There’s no need to shower every day – here’s why

Is washing ourselves very frequently necessary? Some experts believe that everyday showering is based more on a “social contract” than actual need.

A few years ago, I stopped taking daily showers. Pandemic-induced work from home, moving in with a partner who showered less than me and pure, middle-age laziness pushed me to abandon an almost three-decades-long habit: So long as I don’t exercise, I now shower only around three times a week. Some of my friends shower as little or even less – a few just once a week in winter, occasionally because of skin problems or a dislike of having wet hair – but others fail to align with me, or are even icked out. “I can’t wake up properly without my morning shower,” they say. “Every day has to start with a shower and a cup of tea.” “There’s no way I’ll lay in my bed [unshowered] after commuting in London.” “Three times a week? Yuck.”

We infrequent showerers are quite often regarded with suspicion. That does not only go for nature-loving, tent-dwelling hippies but also for low-showerer TikTok users and even celebrities. Last month, British TV presenter Jonathan Ross caused headlines by stating that he sometimes washes less than once a week, and in 2023, actor America Ferrera astonished her fellow Barbie castmates in an interview when admitting that she occasionally skips the shower. In 2021, a mini furore broke out when actor Ashton Kutcher horrified commentators with his routine of washing his “armpits and crotch daily and nothing else ever”, and fellow actor Jake Gyllenhaal said he believed bathing was at times “less necessary” (only to later claim he had been sarcastic). As other celebs chimed in, the compounded upset became so great that actors Jason Momoa and The Rock soon had to clarify that they themselves shower a lot.

But while frequent washing of hands is key for stopping the spread of germs, according to most medics there is no inherent physical health benefit to the daily shower. In fact, it can even be bad for you by drying out your skin and undermining your immune system. Still, studies indicate that more than half of Americans and Brits shower every day. Is it time to scale back?

Finding someone willing to go on the record about their lack of showering is not easy. In 2015, chemist David Whitlock made headlines with the announcement that he had not showered for 12 years. Instead, he sprayed himself with good bacteria, and even started a skincare brand based on the philosophy. The year after, physician James Hamblin wrote about how he stopped showering, too. In 2020, when his book Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less came out, he told the BBC: “I have a smell to me, and my wife says it’s just, like, identifiable. But she likes it. Other people say it’s not bad.” When I email him for an interview, mentioning my own thrice-a-week shower habits, he says he is too busy to chat, but adds: “Tell anyone who mocks you that they are betraying profound ignorance of the skin microbiome, and then walk away.”

Finally, I find environmentalist Donnachadh McCarthy. “I’m not alone in [not showering every day],” he tells me. “What I am alone in is being bravely willing to talk about it.”

Eight years ago, McCarthy wrote an article for the Guardian about his – then – weekly showers, complemented with sink washes. Coming out as an infrequent showerer was scary, he says, because he knew he would get a flood of abuse and ridicule. But after the piece was published, people whispered in his ear that they did the same as him.