Soap Dodger: Meet the Doctor Who Says We Have Been Showering Wrong

When James Hamblin tells people he has not used soap in the shower for five years, they tend not to hold back in expressing their disgust. It s one of the few remaining things for which we feel fine telling someone that they re gross, he says. It s amazing to me, honestly.

Yet despite people s clearly moralising judgments , Hamblin is no hygiene slouch. Even pre-pandemic, he made a point of washing his hands with soap. He is, after all, a doctor who lectures at the Yale School of Public Health and a medical writer and podcaster for the US magazine the Atlantic. At 37, he looks so youthful that he still gets compared to the fictional child doctor Doogie Howser.

via getpocket.com

Spoken clearly by a doc who has never lived dirty for any length of time. Like someone who has really been thirty or hungry, if you’ve ever had to be dirty for say, a week, you appreciate being clean. Other people seem to like it too. That doesn’t mean using weird chemicals, but soap is ok. Pretty much the same principle applies to deodorant.