Ask Lemmy

This is a real and under-discussed issue. Some practical things people have found helpful:

1. Dry shampoo + body wipes as alternatives to full shower. Lower sensory load, still gets you socially acceptable.
2. Warm bathroom + warmed towel pre-shower. The temperature transition is often the worst part — pre-warming reduces the shock.
3. Sit-down shower (plastic shower stool). Removes the standing + water-falling-on-you combo that's overwhelming.
4. Schedule it — link to existing routine trigger (after specific activity) rather than "when I feel dirty". Reduces decision fatigue.
5. Noise — many people don't realise shower acoustics amplify water sound. Earplugs rated for water use can help.

The shame around not showering is the worst part. It's a sensory accessibility issue, not a moral failing.

I usually just let my patients do hoebaths / birdbaths for a bit in between real ones. That's wet wipes to the face, pits, and genitals / perineum and then a shower cap designed for a bedbath where you scrunch it in, let it sit, then just towel dry it out. You can also put it in a warmer designed for wipes / caps OR some of them even have microwave instructions.

Now that said I have access to all of this from the stockroom on the medical unit next door who actually have to do bedbaths rapidly and at scale. For a cheaper / more eco friendly option most nursing homes use a basin and washcloths with special no rinse soaps. If you keep your home sink clean enough you don't even need the basin. Just be careful to go in the right order face -> pits -> genitals -> butt.

Another thought (if you're white) is that washing your hair once a week isn't actually just for black people. White hair CAN tolerate daily washing with soap but that doesn't mean it should. My 2B hair has been much fuller with a healthier sheen and gets compliments from hairdressers with once a week washing. I do regular soap only once a week then put a pea size amount of Vaseline on my fingertips then fingercomb through and that's all it needs. It gets wet and toweled off in my regular shower but that's incidental. My hair is also short so there's no daily combing and styling happening just making sure the part is set right while it's wet. If you're washing daily right now there'll be a 1-2 month oily detox / withdrawal period but just tie it off your face and wear a hat / scarf and it'll be worth it when the detox is done.

My last thing to say is that if you pick ONE hygiene task daily the one thing that will affect your long term health the MOST is brushing your teeth, so if you have to pick one it's that one. Well washing your hands is actually more important but I'm hoping you're doing that more than once a day.

My first and best move, I believe, was to make my bathroom a lot less stimulating. I added an indirect light, an adjustable pressure shower head, and a space heater.

That helps an absolute ton.

I also accepted that doing less but doing it still, is a lot better than not doing it at all. Someday I just shower, some other day I shave and shower, some other day I just wash my hair. Breaking it up and not seeing "hygiene" as a big single task massively helps too (and that's applicable to many other things as well).

Why is it so normalised that people have to shower every day? Are people running a marathon or something? It can even harm your skin to shower so often. Unless you do physical exercise or have a condition showering everyday might harm more than it solves. Source

Can you figure out what specifically you don't like about showering? Like is it taking you clothes off, the sounds of water echoing in the room, getting out and being wet before towelling off... like what combination of the million little sensory things involved is the issue for you?

Or is it more a timing/activity issue, like you don't want to interrupt whatever you're doing outside the shower to do the new different activity (or rather the million tiny activities involved)?

A washcloth and a bowl of water. That's what all the civilized world has used daily during most of it's centuries.

Maybe alternating with a bath would help? That’s if you have the time and patience to fill and drain a tub. If you can get a japanese-style tub, it’s narrower but deeper, so you use less water.

Pick up some baby wipes. My wife and I like Water Wipes, they're plastic and fragrance free but there are many other choices out there as well. Aside from the obvious usage in the bathroom, a quick wipe down of your armpits and nether regions can go a long way to keep you fresh between showers.

Sink bath. Shower every few days, wash just the stinky bits the other days

I bring my towel into the bathroom and turn the water on. I tell myself I can turn the water off and give up but usually just the partial act of showering will get me to do it. Putting on music or a podcast helps so I can pay attention to something else while showering helps too.

Otherwise I’ll use wet wipes for the days it’s just not happening.

Almost no one needs to shower daily unless you’re getting actually dirty or sweating your ass off because you live in a hot or humid climate. There’s nothing unsanitary about showering every other day or every two days, a lot of dermatologists would even advocate for exactly that. If you’re getting stinky when you don’t shower for 48 hours that’s likely due to not wearing or using effective deodorant or not washing clothes well enough, often this is a washing machine or product issue not anything you’re doing wrong, it could be you’re not regularly cleaning your sheets or maybe even diet but it’s almost certainly not because you shower a completely normal amount, you probably do not stink.

That said I'm also autistic and I also do not like to shower, I find it physically uncomfortable and over stimulating to be touched all over like that. I shower ever 2-4 days, I live with my kids and they would absolutely tell me, and have, if I get stinky and it doesn’t happen often because it’s not a matter of not showering enough but the sort of stuff I listed above.

Are you sure you’re not experiencing OCD like symptoms externalizing your social anxieties and causing you to worry about being stinky? OCD and autism have a pretty high comorbidity so having obsessive or intrusive thoughts might be a better place to start investigating rather than trying to shower more since you already shower a perfectly normal amount.

I see where you come from. The stink will be a challenge if you don’t shower daily. As a rule of thumb, if you can smell yourself, others do, too.

A washcloth may do the trick. It’s important to use hot water and soap. Wash once with soap, a second time with clear water.

If smell is an issue, try different clothing. A couple years back i discovered "anti-microbial" shirts. I have no idea what they're treated with, but they basically suppress BO. If i wear normal cotton t-shirts, i feel like i reek in the early afternoon. On a more natural sode, I've recently had very positive experiences with merino wool clothing.

Have you tried dry shampoo and dry soap?

Take a bath?