Hot water isn’t good for your skin, hair, or your microbiome.
Soap and shampoo are the same.
Consider the case of my mother, she’s involved with wildlife rescues, and washes her hands multiple times a day with soap, so she doesn’t cross contaminate animal species (some have diseases or parasites which can kill others).
On the best of days, her hands itch like crazy because the microbiome on her hands is all fucked up. Moisturizing isn’t the solution here.
But when she’s got her itchy hands full, excessive washing means all of the protective layers of oils are gone, her hands dry out and crack.
We haven’t evolved to require cleaning in this way. People forget that hygiene is matter of health, not the social contagion it has become.
In Korea for example, they’ve been so conditioned (pun intended) by an obsession with cleanliness that many parents refuse to let their children play in nature, for fear of getting dirty (word for word what I’ve heard from multiple Korean parents while I was over there last year).
Because of sweat?
Apocrine glands I think.
apocrine glands, like those in humans, produce an odorless, oily, opaque secretion that gains its characteristic odor upon bacterial decomposition.
Sweat kickstarts a bacterial feeding frenzy, leading to rapid binary fission (replication of bacteria which produce bad odour).
During winter my armpits do have a very mild smell, but during summer there’s a notable difference.
The first place most people hit with the soap is their armpits.
They’re creating a feedback loop condition for their armpits to smell worse in general.
I think washing is probably a good thing.
Depends what you mean by washing.
Hot water isn’t good for your skin, hair, or your microbiome.
Soap and shampoo are the same.
Consider the case of my mother, she’s involved with wildlife rescues, and washes her hands multiple times a day with soap, so she doesn’t cross contaminate animal species (some have diseases or parasites which can kill others).
On the best of days, her hands itch like crazy because the microbiome on her hands is all fucked up. Moisturizing isn’t the solution here.
But when she’s got her itchy hands full, excessive washing means all of the protective layers of oils are gone, her hands dry out and crack.
We haven’t evolved to require cleaning in this way. People forget that hygiene is matter of health, not the social contagion it has become.
In Korea for example, they’ve been so conditioned (pun intended) by an obsession with cleanliness that many parents refuse to let their children play in nature, for fear of getting dirty (word for word what I’ve heard from multiple Korean parents while I was over there last year).
I disagree.
👍