Personal care products disrupt the human oxidation field

My skin care routine is "I showered in some not-so-distant past" and sunscreen. You hit diminishing returns very quickly. Showering more than once a week has no health benefits, it's just so that other citizens of your overcrowded city wouldn't complain about your natural smell.

Not showering for a week means I have a headache all day. So evidently not everyone is doing it for someone else.

Somebody needs to touch grass

But what about dating? The nether regions should be washed in anticipation for certain activities. There are no diminishing returns for that.

Just date people who’ve had a bad case of COVID. Problem solved!

some of us exercise, and have oily skin, and break out with acne if we don’t shower right away.

some of us live in hot climates where a cold shower genuinely feels amazing and cools the body down.

some of us enjoy showering daily, because the bed sheets get less dirty that way, which means less laundry to do, and reduces my stress.

some of us are married to a lady and want a happy home life (lol).

a sample size of 1 (you) does not mean it’s true for everyone. Just saying. :)

That doesn't sound normal? Why would you get headaches from not showering? Never heard of such a thing.

I worked with someone with your mindset and he smelled horrible in the office to the point where HR had to step in and talk to him about hygiene.

All you need is a modest trauma to the nose in right direction. Bones shifting a bit will cut forever hair-like nerves going from your nose sensors back to brain, effectively making you lose the sense of smell. When asked some doctor friends they confirmed harm is permanent.

Could be muscle tension or something helped by the warm water

Ok, so dont shower, and punch my date in the nose. Got it!

It's not terribly uncommon. My wife also has it. It's also related to the length of my hair, where longer hair is significantly worse. Presumably it's the oil build up as my hair is extremely oily and fine.

edit: I am fully aware that not washing leads to less oil build up over time, but I have tried and doctors have tried and that boat has sailed.

I'd imagine a hair wash in the sink also does the job when in a hurry then? Do dry shampoos work too, or does it need a wet wash?

Sir this is HN. Nobody is dating.

Also sex is a different thing from dating.

Your returns are nowhere close to diminishing, even for people with close to no physical activity or sweating, people can tell if you haven't showered for a week.

I honestly think that this is actually valuable insight. It's important to distinguish things we do just to fit into the society from things we truly want to do. I'm not saying we never should do the former, we obviously should, but I think it's worth it to be aware of the choice. Most people just follow mindlessly the current social trends "because everyone does it".

When you realize that through most of human history people married because of teenage sex drive or economic necessity rather than emotionally mature relationships, then the whole dating thing loses its appeal really fast.

Also, the smell of sweat of someone attractive turns me on really hard.

> Babe I love it how you naturally smell

> That's great but I just bought a new generic cherry shampoo

A conversation I’ve had with several people is: do you want to be right or do you want to get shit done? I dabbled in management for a bit, and spending time figuring out how different people communicated, how to hear and speak to them, and what their motivations were meant I could build a team out of anyone. Same here - yes, it’s all an ape dance, but we’re all apes, and if you know the dance moves, it’s a whole lot easier to move through the tribe.

I want to be right, but I need to get shit done. I take part in the social dance to the minimum degree that gives me what I need. Regarding the rest of my time, I spend it looking for people with whom I can be right. That feels way more pleasant than the social dance.

One thing I’d say about this is that other people will have perspectives that you do not that can help you be more right if you can hear it from them. You’ve got one life, one set of experiences, one brain, and the same 24 hours in the day as everyone else. Leverage other people - even if they’re not “right”, they can help you be less wrong.

Yes, washing the hair in any capacity works. Unsure about dry shampoo.

> Showering more than once a week has no health benefits

> I want to be right

Ok, well, this is only right if you don't benefit from others not being viscerally disgusted by being near you. This is almost never actually the case for anyone. Social benefit is also a health benefit.

That's true but it's just difficult to find people whose perspectives are valuable. At some point I decided to be more approachable in order to have more friends. While the skills I gained from that are useful, I also discovered that most people are just not worth my time and energy.

Having said that, I absolutely love the moments when I'm talking to someone and the other person tells me something that is indeed valuable. That's why I do put effort into maintaining friendships with people who aren't NPCs.

People don't bathe because everyone does it. People bathe because not bathing leads to personal loss from ostracization due to unpleasant odor. There's a huge difference. Calling it mindlessly following a social trend is weirdly misguided and not well thought through. You might have more to learn from the people you mindlessly call NPCs than you think.

It’s a mistake to consider other people as something other than autonomous agents in their own lives - it’s popular to conceive of other people as somehow not making decisions; frequently this indicates they’re making decisions by different criteria and using different information than you. This is what I mean about perspectives you don’t have access to - I won’t say there aren’t people who fundamentally are not making real decisions in their lives, but that’s fairly rare, and if someone’s making choices that don’t make sense to you, there’s often a reason you don’t see. Again, you may make different choices than them, but actually truly understanding why they make the choices that they do - to the degree that you can understand and describe to someone else their worldview, constraints, and goals - improves your understanding of the world and your ability to accurately model, predict, and explain it.

COVID would be better because the sense of taste is also affected.

I see, that's interesting. Initially sounded like a hair weight issue, so by wet washing it you remove enough sebum to not drag on your scalp too hard. But I'm not sure it adds enough weight for it to do that.

I wonder that over time your scalp produces enough of some chemical to give you a headache, and so you need to rinse it away before that happens? Especially since you mention that any wet wash helps, so the chemicals in the shampoo aren't actually relevant for it. Interesting issue though, don't envy you.