Cleanliness and hygiene

I was from the era of an outside loo, tin bath in front of the fire once a week ( Saturday, so we were clean for church), with top n tail washes in between.
Nowadays I have a bath every two or three days, and wash thoroughly in between. My bath is tiny, and it uses no more water than taking a shower. However I am now struggling to get out of it, and I really miss it and the way it reaches parts nothing else can reach.
When I see the ads on TV for the charity Water Aid, I am sure we are extravagant here in this country.
We managed in camp, Guides, D of E etc for a couple of days, and I think we could well cut back a bit on showers, so I agree with the OP.

I was the youngest of 4 and bath night was Sunday. The bath was filled once and we went in age order, consequently I spent 10 years having cold, filthy baths. We then got a shower, but only allowed 3 minutes a week! My brother used to stink, I remember that, and I always had greasy hair as a young girl, but then so did a lot of kids at school.

Oh Sue DH and I both remember Detol baths and everyone else looks at us like we are making it up!

We are replacing our bath with a shower so will have 2 showers and no bath.

We WILL miss our bath. We enjoy our baths. If its there we will use it. But we have to think of the future and its a small sacrifice in the grand scheme of things.

And for future proofing for our aging selves, the wetroom will serve us better.

Lots of showers in our house. Have hormoney teens who would be picked on at school if they smelled and both DH and I feel we have to be clean for work.

But I only have a long hairwash shower about twice a week. My morning showers are barely more than a strip wash and take only a few mins.

BlueBelle
Nothing wrong with my thought processes, thanks very much

Did anyone else's mum put Dettol into their baths? I've just remembered that my mum used to put a capful of Dettol into our bath water. The way it turned white fascinated me. I don't know if mum thought we were germ-ridden, or what. I suppose most children are unhygienic, really.

How strange that you couldn’t put a dirty pair of knickers in your washing machine sparklefizz isn’t that what washing machines are for ? Did you think the water and soap powder would leave her knickers dirty to contaminate all your clean washing
I just found that an incredibly strange thought process ? that anything can be too dirty to wash in a washing machine the water is constantly emptied out and new water coming in

In the uk we bath/shower and water gardens with water of high drinking standard whereas in lots of countries drinking water comes in bottles and tap water is only fit for bathing/gardening etc.

Some of those dry places have underground water sources , not sure of that , but I seem to remember that from geography lessons 70 years ago

We wouldn’t have any possibility of a shortage of water if more rainfall was collected and if the water companies paid more attention to their pipe systems.
Look at places like Greece where rainfall is nowhere near the levels of Britain.

Why does anyone think water is “free” ? It isn’t possible to use water straight from the sky .... or the river , it has to be cleaned and bugs removed , it has to be stored for dry spells so use it wisely

My mum has always been a cleanliness-is-next-to-godliness person so we bathed more than once a week in childhood and strip-washed in between. Once I had my own home, I gloried in the ability to have a daily bath.

Lack of water is not a concern for me in Scotland - the fields opposite my house are currently flooded! - so it's daily baths for us. I don't like a shower except occasionally. I've recently been on holiday and after weeks of only having showers, felt that I wasn't properly clean and I was whiffy. I luxuriated in the bath when I got home!

On the other hand, when I had a bad leg fracture I wasn't able to bath or shower for three weeks yet I didn't end up at all smelly. I managed with a combination of wipes, washing and our bidet. I do now regret getting rid of our bidet when we had the bathroom redone, though.

Overall, I think maybe some people are getting a bit smellier. I quite often notice unpleasant stale urine-type whiffs when I'm in town, of the kind I'd previously only associated with old-style geriatric hospitals.

When we were kids there was no water in the house, it was a pump in the yard, heated in a copper boiler in the kitchen, bath was the old tin bath in front of the fire in the parlour, kids first then mum and dad on a Sunday night. Otherwise it was hands and face at the kitchen sink ( the only sink).

Happy days!

I can think of three places I've worked where someone stunk the premises out. One was a young man and we think it was his trousers, so we spoke to the manager and he had to tell him to change them! Second was someone who had a foot problem and the whole floor smelt awful. There were people working in the same room as him but I would not be able to, I would have vomited. Then there was a woman at another place who just smelt like an old tramp who hadn't washed for months. Luckily she didn't work there, she was just visiting for a while. I really can't be in the same room as people like that, it makes me feel queasy.

Sparklefizz your post brought back memories.
My younger sister had a french exchange student to stay. I'd left home by then but remember Mum telling me about the state of the girl's knickers. Which permanently coloured Mum's attitude to french people.

I also remember the Sunday night bath and hairwash routine, the daily strip/sink wash, I think it was when I went to high school I started more or less bathing every other day and hairwashing.

Now its a daily shower and every other day hairwashing, I dread to think what my daughter's bills are like, she has a hot bath everyday, but the kids have daily showers.

BlueSky
the French girl might have hand washed her knickers not wanting to put such an intimate item in your washing basket..

As I said, they were "stiff and crispy" - I should have added that they were also stained and stank! (but bless you for giving her the benefit of the doubt!)

Sparklefizz the French girl might have hand washed her knickers not wanting to put such an intimate item in your washing basket...

Sunday night was always Amami ? night. Strip washes at the wash basin in the mornings and faces washed and teeth brushed each night.
Now it's a shower every other day and a strip wash on the non-shower days. I'd be mortified if I ever smelled a smell on myself such as you do with many-----who could have urinary problems or are just plain lazy and unclean.

I can't stand by anyone who smells in case people think it's me and I've been known to wander to the back of a bus queue for that very reason. I think this stems from working on the wards when I could smell " everyone " on my clothes.

If nothing else my body has to be clean as I unfortunately never know when I have one of my A/fib " turns " and get whizzed to hospital, so cleanliness is imperative.

When my daughter was a teenager, we had her French Exchange student to stay for a fortnight. She only had the one pair of knickers for the whole fortnight. I had explained about putting her clothes in the washing basket and she was happy to put in her T shirts etc. When I noticed no knickers going in, I crept into the room when she was asleep and found them on the floor and they were "stiff and crispy". Yuk!

I didn't want to put them in the machine with our family things so soaked them in disinfectant and then handwashed them and tumble dried them ready for the morning.

She was a doctor's daughter but a stranger to hygiene.

I can’t remember how often I had a bath when I was a child in the 1940s/50s, but it certainly wasn’t every day, though it was more frequent than once a week. Good washes in between. I would guess twice or three times a week. I started to have daily baths in my early twenties when I had my own place.

Now I can no longer manage to get in and out of a bath, and the place I have moved to only has a shower (a very good one). I have a shower every other day, sometimes every third day. My skin is too dry now to have one every day. I wash my hair every other day, but not in the shower.

All the same, I felt cleaner after a bath than a shower. I don’t like not being able to immerse myself. (I always rinsed myself with a hand-held shower after a bath.)

As for how long it takes - my baths took ten minutes at most. You can do other things while it’s running. Get in, soap all over, rinse, get out. Simple. A shower seems more complicated to me, but perhaps that’s because I’m older.

When I've been in hospital, I've noticed getting patients washed or showered every day is a priority, and I assume this is part of infection control protocol. However, I'm unlikely to catch a serious infection at home (I hope!)

We had no shower when I was growing up, and a bath was a big deal as our hot tap ran very slowly and the bath cooled the water down as it went into the bath! So one or two baths per family member per week was the norm. I also had a quick wash every morning in the bath, using a small amount of hot water. Hair washes were in the sink and were separate from baths.

I currently suffer from fatigue, and for some reason having a shower can leave me exhausted, so sometimes I leave a day between showers. I always have a shower if someone else has to get close to me, such as a medical appointment, or if I'm going to a group.

We bathed on Friday night, using the same water for the whole family. My Nan would fill the bath then add soda and disinfectant. We Slept in our underwear under our pyjamas only changed it on Fridays too. We did have clean socks everyday though.

I Remember going to stay at my Aunties for a few days and she asked me where my knickers were. I said I was wearing them. On my return this was mentioned and my mother pretended she had forgotten to pack them.

Mumsyface
There is a mass of evidence out there to show that this country will be in serious trouble in the not too distant future if we carry on as we are.

Honestly thought everyone had a daily shower. Had a new bathroom put in 5 years ago and never had a bath yet in it. A shower is so much quicker, easier and less water used. Would feel a real mucky pup if I didn't and DH would as well. We are on a water meter so turn off for hair wash and applied soap/shower gel.
Once worked with a young girl who had the most terrible BO and that has always stuck in my mind.
But as a child only a bath once a week with myself and two sisters in and top and tail in the week.