I hated bathing as a child. “You have to be clean,” the grown-ups argued. They had a point… but when is a person clean enough? Back then we bathed maybe once or twice a week, because it had to happen in a bathtub.
Reluctant and annoyed, I’d sit there and scrub my body with a sponge until it turned red. “Clean” it was damn well going to be.
I didn’t have the “concept” for the idea as a child. The way I saw it, I could just rinse the obvious signs of dirt and sand off my feet and move on. “Does my hair have to be washed too?!” I’d ask every single time, even though I knew the answer. “But it had practically just settled down after the last round” — my long natural curls hated bathing at least as much as I did.
According to the dictionary, “clean” means… washed, cleansed, free of dirt and grime.
Today most of us bathe at least once a day. Some… twice. I knew several people who might bathe three times, because it overlapped with the trip to the swimming pool or a date. Oh, and if the date went extra well…
But how grubby and dirty are we, really? There’s probably some distance between us and the coal miners.
How many ingredients have to be on our bottles before we’re clean enough? When are we clean enough? How many bottles do we need?
I’d actually always wondered what the concrete difference is between “hand soap” and “shower gel.” Can’t my stomach be washed with hand soap? Do I risk it ending up more, or less, clean if I do? Or are we just dealing with… “the way we’ve always done it.”
It’s called “hand soap,” after all — instructions and pump in one. Shower gel even comes with a geographic location in the apartment. Intimate wash. How refined.
Funny thing is, I only got all kinds of trouble AFTER I started using intimate wash. But I’ll save that topic for the women’s magazine.
I’m not saying we should go back to caveman times. But maybe we should start redefining what “clean” means for each of us. Are we never clean enough? Do we wash because it’s actually dirty, or because “we always do”? And what do we wash with?
I know several people who have laundry rules for their clothes — trousers, for example, should be worn at least three times. Most use special products for wool and silk, because they’re natural materials. We spare our clothes more than our skin — because that’s where we actually stop and think. But your skin is a natural material too.
So what exactly are we cleaning so thoroughly, and so often, with something the coal miners never had access to? Maybe instead we could start considering what we ought to keep, rather than strip away?
On closer thought, it feels like I was nearer to the original definition of “clean” as a child than as an adult. Until recently.
Sources:
- Den Danske Ordbog, ordnet.dk: Opslag: ren
- Cleveland Clinic, januar 2025: How Often Should You Shower?
- Healthline: How Often Should You Shower?
- UCLA Health: Skin Microbiome Disrupted with Too-Frequent Bathing
- Yale School of Public Health: Is Showering Overrated?