Celebrities keep telling us too much about their shower habits (or lack thereof), and honestly, what have we done to deserve this absolutely exhausting and gross discourse?
This discourse began with a podcast, as most things do.
Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher were on Dax Shepard and Monica Padman’s Armchair Expert podcast, and the conversation came up about washing their children. Kunis and Kutcher have two children together, and they mentioned that they don’t believe in bathing their kids with soap every day. This became a topic where Padman became the long shower hero, as the other said that they “should not be getting rid of the natural oil on your skin with a bar of soap every day.”
“I can’t believe I am in the minority here of washing my whole body in the shower. Who taught you to not wash?” Padman asked.
Kunis then explained: “I didn’t have hot water growing up as a child, so I didn’t shower much anyway.”
She continued, “But when I had children, I also didn’t wash them every day. I wasn’t that parent that bathed my newborns — ever.”
Shepard said that he and his wife Kristen Bell used to bathe their daughters every day but then stopped as they got older. Their daughters are eight and six years old.
Alright, to be totally fair, when it comes to washing babies and newborns, according to some sources at the Mayo Clinic: “There’s no need to give your newborn a bath every day. Three times a week might be enough until your baby becomes more mobile. Bathing your baby too much can dry out his or her skin. If you’re quick and thorough with diaper changes and burp cloths, you’re already cleaning the parts that need attention — the face, neck and diaper area.”
But that doesn’t need to extend into adulthood.
Kunis and Kutcher both said that they refrain from using soap on their entire bodies every day.
“I wash my armpits and my crotch daily, and nothing else ever,” Kutcher said. “I got a bar of Lever 2000 that delivers every time. Nothing else.”
Kunis said, “I do wash my face twice a day.”
They are sadly not alone. In Vanity Fair, certified thirst trap Jake Gyllenhaal was asked if there was anything “revelatory” about his shower ritual.
I always am baffled that loofahs come from nature. They feel like they’ve been made in a factory but, in fact, it’s just not true. Since I was young, it’s amazed me. More and more I find bathing to be less necessary, at times. I do believe, because Elvis Costello is wonderful, that good manners and bad breath get you nowhere. So I do that. But I do also think that there’s a whole world of not bathing that is also really helpful for skin maintenance, and we naturally clean ourselves.
Goddess protect me. Bad enough I have to hear my long-term crush Mila Kunis say this, but Jake? I trusted you.
Yes, there are parts of the body that are better at self-regulating in general. For example, for people with vaginas, if you are healthy, usually, your natural PH balance handles most things down there, so you don’t need to add anything besides water. Yes, there are soaps that do strip the body of healthy oils, but there are also plenty of organic soaps that are around to limit that.
Splashing water on armpits hasn’t been enough for me since puberty. Can’t recommend it.
Thankfully, a hero has come along. Chris Evans showers.
Chris Evans: “I shower all the time!” pic.twitter.com/7nG3glPZuE
— Chris Evans Updates (@updatevans) August 6, 2021
Captain America is still worthy.
Look, Mila Kunis is gorgeous, and I’m a troll beast, so clearly, she is doing something right—I just don’t think we need to hear about these things. Makeup tutorials only.
(image: Christopher Polk/Getty Images for Kershaw’s Challenge; Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Baby2Baby; Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images for Palo Alto Networks)
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