We have to brush our teeth twice a day or they rot, shower or we smell like shit, wash our face or we get blackheads etc.
In: Biology
It’s true what a lot of other people are saying, about how animals *would* have the same problems if they lived the same lives we did (and they *do* smell). But I’m also gonna throw out there that our bodies adjust to the amount of cleaning we do, in terms of the amount of oil, etc. we produce. The more you wash your hair, for example, the more oil your scalp produces because it’s constantly being stripped. Same with your face. Humans wash regularly because we are intelligent social creatures who exist in a culture that demonizes body odor and poor hygiene, not because our bodies naturally overproduce oil like that. They don’t.
400 years ago, people didn’t take baths more than once a week (probably month). And there are plenty of countries around the world that don’t have the infrastructure we do (such as running water) that also only bathe occasionally. Admittedly, they also probably have more rampant disease in those parts of the world, but there’s also more rampant disease in wild animals, going back to the original point that animals do have the same problems from not washing themselves as hygienically as we do.
This is actually one misperception intersecting with another.
Many animals actually spend a fair amount of their time, (more than modern humans,) grooming and cleaning themselves, but an animal licking themselves or preening their feathers for an hour isn’t compelling video.
Humans have unusual grooming and hygene rituals and expectations because of the way humans typically live and closely interact in fixed locations on a daily basis for long spans of time. Human tribes/groups that didn’t practice some kind of hygenic standard were at high risk for disease, and so over time most people became accustomed to almost obsessive erradication of any accumulated filth to the point where the skin and hair can become dry and damaged from overwashing, necessitating cosmetics and ointments to compensate.
Animals have these needs too. This is why many of them die younger than they have the potential to live. Domestic animals tend to live longer when kept clean and healthy by human technology for this reason.
Before people had discovered the necessity of hygiene was when lifespans were around 30 years old.
Like all animals, there is benefit to what we do otherwise we wouldn’t do it.
We brush our teeth to protect them which betters our quality of life. Domesticated animals like cats are fairly clean, tend to groom themselves and don’t stink, but they can’t clean their teeth and they often suffer from gum disease and end up losing teeth as a result even though they don’t consume refined sugars that make our teeth decay. So basically, cleaning teeth would benefit many species but only we have the conciousness and tools to do it religiously.
As for washing, like I say, other species do it too via different means because body odor is an important factor to socialization. For some animals, that can mean stinking helps with socialization or more accurately having a specific smell. That’s why cats like to groom themselves as opposed to allowing foreign smells on them because smell is important to their socialization and individual behaviors (they like to get their smell on their territory). For us, social constructs have become such that stinking is bad form and a barrier to human relationships. So basically, washing is a vital need to our survival in society because the continuity of our involvement with other humans is essential to our survival. And it’s also beneficial in prolonging our lives by preventing disease. To a certain limit ofc, as excessive grooming can cause issues for cats and humans alike. We can disrupt our natural mechanisms of defense like the vaginal microbiota which could lead to vaginosis and yeast infections.
Now for your last point, blackheads, they’re a result of clogged hair follicles with sebum and dead skin cells. They become black if the bump opens and the oil is exposed to oxygen. If you don’t wash your face, they would be natural and a mere side effect of having sebum and hair follicles (along with dead skin cells) on your face which are both there to protect your skin and health. Preventing them isn’t really vital because they aren’t lethal or too terrible. And you also get them no matter how hard you wash. But it’s terrible for socialization to have a greasy visibly unclean face, so we tend to wash our faces regularly for the same reasons we don’t like to stink.
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