Why did people start bathing every day?
In: Biology
Because you will smell if you don’t bathe regularly.
Don’t listen to the people who say “but I don’t smell and I only shower once a week.”
Yes, they do smell, they’re just used to it.
I wouldn’t say showering literally every day is necessary (unless you workout and start sweating), but every other day at minimum.
Furthermore, sex is much better when stuff doesn’t smell (for both sexes.)
I mean a lot of people don’t bathe every day. But I think that modern bathing practices evolved with modern plumbing practices. It didn’t used to be easy for people to get this much fresh water, especially into their homes. and in many places it is still very difficult or impossible for everyone to have access to indoor plumbing. People used to bathe much less often and share bath water, but now we have the ability to take a hot shower whenever we want, if we are lucky. Showering feels nice, and in places where they are available it is expected to be smelling good because you have the option to smell good. I think people started bathing everyday for the same reasons that you bathe every day. It’s expected that you be clean, and it’s pleasant to do.
You’d have to ask an historian to know the real reason, but I have a few thoughts, which are probably not entirely correct:
* [Less than 200 years ago](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3807775/) doctors didn’t wash their hands before delivering babies. Slowly we started understanding how **dirty** can mean **diseased**
* Body odor was accepted as part of life, similar to how we accept that cars emit smelly gasses.
* Not everyone was rich enough to have access to plenty of water. As more people get out of poverty, more people can wash daily.
* I think the Victorians started washing everything to differentiate from the poor.
* Advertising, baby. Mouthwash was a very recent invention for something nobody had a problem with.
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