of as unclean. All to get us to switch to far, far more wasteful liquid soap.
Devil's advocate: is this not a legitimate concern? e.g. can viruses potentially be transmitted via bar soap? I use bar soap in my own shower, but I still prefer not to use someone else's bar soap and I use equivalent liquid/foam soap for washing my hands and face.
I have no memory of mass outbreaks of $disease from all the schools, teams and friends who happily used someone else's bar soap prior to the 1990s. Just those little foot baths between swimming pool and changing areas for the one known transmission...
I stopped washing with soap 6 years ago and never looked back. For the first month, my skin was so greasy all the time that it felt like I'd been wearing the same clothes for a week, just an hour after putting them on, but then my skin finally adjusted to the new normal. My skin is soft - much too soft for a man of my age, according to my wife. I have no body odor, even after a heavy workout where I'm still covered i…
Underarm "body odor" is caused by a bacterial infection. Sweat itself is mostly salt water and has no strong odor. It is possible to wipe it out permanently, though difficult, as it has to be done on everything that might touch the area, i.e. clothes, new deodorant, etc, to prevent reinfection.
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As I understand it, it's the opposite. I recently grew out my hair, and all the women insist that I've been doing horrible things by shampooing every day. Washing out the oils that protect my hair and keep it from drying out. I've been washing my hair with just water, and it works better than I expected. In the past, if I didn't wash my scalp before bed I'd feel itchy and sleep badly, but water seems to do a sufficie…
Oily skin gentleman here. I could not wash my hair with only water, after a week it would smell like a wet dog in the sun. On the other hand, it's never going to suffer for lack of natural oils.
You wash your hair and get rid of all the oil on the scalp protecting your skin. So your scalp makes as much as it can to replenish. Lather rinse repeat and now you've trained it to always go ham.
I've been washing my hair with just water for a year or so. I'm still oily, but much less so. When I have shorter hair it's on the high side of acceptable. When I have longer hair it's fine - just needs to get pulled down the hairs away from the scalp so it can do its full job.
I stopped washing with soap 6 years ago and never looked back. For the first month, my skin was so greasy all the time that it felt like I'd been wearing the same clothes for a week, just an hour after putting them on, but then my skin finally adjusted to the new normal. My skin is soft - much too soft for a man of my age, according to my wife. I have no body odor, even after a heavy workout where I'm still covered i…
For anyone reading this, please don't try this without honest friends or an honest spouse who will give you feedback. It works for people with specific genetics, but not for the majority.
It'd hit you like a wall.