Hygiene issues...what exactly is the problem?

Post Reply New Topic

I like water. I shower once or twice a day, it is soothing. If I get very upset and am sobbing and can, I might shower to stop. I actually WANT to wash/rinse the world off when people are too much, which isn't unusual.

However, because I'm showering once or twice a day, I wouldn't use soap and shampoo both times on most of me, too drying to use all the time. And I hate perfume smells, have to buy un scented.

I read once that showering before bed helps gets pollen and dust out of your hair, which is good if allergies are a problem. I do breathe better at night if I've rinsed my hair when I've been around dust or if there is a lot of pollen around.

My hygiene habits have altered and fluctuated several times over the course of my life so far. I've been through phases where my upkeep was poor and other phases where my upkeep became excellent and even part of my routine I cling to.

When I was a child I was so reluctant to wash regularly that my mother had to bribe me with after-bathing treats or something nicer than usual for supper, stuff like that. I believe I also didn't brush my teeth for literally a couple of years...thank god they were my baby teeth and no harm was done to the adult teeth coming in. I think once I got my adult teeth I myself "woke up" about taking care of them better, and began to brush regularly then.

I think it was around the age of 11 or 12 that I realized I probably smelled a bit more if I didn't wash more regularly, so I started bathing a bit more diligently. But it still wasn't until I was in my mid twenties that I showered almost daily.

When I moved to a Sunbelt State where it could get to 90 and 100 for most of the summer months, and humid too, that was when I started showering every single morning of my life without exception. Because even with AC, just being outside briefly could make you pour with sweat -- and that was standing still in the shade!

I do think that if you live in a very hot place, even if you duck in and out of air conditioning as much as you can, it's hard not get exposed to heat and humidity and wind up with a very sweaty body whose sweat is starting to smell as the microbes "decay" on your skin, so this is one reason why some people do find it necessary to shower every single day, either before bed or first thing in the morning. Honestly, I had poor air conditioning in my little apartment and I DID need to shower daily at this location in my life.

So it became necessary if I didn't want to be and feel and smell gross to myself and to others. It became part of the routine I couldn't contemplate living without. I washed my hair every other day separately (I've always kept it fairly long, and the shower can be too hot and drying for the longer hair that has to be around for years as compared to short hair that is constantly being cut off and renewed), so I wash my hair separately in cool water in the sink).

When I became stressed and depressed, my hygiene habits started to slip badly and I missed days of showering. This continued when I moved to a colder place -- but then, because it was cold all the time, it didn't matter so much as I wasn't ever getting that sweaty anymore.

I now shower maybe once every three days (still living in the cooler location) but in-between showers on a daily basis I use baby wet-wipes to maintain cleanliness in the "intimate" places that can become more offensive more quickly than the rest of your body's skin surface generally.

I now wash my hair only once a week, because the older I got, the less oil my scalp produced, and my hair really doesn't need the washing as often; it stays good for days after a wash -- but that's more a function of middle-age loss of hormones which cause you oily skin and hair when you are younger.

If I'm not going to be around any people for days or a whole weekend, and just stay at home, I don't bother with hygiene much at all, because I live alone and it's only me! Who cares.

But when I know I'm going to be in physical proximity to people, my own pride forces me to be better about it. I don't want to smell bad and be judged for it, life's hard enough when dealing with people.

I do think that part of my difficulties and reluctance about keeping up regular hygiene is certainly to do with executive functioning. I can't drag myself into it if I've lost the "routine" aspect of it.

.

I didn't shower very often as a kid--once a week until I was 13.

Nowadays, I shower every day, and shave every 2 days. I wash my hair every day. I use deodorant.

If I don't wash my hair for 3 straight days, my hair begins to acquire a vaguely Rasta look (I'm a Caucasian with straight hair)

If I don't shower every day, my eyes acquire a sting. When I'm watching TV, the sting is quite irritating. A shower cures that.

I am the same, OP. I hate showering and don't see the need to shower daily unless you do something that causes you to stink. I think the reason I hate it is because it feels like a big chore and also because I hate the time period afterward where you're drying off and you're sort of damp. It just feels awful to me.

My family teases me about my habits sometimes, but my mom is mostly surprised by the fact that I "always smell good" even though I don't shower that often. I only shower when I start to smell, or the night before I have something important to do, like go to the doctor or visit my extended family.

my hair gets greasy after just a few hours, so if I did not wash it every day it would be stringy/greasy. keeping it in a ponytail disguises this somewhat. and if I didn't shave every two days, the whiskers become painful to shave off when they exceed 1/16th" in length [the razor pulls].

Reasons I am not as hygienic as I probably should be:

1. It may sound strange but I genuinely don't understand how bathing works and how you should properly go about keeping clean. When I am standing in the shower I am not sure what it is achieving. I don't understand what soap does. Maybe I should read about it. Also, how do smells work. If you can smell yourself can other people smell you too? These are all questions that mystify me.
2. I have a narcissistic hatred of other people and genuinely don't care what they think about me.
3. I live in a shared house and want to avoid walking through the house. Otherwise I might bump into my housemates and have to talk to them.
4. Being unable to follow any kind of routine while caught up in obsessions.

I don't go out of the house much so I don't think it matters. I have dry hair and a dry scalp so my hair pretty much never gets oily. I take a while to start smelling because I don't do much so unless it's really hot out I don't get sweaty and dirty.

I bathe every 2-4 days and I wash my hair every two days. I have sensitive skin.

Nice to see all the posts and learn that I'm not alone in this. I'm still however not sure what autism and hygiene have to do with each other. I don't know whether it's a sensory issue or an executive function issue or something else entirely. Oh and to a couple of you -- yes, my mother is a clean freak. She normally bathes twice a day -- before bed, and then again when she gets up (how she gets dirty enough in her sleep to bathe I don't know...and no -- she's not having sex). She has been known to take as many as four baths in a day.

A couple of things that some of you mentioned that I didn't --

Hairwashing -- I have very wavy, long hair (middle of my back or so) that NEEDS a certain amount of ick in it to keep it under control. As a matter of fact, the dirtier my hair gets, the better it looks. The grease seems to calm the frizz. So I don't wash it very often. I am actually in need of washing it more often because I have flake/dandruff issues. I think more washing would loosen the flakes and make my hair healthier.

Shaving -- I stopped shaving my legs a few years ago. I always hated it, because my legs itch HORRIBLY when the hair is growing back. It doesn't matter what kind of moisturizer I use, or how often I shave. The itching is so bad that I will claw myself until I bleed. Then I met a guy (online) who liked his women "au naturel". I stopped shaving completely with the idea that he and I would get together and I would never have to worry about it again. Well...that hasn't happened, and is starting to look like it isn't going to. So I'm going to have to shave now, and I'm putting it off. It doesn't bother me...why should it bother anyone else? The hair is soft, not wiry and doesn't look bad to me. But people have become culturally conditioned to expect a woman to have freshly-shaven legs (pubes too, apparently these days. But that's where I draw the line.)

ASIDE: Did you know that women have only been shaving their legs since the 1920s? And the idea of it was started by a razor blade company! They suggested to women that they would be more attractive in the new, shorter skirts if their legs were smooth and hairless. So here we have yet another example of people getting sucked into behavior by a marketing ploy.

Soap works by stripping off your outer layer of dead skin - the dirt and germs are located on that outer layer, so if you strip it off, the dirt and germs go too.

Webalina: I agree, shaving legs is ridiculous, and the only reason I do it in the summer is because I'm afraid of people looking at me weirdly or calling me out on it.

I can usually go 2-3 days without shampooing before my head starts to get super itchy with dandruff. At some point I'd like to try going without shampooing for a lot longer, I've read some comments that it can be really good for hair. Basically it is gross for a week or two, but then your body adapts and starts producing less oil. Theoretically shampooing frequently makes our scalp produce a lot more oil than it should to make up for how much the shampoo dries out the scalp. But then of course more oil makes us shampoo more frequently, which exacerbates the problem.

I always wash at the local lake, showers are overrated

I quit shaving completely and I'm never doing it again. I even sometimes wear shorts in the summer too, not women's shorts though, knee length man shorts.

Because I have dark hair when I was younger it showed up on my arms and legs then of course I got bullied for it, when it was hot I tried not to take my jumper off as I was scared that I was going to be picked on, as an adult I shave both my arms and legs even in the winter I have noticed shaving has slowed the growth down, I just wish I was able to shave when I was in primary school.
Would've saved a lot of Humiliation at school.

Executive function and sensory issues probably both play a role in autists' hygiene issues. It sounds like some people have a routine that they follow that helps them overcome their sensory issues.

I shower for other people. If I don't intend to go out, I usually don't shower. I'm trying to get a steam shower for my house, though, and if I do I will be the cleanest person in town! There's just no clean like a steam room clean.

I tried that for about 6 months. It was an interesting experiment. My hair was okay, but it always looked a little bit greasy except for the day after I water-washed my hair, and it felt hot all of the time. It completely got rid of my dandruff after a few weeks, which was nice. I could have continued, but I decided to start using shampoo again because it didn't quite work well enough for me. However, when I went back to shampoo, I started using a shampoo that doesn't strip all of your oils and I use vinegar diluted in water for conditioner. That routine works great. The water only method works really well for some people though, so it might be worth trying since you're interested. It wasn't nearly as bad as I kind of expected.

I take bath once a week. I use deodorant, wash my face every day. Every time after bath, I am starting to cough badly, it goes away if I am dry. I brush my teeth because I am forced to, it is only so on school days. It is very common that I do not wash my teeth for months, unless I am told to. So I think that I am not that good with hygiene.