Weird Ways People Wash

[snappyllama]

That sounds like a nice routine. I haven't heard of any bee venom products for topical application, I'll have to look that up! My parents are very into alternative medicine, and once when I got sick as a kid I was prescribed a week of injections with some bee venom among other things. It felt like fire running up and down my arm for about 20 min every time. My sister is afraid of anything natural now and won't even try my soap!

Yikes, a week of any kind of injections sounds terrible. I'd have an aversion to anything after that...

 

[newbie]

If I remember correctly, NASA did extensive testing on washing and on clothing to determine what would happen to astronauts on missions. I vividly recall them having their test subjects stay in the same clothing in the space suit for days on end and finding that the clothing literally disintegrated when they ended the study. If memory serves, they found that the ideal time between washing, for best skin and hair health, was every five days.

My brother went for a summer without using shampoo and he had the same experience someone else mentioned; it took about a month of looking kind of greasy and then everything settled out and his hair always looked good and was very soft and wonderful. If you start lengthening the time between washing your hair, it takes some time for your scalp to accommodate but it will. I wash my hair once a week and you'd never guess it on day 6. If I exercise and sweat heard, I'll hop right into shower and rinse my hair well but not wash it and it looks perfectly clean afterward. I suppose that would gross some people out, but my hair is much less dry washing it less often.

 

[Millie]

If I remember correctly, NASA did extensive testing on washing and on clothing to determine what would happen to astronauts on missions. I vividly recall them having their test subjects stay in the same clothing in the space suit for days on end and finding that the clothing literally disintegrated when they ended the study. If memory serves, they found that the ideal time between washing, for best skin and hair health, was every five days.

Awesome! And thanks for sharing your experience with the "no poo"

https://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/livinginspace/Astronaut_Laundry.html

Oh and another one: ear candles!

 

[houseofwool]

I recently decided to follow the curly girl method, which involves not using any shampoo and only water soluble product. Essentially you wash with conditioner, using friction instead of sulfates to clean. I have found that my hair is most definitely curlier than I thought.

But is still shower daily and use my soap.

 

[Dr. Bob]

3 mos. ago I moved into a rural house rental w someone where we're sharing the bathroom -- my 1st experience w that in decades. He & I are very alike in our interests, but very different in our personalities. After he insisted I not hang my used washcloth on the rack that seems to exist for that purpose in the tub-shower unit, he asked why a grown man would need a washcloth anyway. It's just the way it was in my family, and I'm not about to change the habit of using one (though I stopped hanging it there), but I'd never think of implying someone's use or non-use of one was silly. He showers like a Navy shower; I would be too chilly to turn the water off between soaping & rinsing, and although our water heater has pathologically low capacity -- we suspect lots of sediment -- it's not so low as to require that degree of frugality.

He also insisted we not keep soap on the bathroom sink counter. There's no installed soap dish there, so he bought us portable soap dishes, but didn't even want those on the sink counter. I don't understand why dripping soap is any less of a problem if you park the soap wet on a dish on the toilet tank or a wood shelf. I think he was just being deliberately controlling in a silly way.

We also share the kitchen but do our own dishes. To preserve the plumbing (probably too late), the landlord insists we use the installed water softener; the well water we have is not only limey, but has iron oxide particles (requiring filtration) and some hydrogen sulfide (probably both from iron sulfide), and even after softening with NaCl it leaves visible residue on his truck's black paint -- probably some sodium sulfate in addition to the sodium bicarbonate that comes in trade for the "hardness". Anyway, as long as we have softened water, I wash my dishes w cake soap (and pots & pans w Brillo), which he finds odd, since he uses dishwashing liquid. Even back in NYC's water I frequently washed dishes w a bar of soap. If I ever needed to wash a large amount at a time, sure I'd use something more convenient to get a large amount of water soapy, but for a few items at a time there's no time savings to use liquid, and soap cleans as well as them in softened water. When we got a washing machine, Steve mocked me by asking whether I'd use solid soap in that too; we usually wash with cold water, and I'm definitely using liquid detergent there rather than something I'd have to dissolve.

I shampoo with soap too. That's actually more convenient than liquid shampoo, which of course he uses. But I sure don't blame someone who'd lived with water that had significant "hardness", but never enough to soften, for not shampooing with soap.

I'm also getting used to a handheld shower, which has its advantages, although most of the time it's hung overhead. Last time I was washed with anything like that was when my sister & I were little and we got our hair rinsed by our parents with one on a rubber hose. I haven't asked my housemate whether he ever takes this metal unit out of its cradle.

Anyway, sure don't need bubble bath here! Not only does the water heater (see suspect issue above) not even fill the tub, short & shallow as it is, but with the softened water I can blow Ivory soap thru a washcloth into great heaps of suds that don't break soon after hitting the (shallow or cool) water. But I did try my housemate's Palmolive antibacterial dishwashing liquid in my bath anyway for its lactic acid, with which I hope to soften a callus on the sole of my foot. If you've heard of alpha-hydroxy acids for skin smoothing, that's one, although Palmolive claims it only as the antibacterial in dishwashing. (They reversed their claims from a few years ago, when it instead had triclosan, and were claiming it as antibacterial for washing hands, but no antibacterial claim for dishwashing.) I also have a podiatrist-prescribed ammonium lactate foot lotion. I'm down to one callus on one foot now, but still a little discomfort in walking.

 

[Dr. Bob]

If I remember correctly, NASA did extensive testing on washing and on clothing to determine what would happen to astronauts on missions. I vividly recall them having their test subjects stay in the same clothing in the space suit for days on end and finding that the clothing literally disintegrated when they ended the study. If memory serves, they found that the ideal time between washing, for best skin and hair health, was every five days.

That's a function of the clothing we wear now, or maybe specifically that used by NASA (which might be ultra-light). Our ancestors had few clothes and so didn't change or wash them often, but the fabrics were much more resistant. In the 19th C. the washing was done with long soaking in very alkaline & hot solution, and the fabrics had to resist that too.

BTW, that's my objection to the great majority of the recipes going around now for homemade laundry detergents: They call for far too much in the way of alkali -- and not even the best alkali for use with soap, either.

 

[Scooter]

BTW, that's my objection to the great majority of the recipes going around now for homemade laundry detergents: They call for far too much in the way of alkali -- and not even the best alkali for use with soap, either.

Do you have any links to recipes for homemade laundry soap that you like? Or suggestions on what makes the best homemade laundry detergent?

Thanks!

 

[dixiedragon]

I LOVE LOVE LOVE dorietta's shampoo bar and conditioner bar. My hair is down to about mid back. I wash it every other day, otherwise it gets too dry. I think her conditioner bar works better than my pricey store-bought conditioner.

 

[toxikon]

It is really interesting all the ways we get clean. I shower/bathe daily, but I only wash my hair every other day (sometimes I can stretch it to three by using a dry shampoo).

I've just recently started the Korean 10 step face washing method and have to say... my skin looks better than it has since I hit puberty even taking my wrinkles into account. It sounds exhausting, but really it doesn't take too long:
1. Cleanse with a light oil (this is fantastic for getting off makeup)
2. Cleanse with a light cleanser
3. Exfoliate (once or twice a week)
4. Refresher (kinda like a very mild toner without alcohol)
5. Essence (watery mild vitaminish liquid)
6. Serum/Ampule (strongish gooey stuff targeted at a particular concern like acne or firming or moisturizing)
7. Sheet Mask - I normally do it only at night and take this time to surf the interwebs (DH has gotten over his shock of seeing me wander around with gooey paper on my face)
8. Eye Cream
9. Moisturizer
10. SPF in morning, Thick "Sleep Mask" Moisturizer at night

In the morning it has added about 5 minutes to my routine... the ritual of it has finally got me wearing sunscreen which I really should always do but often neglected before. I have dermatitis on my face that get aggravated easily. My pine tar bars were keeping it under control, but I think my skin got used to it. Plus I was getting dry patches along with the crazy oil producing ones. My new routine has totally cleared that up for me - all my skin is acting like it belongs to the same person now.

Some of the products are ones I make, but the others are mainly Korean ones I've purchased. The cost of them is sooo much less even for good quality ingredients than regular US ones. And it has made me appreciate some of the weirder things (snail goo and bee venom, anyone?).

I'm a huge fan of Asian cosmetics and have definitely tried tons of Korean products and had a 10-step routine for about a year! Since then I've really cut it down to the essentials, as I felt most of the ampoules, serums and essences weren't doing a whole lot.

Have you tried the korean company CosRX? Absolutely wonderful products, and fragrance-free. I find a lot of Korean and Japanese products are heavily scented in floral-old-lady smells, bleck.

My current night-time routine is:

1. Rub dry skin with oil cleanser (Holika Holika) to remove grime and makeup

2. Rinse with water and wash with foaming cleanser (Cerave)

3. Apply anti-aging tretinoin prescription cream (Curology)

4. Apply heavy moisturizer (CosRX Ultimate Nourishing Rice Overnight Spa Mask)

5. Apply oil-based occlusive moisturizer (Stratia Liquid Gold)

I used to use Vitamin C serums and BHA/AHAs, but haven't felt the need with tretinoin. I've tried some venom products, honey products, snail creams, countless sheet masks... they were interesting, but didn't do much for me.

What are your favourites?

 

[kumudini]

Back in India in my childhood we used to wash our hair with soap nut tea and aritha tea. Lots of them still do it there. they are so cheap, you could buy 2 lbs for like 2 USD. plain soap nut tea is a bit drying but aritha is very conditioning.
We also routinely oil the hair few hours to a day before washing.

 

[Arimara]

I recently decided to follow the curly girl method, which involves not using any shampoo and only water soluble product. Essentially you wash with conditioner, using friction instead of sulfates to clean. I have found that my hair is most definitely curlier than I thought.

But is still shower daily and use my soap.

I still use shampoo from time to time but conditioner for curlies is a great way to go.

 

[snappyllama]

I'm a huge fan of Asian cosmetics and have definitely tried tons of Korean products and had a 10-step routine for about a year! Since then I've really cut it down to the essentials, as I felt most of the ampoules, serums and essences weren't doing a whole lot.

Have you tried the korean company CosRX? Absolutely wonderful products, and fragrance-free. I find a lot of Korean and Japanese products are heavily scented in floral-old-lady smells, bleck.

My current night-time routine is:

1. Rub dry skin with oil cleanser (Holika Holika) to remove grime and makeup

2. Rinse with water and wash with foaming cleanser (Cerave)

3. Apply anti-aging tretinoin prescription cream (Curology)

4. Apply heavy moisturizer (CosRX Ultimate Nourishing Rice Overnight Spa Mask)

5. Apply oil-based occlusive moisturizer (Stratia Liquid Gold)

I used to use Vitamin C serums and BHA/AHAs, but haven't felt the need with tretinoin. I've tried some venom products, honey products, snail creams, countless sheet masks... they were interesting, but didn't do much for me.

What are your favourites?

I've been using:

For Cleansing: Face Shop Rice Water Bright Cleansing Oil & Foam Cleanser - I'm really happy with both these. I'd been using Cetaphil forever, but absolutely love these instead.

Refresher: BENTON Snail Bee High Content Skin - I am in love with this. It doesn't feel like I'm punishing myself like old toners used to...

Essence: MISSHA Time Revolution First Treatment Essence - Another LOVE it product.

Daytime Serum: Be the Skin Botanical Pore Serum - this actually seems to cut down my oiliness during the day, but not a lot. I'm not sure this one was worth the money.

Nighttime Serum: Missha Time Revolution Night Repair Science Activator. I got a deal on this one and totally think it was worth the money. My skin felt tighter, plumper and less ruddy after using it (it came first so got incorporated into my previous skincare routine first)

Sheet masks: I don't really have a favorite yet, just working my way through variety packs. Any suggestions?

Moisturizers are ones I've made

SPF: COSRX Aloe Soothing Sun Cream - this is amazing. If I gave up everything else, I'd keep using this. It is nothing like the heavy, white, irritating face SPF products I've used before. It was the last thing I bought, but between it and your recommendation, I'm definitely going to take a look at other COSRX products.

 

[mx5inpenn]

I recently decided to follow the curly girl method, which involves not using any shampoo and only water soluble product. Essentially you wash with conditioner, using friction instead of sulfates to clean. I have found that my hair is most definitely curlier than I thought.

But is still shower daily and use my soap.

I never heard of this before, but I will be trying it soon! I have pretty darn curly have if I let it dry as it wants. Its shorter now, at a few inches past my shoulders, than it had been in at least 10 years because I got tired of having to mess with it. It was most of the way down my back when dry, wet added about 4 or 5 inches. I'm a wash and go kinda girl most of the time and the frizzies were really preventing that. Hoping this works well for me!

 

[Dr. Bob]

Do you have any links to recipes for homemade laundry soap that you like? Or suggestions on what makes the best homemade laundry detergent?

Soap based? Of course you should use the most grease-cutting soap you can, i.e. the highest feasible proportion of coconut, palm kernel, or babassu -- 100% would be best -- and no superfat, but also as close as feasible to 0 lye excess. And the product should be mostly soap. Extra alkali should be no more than 20% of the total weight.

As to the added alkali, lye is no good, and while washing soda and borax are not bad, you can do a lot better, particularly with sodium silicate. (Sodium silicate provided the "-sil" in Persil, and the rinse in Rinso.) I don't know what the optimum Na2O:SiO2 (alkalinity) of sodium silicate is, but it's in the middle somewhere. And with silicate you need even less than with carbonate or borate.

Phosphates are good too. Not trisodium phosphate -- too alkaline -- but lower alkalinity phosphates: tetrasodium pyrophosphate (OK as among alkali mentioned above), [penta]sodium tripolyphosphate (better), or sodium hexametaphosphate (soluble sodium metaphosphate glass). The latter two are of low enough alkalinity that you can use more than the 20% limit I stated above. Indeed, if the water is very hard, adding a phosphate builder (along with a pinch of silicate) is the only feasible way to go if soap is your only surfactant, and just increase the total amount you use per load. Deselex + borax can be used as a phosphate replacement.

Until fairly recently, the state of the art for soap-based laundry detergents was a silicate-built soap powder with also a small addition of a nonionic surfactant of the type used in Lestoil, Shaklee Basic H, or spermicide, as well as the lowest-sudsing soapless detergents -- ethoxylated alcohols or alkylphenols. The nonionic surfactant along with the silicate was to disperse lime soaps, preventing tattletale grey from use in hard water. However, since then there have been developed certain specialized surfactants -- one class I remember was of disulfonates -- that actually work together with soap in hard water to clean, and don't just deal with a byproduct of the soap.

But don't think you can get by with just tablespoonsful per machine load as suggested by some of the home recipes that are widely posted. Some of those recipes are so alkali-heavy that it's possible you may have to keep the amount you use per load that low just to minimize the amount of damage it does to fabrics, but it's doing hardly any cleaning then. Unfortunately if you're using soap, you need to use enough to get the water good & sudsy, and forget about using it in HE machines. The nonionic surfactants mentioned above, along with alkali, will reduce the suds a little, but maybe not enough to make HE washing with soap feasible.

 

[Scooter]

Soap based? Of course you should use the most grease-cutting soap you can, i.e. the highest feasible proportion of coconut, palm kernel, or babassu -- 100% would be best -- and no superfat, but also as close as feasible to 0 lye excess.

Thanks for that long informative post Dr. Bob. I think I will just keep buying my laundry detergent at Kroger's.

 

[Luviesmom]

I just hope people can wash! My husband took a desplaced Vietnam vet under his wing. He lives in a little shed. We gave him a gas heater for a Christmas gift. He has no hot water. To bath, he heats up water on his grill. Once a month, I invite him over for a meal and hot shower. Then, I become OCD about cleaning because my girls have long hair. I am petrified about lice.

They call him "uncle Art" , his name is Arthur. He looks likd Santa. He has no family. So, i invite him for dinner. Shower and dominos. He took over 30 mintues bathing last time. I know it wasn't always hot water, our tank is not that big.

I am all about being clean. It really makes me sad that some vet's have come to this.

 

[Millie]

I just hope people can wash! My husband took a desplaced Vietnam vet under his wing. He lives in a little shed. We gave him a gas heater for a Christmas gift. He has no hot water. To bath, he heats up water on his grill. Once a month, I invite him over for a meal and hot shower. Then, I become OCD about cleaning because my girls have long hair. I am petrified about lice.

They call him "uncle Art" , his name is Arthur. He looks likd Santa. He has no family. So, i invite him for dinner. Shower and dominos. He took over 30 mintues bathing last time. I know it wasn't always hot water, our tank is not that big.

I am all about being clean. It really makes me sad that some vet's have come to this.

Thank you for taking care of him! I know a couple people with homeless syndrome, one is a relative. It is nice to know that when they dissappear they might meet someone like you. If you have a washing machine in the house, clean laundry would be a wonderful thing too!

 

[Luviesmom]

Thank you for taking care of him! I know a couple people with homeless syndrome, one is a relative. It is nice to know that when they dissappear they might meet someone like you. If you have a washing machine in the house, clean laundry would be a wonderful thing too!

Yep, we wash his clothes when he visits. My husband tries to give him some of his sweat shirts he no longer wears. Art had this sweat shirt with holes and stains he refuses to get rid of, kinda of like Linus and his blanket. He is very set in his ways but even with having so little, he seems very happy.

 

[cherrycoke216]

Yep, we wash his clothes when he visits. My husband tries to give him some of his sweat shirts he no longer wears. Art had this sweat shirt with holes and stains he refuses to get rid of, kinda of like Linus and his blanket. He is very set in his ways but even with having so little, he seems very happy.

It's very nice and kind of you reaching out for him. PTSD and the economy really strike some hard.
And good to know he is still happy under the circumstances.