3. Brushing Your Teeth in the Shower Is Basically the Same as Using the Sink
Clarkson revealed she has another double-tasking hygiene habit. “I don’t regularly brush my teeth in the shower,” she said. “I just do it if I’m in a hurry.” She added: “I do happen to be in a hurry a lot.”
Keeping a toothbrush in the shower for emergency situations may seem like a time-saving option. But it’s not a good idea, says Garshick. “The shower is a moist environment where bacterial overgrowth can occur,” she explains.
If you are going to brush your teeth in the shower, however, timing is key. “It’s important to do so before cleansing your body,” says Garshick. “That way the soap or cleanser will help rinse away any toothpaste residue.”
4. You Don’t Need to Bathe if You Don’t See Dirt
The actors Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis stirred up a little controversy when they revealed that bathing isn’t a part of their family’s daily schedule. During a July 2021 appearance on Dax Shepard and Monica Padman’s podcast Armchair Expert, the celebrity couple divulged that they bathe only when absolutely necessary.
“Here’s the thing — if you can see the dirt on ’em, clean ’em. Otherwise, there’s no point,” Kutcher said about when they opt to give their kids a bath. As for Kunis herself, she says she doesn’t wash her whole body with soap every day, “but I wash pits and tits and holes and soles.” Her husband joked that he washes his “armpits and my crotch daily, and nothing else ever.”
Shepard, also an actor, agreed with the couple. “You should not be getting rid of all the natural oil on your skin with a bar of soap every day,” he said on the podcast. “It’s insane.” In an August 2021 episode of The View, he and his wife, actor Kristen Bell, said that bath time isn’t a priority for their kiddos, either, saying it’s sometimes an afterthought. “Yeah, we forget,” Bell said on the show.
The celebrity couples aren’t wrong when it comes to this hygiene habit, says Darren P. Mareiniss, MD, the chairman of the department of emergency medicine at RWJBH Trinitas Regional Medical Center in Elizabeth, New Jersey. “Daily showers can dry your skin, and antibacterial soap can kill normal skin flora,” he explains.
That said, daily showers are not a real cause for concern or a health hazard, notes Dr. Mareiniss.
In some cases, though, skipping showers may be a bad idea. Richard Antaya, MD, the director of pediatric dermatology at Yale Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, says a daily shower can be beneficial for those with certain skin disorders, such as atopic dermatitis, the most common form of eczema.
In people without eczema, Mareiniss points out that failing to shower adequately can result in body odor and fungal and bacterial infections. “However, it is not necessary to shower every day unless you are particularly dirty or grimy.” Showering several times a week is usually adequate to ensure proper hygiene.
5. You Need to Use Q-tips to Clean Your Ears
Q-tips cotton swabs were invented in 1923, when the company’s founder, Leo Gerstenzang, observed his wife adding wads of cotton to toothpicks to clean out their baby’s ear. But the company no longer formally endorses them for hygienic purposes.
Douglas M. Hildrew, MD, an otolaryngologist and an assistant professor of surgery at Yale Medicine, confirms that sticking Q-tips in your ears to clean them is unnecessary — and potentially unsafe.
“The ear canal is designed to be a self-cleaning structure. While the ear is constantly making wax and shedding dead skin cells, it is also designed with a natural migration pattern that pushes any excess buildup out of the ear canal,” Dr. Hildrew explains.
Additionally, earwax has antimicrobial properties that destroy bacteria before they can create an infection and works as a moisturizer for the ear canal, says Hildrew.
Not only are Q-tips unnecessary to clean your ears — they can cause damage. “The combination of thin skin lying right on top of hard bone makes the skin quite vulnerable to tearing if poked at with a Q-tip, paper clip, or hairpin. Small tears in the skin can lead to bleeding and painful infections,” Hildrew explains.
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