First, let me address the lack of writing as promised in my New Years Resolution post from December. My wife and I welcomed a baby boy into this world on January 27 and the days leading up to – and certainly following – his birth have preoccupied my mind. So hopefully that explains why I haven’t written anything. But now to make up for it…
A while back, I read an article on Boing Boing that covered one man’s experiment of showering without the use of soap or shampoo. Lured by the idea of naturally soft but not greasy skin & hair, I thought about performing a similar experiment one day. But because I didn’t want to go to work during the two week “normalization” period, I never fully embraced the idea. I did manage to go soap free for nearly all of January but still used shampoo as I didn’t want to show up at the office with natural dreads.
But with the paternity leave I get from work and the added vacation I attached to the back of it, I had time to let my body adjust to a soap free lifestyle. Its been two weeks since I last used soap to wash (other than my hands when handling the baby or food) and I have to say I’m pretty impressed with the results. I don’t know if I’ll stay soap free when I go back to work, though.
First, the two weeks to adjust is probably a variable – my skin didn’t take that long to get used to being soap free but my hair still feels greasy at times. And for the most part, I feel clean all day. Only very late at night do I feel like I could use another shower. I still use deodorant – the natural kind from Tom’s of Maine – so I’m using some kind of odor protection. And I feel I get the best results when I use a washcloth – something I’m not sure if Richard Nikoley used for his experiment. And while my skin feels soft, it still feels a little dry – using hot water doesn’t help in that area, though.
As I mentioned, my hair still feels greasy at times. In January, when I first tried being sans soap, I still used shampoo because I knew I’d never be able to go to work while my scalp adjusted. With my time off, I went all in and didn’t use shampoo. And, at first, my hair was really greasy. But after a week, I noticed only the areas closest to my scalp were greasy. If I keep it up, I might be able to go without shampoo. But I’m not sure I want to.
My wife says she never noticed I stopped using soap in January. She could tell I stopped using shampoo and I think for that reason, I’ll go back to using it after this weekend. I might also go back to using soap as I noticed the time it took me to shower increased – probably because I wanted to make sure I got every area with the wash cloth. There is also a certain amount of paranoia I have about the experiment. I didn’t detect any foul body odor and neither did my wife. But I know I stopped using soap and, for some reason, I’m conditioned to think that soap equals clean and if others knew I hadn’t used soap, they’d think badly of me. Worse yet, they’d actually be able to smell me when I couldn’t detect my own scent.
If anyone else has tried showering without soap or shampoo, what were your results? How long did it take you to normalize and did you ever go back to using cleansers? Despite the comments saying their experiments have been a great success, I still remain a little skeptical – even after performing my own personal hygiene experiment.
