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wedrifid comments on Mitigating Social Awkwardness - Less Wrong
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Soap is overrated. Deodorant is not.
My experience: If you are using deodorant but not showering, body odor is noticeable at a radius of approximately 1 foot per day. The first day, as long as you don't get within a foot of people (you usually shouldn't in most day to day activities), people won't notice. But by day 3, it'll be noticeable. (Note: this is for winter/air-conditioned days. Moderate exercise or hanging out in hot computer labs can accelerate this process. Hot summer days you absolutely should be taking a shower every day).
This is based off of approximate research with a limited number of friends (with a very small sample size so I could easily be wrong. And I probably came up with the 1' rule in particular because it seemed nice and elegant as oppose to was directly suggested by the data, but it seemed fairly close).
When hiking it can be fun to make guesses about the hikers that you pass walking the other way along a multiple day track... Deodorant without washing... No deodorant, no washing... Washing and deodorant... Washing, deodorant and actually changing clothes!
You found volunteers to not shower for you? Ick. Double ick if they did unprompted.
Yes... that's exactly what happened.
This is really useful research. I am not being facetious. Is there a journal that would publish such a thing?
My "research" would not stand up to peer review, but I concur that more serious research would be genuinely useful.
In case it was unclear, the last statement was a joke. Periodically when I haven't had time to shower in a few days I ask friends "hey, I haven't showed in a few days. Tell me when you can start to smell me" and then step slowly towards them. I'm reasonably certain that they answered honestly.
No soap != no showering. I use deodorant, and typically shower daily in summer and every other day in winter, but I only use soap when showering after strenuous exercise or long periods outside in the heat, and then generally only on the armpits/nether regions.
True. I only use shampoo and that not even most days. I don't have a problem with smell.
Soap is more necessary than you may think, as it can remove layers of oil and allow the deodorant to function more effectively. Also, body oils go rancid after a while, and some people are much more sensitive to that than others.
Soap strips away the horny layer, leaving the skin far more susceptible to infections (like zits), as well as general dryness and flakiness. If you feel you must shower every day, you should take short cool or lukewarm showers without soap. Ideally, you should take a couple of sans douche days per week to let the skin heal. If you are taking a short, cool shower every day, you shouldn't need soap to avoid body odor.
That's got to be one of those mileage varies things. I take a bath or shower almost every day, and I like hot water. It doesn't seem to have any bad effects on my skin. If I do skip a day, nothing seems to get any better.
It definitely is a mileage varies thing, though getting rid of or weakening the horny layer (the layer of dead skin cells that protects the living skin beneath) can have non-obvious consequences. For example, you may experience more sun damage than you otherwise would and thus accumulate wrinkles more quickly.
Going one day without showering isn't enough to see improvement, but if you consistently take a sans douche and avoid soap, hard scrubbing, and hot water, you might see long-term improvements.
On the other hand, some people like hot showers a lot. It may not be worth it to you.
This was once my passionate belief. I had an awful lot of pride to swallow when I changed my mind. Especially given all those bad jokes I had been making at my friend's expense. Until then it had served as the universally applicable comeback whenever she was being obnoxious - a personalised alternative to mom jokes.
Given a couple of weeks to recover from the ongoing chemical abuse I would expect someone who cleaned themselves daily (or twice daily) without soap to have less body odour than the soap junkie. Particularly at the end of a long hot day.
Extensive exfoliation is far more effective than a pH attack when it comes to allowing deodorant to function effectively and if there is excess oil that will be removed with the dead skin. Since you do not also dry out the skin that does remain your body will not feel the need to reproduce excessive amounts of oil to recover from the lack.
Robin Hanson touched on the subject recently on OvercomingBias. The article he cites perhaps goes even further than I have, being a little wary of excessive exfoliation too. But I enjoy efoliating so I'm keeping it up. :P
The exception I have for soap-like substances is the face. I use all sorts of fun stuff on the face so as to prevent any blackheads or other blemishes. My favourite is tretinoin, which is also brilliant for preventing (or reducing) wrinkles and generally slowing (skin) ageing.
I sense a new post coming up: "The Rationalist's Guide to Baby-Soft, Age-Defying Skin."
I didn't say that it was the person that had rancid oils that was sensitive.
Using the words 'soap junkie' seems like a deliberate attempt to reframe this issue. We do have hundreds of millions of people that do shower and use soap daily, and have for years, without their skin peeling off.
I would rather see people err on the side of stinking less, and this is easier to do with soap.
I suspect there are actually good reasons for the disagreement here. I believe a large proportion (relative to the population) of people on LW have Asperger's Syndrome. Skin conditions and sensitivity are often comorbid symptoms of AS, so it would seem likely that the negative effects that soap can have would be more likely to show up in $RandomLessWronger than $RandomPerson. In my own case, most soaps and deodorants irritate my skin enormously, but I've found particular ones that don't, and I use very little of them to be on the safe side, while still using enough to keep myself clean and non-stinking.
I didn't claim you did, nor did anything I say rely on that assumption.
Or that one.
I explicitly reject the way you are trying to frame the issue. In particular trying to frame it as 'advocating stinking more vs stinking less" as you do below is misleading in the extreme:
You are mistaken about the most effective way to prevent unseemly body odour. There is not the slightest hint of disagreement about whether or not stinking is a good thing.
Edit: Ahh, I see. The second irrelevant part makes sense as a reply to knb in the sibling.
I'm not arguing effectiveness, simply ease of use. A simple daily routine is much more resilient to schedule interruptions, and it's important to have this be as easy as possible.
I do not believe I am advocating a complicated routine either. A rough face washer (or more specialized substitute) vs soap. Time difference and complication should be minimal.
Soap isn't that bad. It's not going to make that much difference either way if people prefer it. But that's just the point - it isn't important. (Deodorant is, for most people.)
Ah, I seem to have conflated your argument with the one that you linked to, referenced on Overcoming Bias, that suggests 'sans douche' days. For someone trying to internalize the practice of being clean, skipping days seems detrimental. I didn't write this for the people that already know these things, but rather for the people that find them a mystery.
I definitely don't recommend that. That's crazy. I can't see any benefit for occasional not bathing. Daily (or twice daily) is so much simpler.
Why do you say this?