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The last two years have transformed how many of us think about personal comfort and appearances — like wearing high heels, for example — so here's today's related question: How have your hygiene habits changed since the start of the pandemic? We did an open thread a LONG time ago called “thoughts on bathing,” but let's make this one specific to post-2019 world we're all living in.
So, do tell! In a typical week, how often do you wash your hair, shower, bathe, and shave — and how has this changed over the last two years? If you've returned to the office after working from home for a long time, have you gone back to your usual workday morning routine from the Before Times, or not?
{related: how often do you wash your hair?}
For me, at the height of the pandemic, I definitely lowered my expectations for how I looked when I (rarely) went out — to the grocery store, for example. My thoughts typically were, “It's a pandemic! Who cares that this bedhead clearly shows I haven't showered today?” I didn't quite get to the “wearing pajama pants in public” stage, but hey, it could have happened. My work-from-home outfit typically consisted of a graphic tee, a comfy zip top like my Columbia Sherpa fleece (soooo soft), and fuzzy pajama pants. (Zoom calls were rare, clearly.)
Here's some brief context for our discussion:
Washing your hair: There's no magic number for how often you should wash your hair, as this Cleveland Clinic article explains. However, it's not a good idea to use dry shampoo more than two or three times a week, as a dermatologist told Real Simple.
Washing your body: This Harvard Health Publishing article notes that Americans have a different view on bathing and showering than many other cultures, in that most of us shower daily. The website notes, “showering several times per week is plenty for most people (unless you are grimy, sweaty, or have other reasons to shower more often” and pointed out “daily showers do not improve your health [and] could cause skin problems or other health issues.” (How about you, readers? Do you tend to develop dry skin when you shower daily?)
{related: how long do you spend on your hair for work?}
So, let's discuss! Compared to the Before Times, how have your hygiene habits changed, if at all? How often do you shower, bathe, wash your hair, and shave? What about appointments for things you usually “outsource,” like brow or bikini waxing? Do you take less care with your appearance in general — for example instead of straightening your hair daily only doing it for “important” days?
{related: do you have a new “beauty minimum” post-kids? [CorporetteMoms]}
Stock photo via Deposit Photos / VitalikRadko.
Nina
This is a bit of a weird question, but why not! Lockdo. wn didn’t affect my habits too much because I personally like how I feel after a shower and don’t like it if I don’t. I wouldn’t mind taking multiple showers a day
Washing hair – If I go swim at the gym, I wash it right after, but if not every 2-3 days. During total lockdown it was probably 3-4 days.
Shower – every day, usually at night. Didn’t change during the pandemic. Not sure how bathe vs. shower differs
Shave – this one varied. I used to shave more of less every other day but I stopped shaving my legs during lockdown. Armpits always shaved
Anonymous
I shower and wash my hair daily.
Anon
Me too. Except I shower 2x, wash hair 1x daily. But I live in the tropics….
Anonymous
The only thing that has changed is that I learned that my hair actually looks great/better when I do not blow it dry, so most days I just wash it, comb it, and let it air dry, sometimes add a little oil. Otherwise I am still bathing and washing my hair daily, shaving regularly, etc. I will say that on occasion I have relied on a mask to take a pass on makeup if the only thing I am doing is going to the store quickly late night when I don’t expect to run into anyone.
bellatrix
Hair: About the same. I wash every other day; if I don’t, on the third day it’s pretty gross. Dry shampoo has never done anything for me but make it smell like perfume for an hour or so. Since I’m home and don’t see anyone, sometimes I will let my hair go three or four days without washing, but I know I look gross the whole time.
Shower: I switched to showering at night, because when WFH I have a tendency to get up and start work right away, then before I know it, it’s dinnertime and I’m still in PJs and haven’t so much as washed my face. Showering at night means getting ready in the morning is faster, which means it actually happens. I aim to shower every night but if it doesn’t happen, no big.
Shaving: Ha. I was not a daily shaver before, definitely am not now. I shave when I’ll be showing that body part or when it bugs me.
Other tasks: I’m not high-maintenance (haircuts, 1-2 pedicures a year, maybe brows once a year), but I’ve had exactly one salon service (haircut) since March 2020, and I miss it. This sandal season I am getting a pedicure, dammit.
Anonymous
i started CGM during the pannie and now wash my hair with shampoo about once every 7 days, but i shower every 2 days. my partner somehow thinks he can go 5-6 days without showering.
PolyD
Shower daily, but moved from washing hair every day to every other day. Less frequently than that and my hair is oily and gross and itches.
In the summer, I sometimes shower after the evening walk because it’s gross and hot and humid outside.
Hardly ever wear makeup anymore, and if I do it’s BB cream, scribble some Laura Mercier caviar stick on my eyelids, a little mascara, under eye concealer, and eyebrow gel. Oh, I also let my eyebrows grow, without really planning to, just because since I wasn’t putting makeup on everyday, I wasn’t looking closely at my brows (I’m really nearsighted) so they grew in some. They’re a little thicker than pre- pandemic and I like how that looks (I do tweeze from time to time, I think if I didn’t I would have eyebrows like Brezhnev).
Cornellian
I’ve moved to every other shower being a quick face/pits/gr*in thing and my dry skin approves. Not so much in the height of summer, but for 7 months of the year, at least.
Lily
Went from showering mostly every day to showering every 2-3 days. But it may also have something to do with going from 1 to 2 kids. I’m not proud of it, but it’s honestly a struggle to fit in a shower every day. So I shower after every workout (usually 3 times a week).
Anonymous
um. you have 2 young kids and you are working out 3 times a week? you should definitely be proud of that!
Anon
Ok, not a sweaty person here (never have been) and I sadly don’t work out much, so I shower every other day unless I get dirty in some way, and I wash my hair every second shower. I have suuuuper dry skin and scalp and this is the only way I’ve managed to keep from being a flaky mess all the times. I put on a pretty thick skin cream right out of the shower while still damp.
In the summer I shower more often because I’m working in the garden (literally – dirt, plants, etc) and because it feels good to take a lukewarm shower at the end of the day. I really need to lube up my skin when I’m showering more often though, multiple coats of lotion and creams.
I’ve been to the dermatologist. This is just my skin.
I do wash my face every single night without fail, and in the morning I may wash again or I may just rinse with warm water.
I overly wash my hands, and that’s definitely a pandemic issue. I have hand cream at every sink, in every drawer, in my car, in my purse, everywhere.
AB
Showering at night, nice to get into bed clean and relaxed.
Anonymous
Have my routine for everyday, going to work, out of the house style changed? No.
In WFH mode, sure. I washed my hair less than is olfactory and close-range visually appealing during lockdown. From this I learnt that the idea that fine hair will get less greasy by washing it less often is bullshit. Daily shampoo FTW.
I also learned that SLS free hand soap is worth spending more money on, and that stinky (okay, “scented”) SLS free hand soap is better than allergy friendly unscented SLS hand soap. Bleeding hands are worse than stinky hands.
Coach Laura
Before WFH/pandemic, in 30+ working years, I could count on one hand the number of times I went to work without a morning shower – power outage days only. It energizes me and I really hate to shower at night. In my 20s and 30s, I washed my hair everyday because either it looked bad or I lacked the skill/tools to make it look good on the second day. In my 40s, either my hair changed or I was able to learn how to make it look good the second or on even third day over the weekend. But I still showered every day.
Now, WFH, in the fall/winter/spring, I shower after workouts only – I workout 4-5 days a week but only wash my hair two times a week (every 3-4 days). I do a “pits and bits” sponge bath on the days I don’t shower. I’m not very sweaty even for hard workouts so it seems to work. In the summer, I do sweat more and shower pretty much daily. I shave every shower year-round because I like how it feels.
If I ever have to go to a meeting, I’d shower. I also shower before going to doctor/dentist.
iliketoknit
I’ll admit that when I wasn’t leaving the house/seeing anyone, I never wore makeup, didn’t do my hair, and showered/washed my hair way less. Before the pandemic, I showered first thing in the morning and washed/styled my hair every day. During WFH I got lazy about showering in the morning, because not showering meant I could roll out of bed even later before heading to my home office, and I was more regularly exercising after work and showering at night (but I also definitely skipped days of showering). When I did shower in the morning, I just let my hair air dry, in part because missing haircuts for like 8 months meant my hair got really long and looked better worn up, so I didn’t have to heat style – plus, of course, I wasn’t leaving the house so didn’t have to dry my hair to head out into the cold in the winter. I also shifted to washing my hair mostly 2x, sometimes 3x a week, and I feel like this was sooo much better for my hair than daily washing. I am trying to hold onto washing only every other day now that I’m going back to the office (and have cut my hair), because my scalp and hair feel much happier that way. The problem is that going into the office means that I’m heat styling again (I just can’t hack going to work with wet hair and whether it will look good air-dried is entirely unpredictable). That means I use more product, which for me means second-day hair looks much worse. It’s a dumb conundrum: if I just let my hair air dry with minimum product, I don’t always love the way it looks, but it stays clean and manageable for the second day. If I actually style my hair so that I like the way it looks, it conks out on me partway through day two (falls flat and feels kind of clumpy). It’s so annoying. I will say, I have got much more relaxed about going out in public (not to work) on let’s call them low maintenance days. I realized no one is looking at me and I don’t owe anyone at the supermarket good looks, just non-offensiveness. But running errands for an hour is very different from sitting in an office interacting with colleagues for 8 hours.