| Archive for langcafe2.myfreeforum.org Come in and have your daily cup of languages! |
| Porthos |
Do you bathe daily?I have read that the French, who have the highest consumption per capita, of cosmetic products, and shampoos, and perfumes, etc, also go without bathing on a daily basis. According to a survey, 47% of French people claimed they did not bathe everyday. That is a scary statistic. Could this really be accurate? |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
In American English, would 'bathing' include showering? I have a shower and wash my hair every day, but I almost never actually have a bath. (I don't swim either). | ||||||
| Porthos |
Why? Are you afraid of water? Lol. I'm like an amphibian. When I was a swimmer, I spent almost half my life in the water it seemed like. But by "bathing", I would mean showering, or washing, taking a bath, etc. |
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| Sander |
Baths, are considered to be quite negative here... lying in you own filth for half an hour isn't that hygienic.
I shower every day or 2, I wash my face every day. |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
My official line is that I can't swim. This isn't necessarily true, because I certainly used to be able to swim. But since I haven't been swimming since I was 10, I don't know whether or not I still can. There was no particular reason for not going swimming initially, it's just that I never got around to it (and I didn't really want to appear semi-naked in front of my parents after I was about 12 anyway). |
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| Deborah |
Re: Do you bathe daily?
Why is it scary? Was there a definition of "bathing"? If you keep the essentials clean, lots of people (e.g., those who don't sweat much) don't need to get their whole body washed off every day. In France they have bidets, even in campground washrooms. I think they have their priorities straight. |
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| Porthos |
Hah, try appearing in a speedo in front of your entire high school every saturday! Luckily, last year, we got to wear jammers instead of the thong speedo. |
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| Porthos |
See, I couldn't imagine not showering every day. Maybe Europeans don't see skipping showers as being unclean, but I sure do. | ||||||
| Deborah |
I don't. But it depends on the person and the circumstances. When I lived in North Carolinia, I tended to take at least 2 showers daily in the summer and sometimes as many as 5-6, mainly to keep cool. |
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| Sander |
I think Americans have some kind of compulsive hygienic disorder ... this obsession with bathing for example not mentioning circumsizing boys for the reasons above ... |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
Oh, I'm sure you enjoyed it really!  Anyway, why was your entire school present at the swimming pool every Saturday?
Although I perhaps have a certain 'addiction' to showers and hair-washing, I know plenty of people (especially older people) who would not have a shower/bath every day. Up until I was 13, I only really had a shower/bath about once a week. |
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| Deborah |
I agree. BTW, more parents in the US these days think twice about having their sons circumcized, and many opt for no circumcision. |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
Good!  *aaahhhhhh*
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| Deborah |
(Oops! I edited my post above while Benjamin was busy quoting it.) | ||||||
| Benjamin [inactive] |
Apparently, fewer than 1% of baby boys born in England and Wales these days are circumcised. Is it merely for hygiene reasons that so many American babies have it done, or is there some other sort of belief surrounding it? (i.e. do some large churches recommend it or something?) | ||||||
| Fredrik |
Firstly, this is a rather odd, perhaps even outrageous conversation topic, of the kind that could come up (with desastrouous consequences) in Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm", of which I am a devoted viewer.
Benjamin wrote:
Ah, the good old days. I too used to keep the proud Viking tradition of bathing every laugardagr = washing-day = Saturday in my childhood. (And In Viking times that was often, by the way. The Vikings were popular among English women, because they bathed once a week, and not once a year, as Anglo-Saxon males, the story goes.) Now I have become totally californicated with a shower every day, but try to be a bit Europeanly dirty sometimes and skip it the odd day...
But hey, no wonder Americans have to bathe so often, as they use shoes indoors! Ugh!  (BTW I hope those hydrophobic Frenchmen at least take off their shoes, indoors, or?)
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
Really? Wow, that's interesting. Do they not have carpet or something?
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| Porthos |
I thought the Japanese were the only ones who took their shoes off when indoors. Do most European take their shoes off before entering an indoor facility? | ||||||
| Benjamin [inactive] |
Well, whenever I enter my house, I immediately take my shoes off and leave them by the front door. Equally, I expect visitors who will be staying for more than a few hours to do the same, unless there are a lot of people around which might make removing shoes as bit inappropriate as they could get mixed up. I wasn't really paying attention at the time, but I seem to remember it being the same when I was staying with people in France and Germany earlier this year. Actually, I don't think that the Germans I was staying with even wore socks in the house (and their 18-year-old son didn't wear a shirt most of the time inside either). |
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| Deborah |
All of the people I stayed with or visited in Russia took their shoes off when they entered the house and put on slippers. They also provided slippers for guests.
On my trip to North Carolina last week I visited the home of one of my former dance teachers, who is Hungarian. His wife is Ukrainian, Slovak and Hungarian. They take their shoes off, but don't put on slippers. They also weren't strict about their guests taking off their shoes. I always take my shoes off at home, but only because I hate wearing shoes. |
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| Joanne |
Yes, I shower once or twice daily. I work in New York City. Going to bed smelling like it is not appealing! 
I don't really like it when people walk around my place without shoes on. Over time, body oil build-up ruins rugs and carpets.
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| greg in noord-frankrijk |
Funny topic. I wash at least once a day in winter and twice daily minimum in summer, have no bidet, almost never bathe at home since I only take showers and I love to swim and bathe at the pool or sea. I could never go out without prior washing... | ||||||
| fab |
I think that, since France is the European country with the highest rate of swimming pools, we can expect that it would be the country where people are having more baths... in the pool
More seriously, as a French, I obviously almost never bath. I don't think it is usefull when you take two showers a day. Take a bath is a comsumption of water, and is not very ecological to take a bath everyday.
In private indoors, houses or flat, people usually take off their shoes in France (at least at my own home). It can maybe depend of the people. But if there is a party I won't expect the people to do it. |
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| Deborah |
And it provides such a good opportunity to feel superior to others, because some people take a shower or 2 every day and other don't, or some people don't allow shoes in their homes while others track in God only know what, and so on. |
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| Akoni |
I take a shower every day, sometimes twice a day. and I take my shoes off when I'm familiar in someone's home, I hate shoes
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| Porthos |
Okay Benjamin, I don't see how you went a week without showering until you were 13! You must have really smelled. That is just disgusting. From my perspective, that is barbaric. But, I'm a really clean person. Europeans must really smell, if it it's not a regular habit to bathe daily, or at least every other day. If someone here did not shower on a daily basis, they would be thought low-class. I shower once a day. HOw do you not shower every day??? Think of that B.O. smell, and the layers of dead skin all over, and the greasy oil in your hair, ugghhh!!! Even when I used to swim everyday, I would shower once in the morning before school, have a quick rinse off after practice, and then come home at night and shower once more. | ||||||
| Porthos |
Well to be honest, I was actually kind of nervous, because if I didn't perform well, a whole crowd of my schoolmates would be watching. In America, most sports are part of school teams, unless you take club. So, large crowds from our school would turn out on the weekends to cheer us on. |
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| Fredrik |
No, were aren't offended, that's just hilarious! When shall Americans accept that it's OK for people to smell like people!? In Scandinavia you are always expected to take off your shoes in private homes and walk around in your socks, unless it's a formal party. It seems that applies to most of Europe, then, but Sander once said that the Dutch use shoes indoors. Joanne wrote:
Really? Here in Norway most carpet-owners would worry more about dog shit and mud from shoes than body oil. But the ideal Scandinavian home doesn't have much carpet. It's seen as unhygienic. |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
Well, I don't really see why I needed to have more showers then. I was a child, so I didn't really sweat or have greasy hair. I didn't (and still don't) do a lot of sport, and it isn't usually very hot here anyway. Even now, I still don't wear deodorant or antiperspirant, and I never have. It just isn't necessary for me, because I don't really sweat at all (although I have to go to the toilet about 16 times a day instead, lol — not sure if it's connected or not).
Well, I've never noticed it.
Unless you have cold showers, what a waste of energy (= money). I can understand having a shower in the morning and then showering after swimming... but why also at night? |
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| Porthos |
Dude, I don't want to know any more about your hygenic practices, or lack thereof. I only rinsed off in the showers in the locker room after practice, so I would come home and still have to shampoo and condition my hair in the shower. The pool can really dry out your hair, especially considering that my hair was indeed rather long. | ||||||
| Benjamin [inactive] |
Getting rid of your carpet has been the general trend here over the past decade or so as well. 10 years ago, every room in my house had carpet; now only about half the rooms do.
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| Porthos |
Yeah, because carpets retain a lot of dust and other impurities, which are not healthy for a home. | ||||||
| Benjamin [inactive] |
Having said that, I don't think that it's a good idea to try and be too clean. Actually, I believe that an environment which is too hygienic can make children more likely to get asthma, and can lower one's immune system in general. | ||||||
| Joanne |
Don't hold your breath... No, really, don't. It's not necessary with us soap-obsessed Americans.  
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| fab |
I think that odours are a realtive thing. When you go in a new place, or a new country, one of the first things that appears are the odours to which you are not used.
when I go to the USA, the first olfactive impression is the odour of the cooking oil for fast foods. I think most American are not bothered by this, while it would seem very bothering for other people. |
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| Joanne |
Americans say the world smells, the world says Americans are punching Gaia Earth Mother in the stomach and making Baby Oceanus cry with each shower we take.
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| Pauline |
The next time, that my father has some visitors in our house, I will tell them it's obligatory take off their shoes. LOL !!! 
But...after I've thought about it, maybe I won't
Here, it's more usual to wear your shoes when you're visiting someone in their house, but I wear slippers at home, and I think, that it's much better wearing different shoes inside your house that outside. |
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| Deborah |
Well, you've given us a clear idea of what happens to you when you don't shower every day. But bodies vary considerably, and some people really don't need to bathe every day or wash their hair every day to keep from offending the noses around them. |
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| Deborah |
In the '70s and '80s I knew a number of people here in SF who wouldn't let anyone into their apartments wearing shoes, but in most cases it was because they didn't want their nice hardwood floors to get scuffed up.
I'm inclined to agree with you. From a documentary about epidemics, I learned something interesting about the polio epidemics of the first half of the 20th century. This information is included in a Wikipedia article about polio:
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| Tiffany |
I'm American and I don't shower everyday. I only shower fully every other day - a full shower includes the washing of hair. I do however, take a quick wash everyday, especially for those "special" areas.
I am not very active in the daytime as I have a desk job, and only usually take long walks after dark, when it is cool, so there is no sweating involved. In the winter, I take more quick washes, as my hair does not get as oily as often. I don't see the point in washing it if it looks fine. If I have done something strenuous, I will of course take a full shower that day. I can't stand the stickiness of sweat and oil on my skin. Maybe this is because I naturally sweat less than other people I know. Strange fact: the first place I start sweating is the bridge of my nose. No one has ever complained about my B.O. and I honestly don't think I smell any different from any other American I've ever met. I don't use perfume, only deodorant. I am a fiend about washing my hands. Josh, I think you're being very judgemental. |
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| Deborah |
Like Tiffany, I've never had any complaints about the fact that I don't normally take a full shower every day. My skin is pretty dry and if I were to take a shower every day, I'd have to spend a lot of money on body lotion.
I should explain that when I said I used to take up to 6 showers a day in North Carolina in the summer, by "shower" I meant turning on the cold water and standing in it just long enough to rinse off the sweat and cool off a bit -- like a dip in the pool, only there was no pool. When the temperature's in the upper 90s F and the humidity's at 95% and you're dancing 3-6 hours a day and there's no air conditioning, you really need some relief. Sometimes I'd take another dip in the middle of the night. I knew a guy who felt that soap was bad for his skin. He made up for the lack of soap by showering more often and scrubbing his skin. He smelled just fine. |
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| Uriel |
I shower daily, and take a long hot bath as a special treat once a week or so. I can't go a day without showering -- I get stinky, and my hair gets really greasy. No, no, no -- must have soap! | ||||||
| Fredrik |
I wonder if Americans ought to devote something as typically American as an awareness week to body odour: Embrace your B.O and celebrate your smell!
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| Porthos |
Tiffany,
Oh no, I know a lot of people, especially women who don't wash their hair everyday, which is perfectly normal. In a lot of people, washing the hair daily can dry out the hair. I'm a guy, so I can wash my hair everyday. Also, I don't know if it's because of my age or what, but if I was to skip a day of showering, my hair would be very greasy. And I don't get dry skin from showering every day. The trick is to just use a moisturizing body wash like Olay or Aveeno. If you shower everyday, in the morning, it wakes you up, you feel and smell fresh and clean, and your whole body is revitalized. You smell very good, and your skin looks healthy. For most Americans, not showering on a regular basis is considered barbaric, like something from the Middle Ages. Almost everybody I know showers daily, wears deodorant, and cologne/perfume. |
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| Joanne |
  Well, someone better pay my astronomical dry cleaning bill at the end of that week, if I'm to participate in B.O. Awareness!
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| Deborah |
Moisturizing body washes don't do much of anything for my skin. Nothing but lotion with a lot of oil in it, after the shower, does the job. |
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| Uriel |
I've got oily skin, and the last thing it needs is a moisturizer of any kind. And that's living in a desert. When I went to humid Louisiana last Christmas, my skin immediately became coated with a thin layer of oil -- it was so disgusting! I would be bathing in alcohol every day if I had to live there!
I have long hair and it can still only go about a day and a half between shampooings -- then the roots get really greasy and it begins to not only feel gross, but look it as well. The ends of my hair will remain dry and clean, but my scalp itches so much that I just can't stand it -- into the shower! I have carpet all over my house, but I only take my shoes off if they are really caked with mud or dirt or stickers, or just feel like walking barefoot. I never worry about how dirty the carpet is getting. I have five dogs, for chrissake -- that carpet lost the battle a long time ago! (And you should be steam-cleaning them once a year anyway.) |
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| Loic |
I suppose I have waddled into a rather provocative discussion. I can bathe up to thrice a day and I have also spent 15 days in a row without having a drop of water on my body. | ||||||
| Fredrik |
loic:
Was that long dirty period in the army? I came to think of something: Could it be that Europeans are more likely than Americans to skip showers because they have to? I mean, a lot of Americans have really large houses with several bathrooms while many Europeans live more cramped, either in flats or terraced houses etc., with only one bathroom. And if a whole family is going to shower in one bathroom in the morning, it might not be possible. |
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| Porthos |
I think there's more to it than that Fredrik. My mother grew up in a home of 14 people, with only one full bath and one half bath, and yet everyone managed to shower everyday. | ||||||
| Uriel |
You give the kids a bath at night, and the parents shower in the morning. That's how it was in my house. There's always a way! And most ordinary houses in the US don't have more than two bathrooms, if that. Many make do with one. | ||||||
| Porthos |
Two of my great aunts had over twenty people in the house, and they only had two baths, yet they all managed to shower every day also. | ||||||
| Pauline |
LOL !!! this is like a joke and competition.
My aunts had over one hundred people in the house, not a bath just one shower but they all managed to have a bath five times every day each. *i'm joking* (probably you guessed)
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| Uriel |
That's nothing! We had to build a dam to divert the river into our front yard to clean all the people living in it!
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| Porthos |
In my family we have a man-made waterfall in the backyard, and we keep a fire engine hose in reserve for when we have guests, lol! The bubbles from the soap can be seen miles away from our house! | ||||||
| Pauline |
LOL !! Now I know, what were this bubbles from the soap I can see from here !!Your guests receive very *special* welcome then
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| Porthos |
LOL! Too funny, too funny. I just choked on my sandwhich Pauline! | ||||||
| Deborah |
Well, in my family, we managed to bathe the four of us daily, on only one cup of water a day! | ||||||
| Joanne |
Hell, tha' tain't nuffin'... My family had to walk 30 miles barefoot through blizzards and ice storms just to get our daily cup of wash water!
This is fun!
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| Deborah |
Why, back in my grandparents' day, they didn't even have water -- they had to smash their own hydrogen and oxygen atoms together!
(Sorry, I stole that one from one of the winners of the "Back in my day" contest that some newspaper or magazine held.) This seems like a good place to re-post a link that someone posted in the humor section -- "Four Yorkshiremen": http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo |
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| Pauline |
it's *impossible* find a more difficult or extreme method for get some water !!!!
But, my grand-parents walked to the saeside (about 300 km) and builded a pipeline to their garden. Then they invented a machine for take the sea to their garden via the pipeline, and then it was in another machine for extract the salt and general purification. Then this clean water went in the bath, and each one of the family (about one thousand people) had several baths every day. This pipeline for transport the water is now not anymore used, so this cause more water remain in the Atlantic ocean, and the sea-levels are getting too high, and all the world is worried about climate change. |
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| Fredrik |
Haha, I liked your in-the-good-old-days-during-the-war joke!
Having read about all the hot, spicy dishes on the national cuisine thread, I wonder: Perhaps personal hygiene has something to do with national cuisine? I mean, when I eat traditional Norwegian food, which ideally is spiced as little as possible (don't destroy good food with outlandish spices, hardcore Norwegians say) I don't smell at all (exept sour milk, perhaps), but as soon as I eat something exotic with garlic, chili etc. I smell really bad and feel the need to shower! Spicy foods just don't only give strong body odour, but downright nasty flatulence odour, I'd say! Add a hot, sweaty climate to that and you get disaster... aka California...? |
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| Uriel |
People do tend to smell like what they eat. But as far as flatulence goes, that may just be a personal thing...
Actually, what's happening to you is that your digestive system is being upset by you eating foods it is not accustomed to. If you were to eat those foods habitually, you would suffer far fewer side effects. I couldn't stand chile, for example, when I moved to NM, and here they put it on or in EVERYTHING. Omelettes. Hamburgers. Sushi. (No, I'm not kidding -- green chile and chicken, and it's called a Chicano roll.) Gradually I got used to it, and now I can dip my chips into pretty hot salsa, accept the burn, and go back for more. They say it releases endorphins by simulating pain (wow! there's a strange reason for eating something!), has antibacterial properties (germs can't take the heat, either!), and will definitely clear your sinuses if you have a cold or allergies. But basically, you just get used to it, and then it isn't so bad. You even learn to look for the bite, and complain if it's not there. California isn't really all that hot and sweaty, since it's very arid -- the air is dry. But you're right that spicy foods tend to be more popular closer to the equator -- Mexico, India, the more southerly parts of the far east. But then again, not many spice plants grow in the arctic.... |
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| Porthos |
The air in California is dry? Since when? Believe me, moving from Las Vegas to California requires the use of a different conditioner and a new hairstyle. That's how drastically different the humidity levels are. Costal California is usually about 70-80% humidity, while Vegas only has 5-15%. | ||||||
| Deborah |
Thank you, Pauline, for getting us away from exaggeration and back to the truth! | ||||||
| Deborah |
Something I like about sushi -- besides the great flavors -- is how it's been creatively adapted to different regions. (I wonder whether there's a Middle America roll, with white bread and mayonnaise...) |
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| Uriel |
A friend of mine turned me on to sashimi the other day -- heaven on a chopstick! Who knew raw fish could actually taste so good?
As for California's aridity -- I lived in Santa Clara and Chico, and both were much drier than the East Coast (and definitely much drier than Japan, where I had lived just prior). Granted, neither are on the coast, although SC counts as South Bay. |
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| Fredrik |
Hehe, I used to pride myself on my perfect digestion and had absolutely no compassion for people suffering from flatuelence....untill I lived one year in Germany! My digestive system is still recovering. |
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| Pauline |
LOL !!!
It's important to know - it will warn us to not eat german food
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| Walker |
You deserve a big hug, Deborah!
Well, generally I take a shower every day. I rarely take a bath but when I do I always have to take a shower afterwards because I'll be all warm and sweaty from the bath. I probably wouldn't have to take what Tiffany calls a "full shower" daily, though, but only every other day or so. From what I've heard it's better for your hair if you don't wash it every day. I know someone who only washes her hair once a week and it looks fine; it's matter of what your hair/scalp is used to. (Unless you live somewhere where's it's warm and humid, I guess) |
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| Fredrik |
Oh my God! Yesterday I had gone nine days without a shower! It wasn't just the awful stench that made me shower at last, but the fact that I dreamt about a shower in my dreams!
Interestingly, the broken-bladder sores between my toes healed when I didn't shower. Guess you are enough grossed out now...lol! |
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| Porthos |
Dude! How do you possibly do that? A person's stench at that point is enough to wake the dead! |
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| fab |
It seems that Americans heve the stereotype of french people not having baths. Actually that is quite true for most people, the last bath i've taken was about two years ago. I tend to think that shower are better, both for hygiene and for the water consumption. One bath a take would represent a too much consumption and doesn't seem very ecological to me. | ||||||
| Porthos |
No Fab, when we say "bathe", that applies to showering as well. I never take a bath in a bath tub. I always shower. But you do shower on a regular basis don't you? | ||||||
| Fredrik |
Why should he, when he lives in the homeland of perfume and the bidet?
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| Uriel |
You had blisters between your toes, Fredrik?
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| Fredrik |
Yeah, got them in Germany. Way to hot there! But they dissappeared when I used woollen socks for a week. | ||||||
| Loic |
Good. So they weren't foot rot or tinea pedis. | ||||||
| Uriel |
Athlete's foot usually causes cracks, not blisters. Sounds like you had an allergy or something, Fredrik -- although maybe that's just me being unable to imagine Germany as hot!
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