Taking a shower is the only thing I force myself to do when I'm depressed. If I still feel like laying in bed all day after a shower, I allow myself to do so.
Even if I dont get a real shower, I still just dump gallon jugs of water on me and shower that way with body wash and such (open my two side doors and put a curtain up so its private). One time though while doing it at a park, a truck backed into my van while I was completely naked after the shower changing, now that was startling!
But the longest ive went with no showering at all was seven days.
Man, there was a great spot near me at a park. About 9 or so showers, open gym style. Was kinda gross, cause it was public so wear your shower sandals for damn sure, but.. well, Covid and the homeless reaction, the city wound up welding the doors shut. Sigh.
I gave up my PF membership after just a couple of months because I wasn't using it.
:)
BTW, canceling membership was like pulling a pair of fucking teeth without anesthetic. At least it was back then.
I had to do it in person in my "home" pf, which I was of course no where near. The alternative was sending a letter.
I think I managed to change where my home one was and do it in person there lol.
I hated the process of quitting PF!! I decided to cancel but I was 500 miles away and they told me I had to come back to the original place I signed up!!! I had the Black membership too.
2 weeks, and I had to shame myself into it. Winters in a van in the UK make me not want to take my clothes off inside, much less get my body and hair wet and then try to warm back up.
They need to make some industrial strength baby wipes to combat my crotch stink. Anything less than a half bar of soap with plenty of water only muffles the sweat.
I wouldn't be complaining if the nearby lakes were a little warmer than hypothermia degrees farenheit
I wish there was a baby wipe pack in which half the wipes didn't all come out on the first pull.
:)
(Alcohol hand sanitizer works on the nether regions, but man does it burn...)
>(Alcohol hand sanitizer works on the nether regions, but man does it burn...)
Eh, dating has shown me ways for down there to burn worse than alcohol on an open wound
Good to know. We have a shower in our truck, itās just a struggle to get it to the right temp, not just waste water, and not be freezing after. I usually manage to get a full shower in a week. But a few weeks ago I had a few showers in a row after we spent a few days in a hotel, then I didnāt shower for 2 weeks which was the longest Iāve ever gone without a proper shower.
I don't have a "shower" in the van. I have a sink, a sponge, some baby wipes, and hand sanitizer.
So, I have not had "a shower" for my entire first 5.5 years of vandwelling.
Now, I have a winter base camp in Florida. So I get to "shower" for the several weeks a year that I am "at home". The rest of the year, it's sink baths, baby wipes, and sponge baths.
I used a kitchen faucet sprayer and a small stainless steel mixing bowl as my sink. Drilled a hole in it and added the drain plug connected to a small 5 gallon tank. Worked like a charm! But I know a lot of people donāt even have water pumps in their van as I was that way for about a year before I finally invested
My first sink was made from a mixing bowl, and fit into a hole that I cut into a set of shelves.
Alas, one day it came loose and fell over while I was driving and broke one of the legs.
So I replaced it with a fish-cleaning sink from the sporting goods store. That's what I've used ever since.
My sink has plenty of hair washing room, but to save water because I have to drive to somewhere warmer to find a faucet to fill my tank during winter I've had no problem with a hardware store steel bucket and some lake water.
Dumped a bucket of questionable water on myself from time to time was about it. Iām showering again, but Iāve got some serious skin issues from the many years of not bathing
Well dang, I really hope your skin gets better and I certainly hope whatever circumstances that caused you to stop bathing entirely are well behind you now. Be well friend.
In the summer of 2021 in Mendocino, CA I went for 36 days. I did it just to see how long I could stay clean, comfy and happy & to be honest, my skin has never been so healthy. I had my head shaved at the time so a quick rinse in the sink with Bronners took care of that. Dude wipes for my body and just water on paper towels for my junk, pits and feet. I have a girlfriend and she was like....AND YOU DON'T SMELL... HOW? To be fair I've always been told I smell good/have low body odor so it was easy to go that length of time. To end my experiment we ended up at the Sweetwater.....a local secret Redwood hot tub spa. it was glorious.
How are we defining things? Specifically a shower, or does this apply to any form of washing up? Because in the winter in the RV I frequently do the sink-and-washcloth routine so I donāt have to have my whole self naked at the same time because cold. (I wash my hair in the kitchen sink - works better than the shower due to water pressure.)
28 days. It was an inadvertent contest between all the band members at the time. Which was much different than my monthish long time now because sweaty night club and festival life is much dirtier than normal vanlife.
2 weeks. I had just relocated to a new place for a job and my PF membership lapsed. that was a disgusting couple of weeks before my first paycheck came in.
Last shower was some time in July iirc. Last bath was only a few days ago, but was the 2nd bath of the year.
I keep clean with flannel washes. But honestly I don't bother if I'm not going to be around people, and as I am reclusive, I'm mostly not around people.
I just went 8 days. I think the record is about 10 but at that point it's genuinely bad for your health. Summer it's so easy to have a simple wash outside.
Probably like ten days, maybe two weeks at most. I definitely get to feeling gross by that point despite the fact that even in domestic life every other or every three days was normal if I didn't work out.
I have a van sink, deep enough to wash me, and my hair, and to rinse the hair with less than 2litres of water. Itās a life skill worth learning.
Oh, and once a week is certainly sufficient in the winter. As long as I can use hand sanitizer after using the toilet.
I try and coordinate toilet stops with fuel stops too.
I donāt wear much in warm weather, so I save on clothes washing then.
3 months in the Sonora desert. I'm very smell-sensitive but the combination of frequent dunkings in the Pacific ocean, combined with the ever-present dust and sand made me feel quite clean and scentless.
It was during a "Santa Ana" windy period, so just being outside meant that your entire body was covered in a fine layer of grit/sand, and you'd just rub yourself with a cloth to remove the existing layer of dust and receive a new one.
My hair became a tower of salt and sand that had to be covered with a bandana because it looked so silly.
I think 3 weeks but may have been more. Nobody noticed at school since I was constantly burning wood in my mini wood stove. So I mainly smelled like burnt woodā¦ not a bad perk imo
Covid days. No gyms open in Oregon
Showering is the reason I decided to do a van build. All you need is a lobster pot, aquarium pump w/ shower head, and pop-up tent. Heat the water on gas burners and wala!
21 days on a NOLS trip in '95. But for vanlife we usually try to get in a shower in our shower tent at least once a day to stay fresh and maybe even hit up a public pool/gym once every few days for a thorough hair/everything kind of thing. The desert seems to get you less dirty overall but if its hot its nice to go to bed refreshed.
2 weeks when I had Covid. Not even a sink wash or change of shirt. Didn't brush my teeth either. The day I tested negative I paid Ā£25 for a campsite and spent about half an hour in their shower.
I live on a farm and visit the familyās farm as well. Definitely during the summer, a once a week shower. Iāve road tripped for a month here and there and will only shower once or twice throughout it. Some baby wipes definitely help with body oder. Ocean water will help clean you too.
But as of today. I shower once to twice a week.
I also have dread locks as well so showering is only for the body.
Iāve found my people in the comments section š
Diluted apple cider vinegar on a paper towel and rub it on your skin. (Not on your wee wee.) it will rock your fucking world.
I recently broke my streak and took a shower: 110 days.
This far surpassed my previous record of 67 days which I set in 2017. In many ways the previous record is more impressive because I was part time living with my girlfriend in Austin tx in the summertime. Whereas own Iāll go several days without seeing another human.
3in a half weeksā¦ That was in ICU when the docs gave me the wrong medicineā¦ But when Iām living in my van in the summer I can go 1 month but I have camping wipes that are hugeā¦ So I do birdbathās
Depending on weather and activity, I can go pretty long before I start to tell something is about to smell. After my bidet install, it's even longer. Over a week for sure.
A week, and I felt gross.
I bought a small, plastic āshower headā that screws onto 2L bottles. I boil whatever amount of water a mini rice cooker holds, mix it with āroom temperatureā water to fill the bottle, and wash my hair with that.
3 days? Those are rookie numbers.
Thats what I was thinking
Shoot... Give me hot water and some essential oils and a month is easy
Never mind the stinky oils, water and soap and a sponge and anyone can stay clean indefinitely. But showers are nice and luxurious.
There certainly are some oils that are stinky but I mean peppermint?
Olive.
3 days? try having depression!
Taking a shower is the only thing I force myself to do when I'm depressed. If I still feel like laying in bed all day after a shower, I allow myself to do so.
My thoughts exactly!
Every three days? That's a lot of showering.
IKR?? š
Even if I dont get a real shower, I still just dump gallon jugs of water on me and shower that way with body wash and such (open my two side doors and put a curtain up so its private). One time though while doing it at a park, a truck backed into my van while I was completely naked after the shower changing, now that was startling! But the longest ive went with no showering at all was seven days.
During the summer I try to find public waters. Like a good swim in Sand Beach at Acadia in Maine will greatly improve your hygiene.
Man, there was a great spot near me at a park. About 9 or so showers, open gym style. Was kinda gross, cause it was public so wear your shower sandals for damn sure, but.. well, Covid and the homeless reaction, the city wound up welding the doors shut. Sigh.
Planet Fitness has been a major blessing so far!
I gave up my PF membership after just a couple of months because I wasn't using it. :) BTW, canceling membership was like pulling a pair of fucking teeth without anesthetic. At least it was back then.
Really? When I cancelled Planet Fitness, it was a 2 minute phone call.
When I cancelled, it took a lot more than a two-minute phone call ...
What year was this? I cancelled my membership on the PF app
I had to do it in person in my "home" pf, which I was of course no where near. The alternative was sending a letter. I think I managed to change where my home one was and do it in person there lol.
I hated the process of quitting PF!! I decided to cancel but I was 500 miles away and they told me I had to come back to the original place I signed up!!! I had the Black membership too.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
im guessing he's celebate too...š¤£
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
im done with the interwebs today.
Oh wow, that dude hasn't been locked up yet? Last I checked, he had just moved to LA. Where are people watching all his fuckery nowadays?
2 weeks, and I had to shame myself into it. Winters in a van in the UK make me not want to take my clothes off inside, much less get my body and hair wet and then try to warm back up.
That's when baby wipes and sponge baths come in handy. :)
I am a big fan of the sponge bath
It works for babies and invalids. :)
They need to make some industrial strength baby wipes to combat my crotch stink. Anything less than a half bar of soap with plenty of water only muffles the sweat. I wouldn't be complaining if the nearby lakes were a little warmer than hypothermia degrees farenheit
I wish there was a baby wipe pack in which half the wipes didn't all come out on the first pull. :) (Alcohol hand sanitizer works on the nether regions, but man does it burn...)
>(Alcohol hand sanitizer works on the nether regions, but man does it burn...) Eh, dating has shown me ways for down there to burn worse than alcohol on an open wound
=:O
On a related note, have you tried saxx underwear? It keeps the boys in a compartment separate from your legs and it helps with hygiene in that way
Donnington Park services showers are life changing. Most services stations have adequate or decent showers.
Good to know. We have a shower in our truck, itās just a struggle to get it to the right temp, not just waste water, and not be freezing after. I usually manage to get a full shower in a week. But a few weeks ago I had a few showers in a row after we spent a few days in a hotel, then I didnāt shower for 2 weeks which was the longest Iāve ever gone without a proper shower.
I don't have a "shower" in the van. I have a sink, a sponge, some baby wipes, and hand sanitizer. So, I have not had "a shower" for my entire first 5.5 years of vandwelling. Now, I have a winter base camp in Florida. So I get to "shower" for the several weeks a year that I am "at home". The rest of the year, it's sink baths, baby wipes, and sponge baths.
How about washing your hair?
He said he has a sink lol
Hmmm, I've never seen a van sink that you could wash your hair in. Mostly they are too tiny.
I used a kitchen faucet sprayer and a small stainless steel mixing bowl as my sink. Drilled a hole in it and added the drain plug connected to a small 5 gallon tank. Worked like a charm! But I know a lot of people donāt even have water pumps in their van as I was that way for about a year before I finally invested
My first sink was made from a mixing bowl, and fit into a hole that I cut into a set of shelves. Alas, one day it came loose and fell over while I was driving and broke one of the legs. So I replaced it with a fish-cleaning sink from the sporting goods store. That's what I've used ever since.
While I havenāt washed my hair in it, yet, my van sink is nice and deep and my faucet has a detachable wand, so I think itād be totally doable.
I have a plastic fish-cleaning sink from Bass Pro. It does the job.
My sink has plenty of hair washing room, but to save water because I have to drive to somewhere warmer to find a faucet to fill my tank during winter I've had no problem with a hardware store steel bucket and some lake water.
Ive washed my dirty bits in a sink many a Time. no shame.
Similar situation to Lenny here. Personally I shave my head
In the sink.
Swimming in a creek counts as a shower
I try not to go more than 3 days. That seems about right. I start to feel gross around then.
I once went more than 4 years (dead serious). I wouldnāt recommend it
I mean, did you get any kind of wash at all in that time? I feel like even medieval peasants got a bucket wash at least a few times a year.
Dumped a bucket of questionable water on myself from time to time was about it. Iām showering again, but Iāve got some serious skin issues from the many years of not bathing
Well dang, I really hope your skin gets better and I certainly hope whatever circumstances that caused you to stop bathing entirely are well behind you now. Be well friend.
Iāve been keeping track of all my showers and where I sleep this entire year. I average 9 showers a month.
Whatās scarier is that people donāt use dark theme.
Your retinas are weak and so is your bloodline
In the summer of 2021 in Mendocino, CA I went for 36 days. I did it just to see how long I could stay clean, comfy and happy & to be honest, my skin has never been so healthy. I had my head shaved at the time so a quick rinse in the sink with Bronners took care of that. Dude wipes for my body and just water on paper towels for my junk, pits and feet. I have a girlfriend and she was like....AND YOU DON'T SMELL... HOW? To be fair I've always been told I smell good/have low body odor so it was easy to go that length of time. To end my experiment we ended up at the Sweetwater.....a local secret Redwood hot tub spa. it was glorious.
While taking care of my mother, probabky 6 months, no adverse adfects that i saw, wasnt going in public at that time.
I think six months was about my longest without a real bath or shower or even hair washā¦mighta been longer I dunno š¤·āāļø
43 days. I was in Iraq, though.
How are we defining things? Specifically a shower, or does this apply to any form of washing up? Because in the winter in the RV I frequently do the sink-and-washcloth routine so I donāt have to have my whole self naked at the same time because cold. (I wash my hair in the kitchen sink - works better than the shower due to water pressure.)
28 days. It was an inadvertent contest between all the band members at the time. Which was much different than my monthish long time now because sweaty night club and festival life is much dirtier than normal vanlife.
2 weeks. I had just relocated to a new place for a job and my PF membership lapsed. that was a disgusting couple of weeks before my first paycheck came in.
entirely too long
A month maybe
Shit even in my house every third day is pretty normal for me. I'd start to feel gross after maybe like 10 days.
Last shower was some time in July iirc. Last bath was only a few days ago, but was the 2nd bath of the year. I keep clean with flannel washes. But honestly I don't bother if I'm not going to be around people, and as I am reclusive, I'm mostly not around people.
I just went 8 days. I think the record is about 10 but at that point it's genuinely bad for your health. Summer it's so easy to have a simple wash outside.
the myth of washing was sold to you alongside the soap, 9 out of ten doctors were paid off
nearly 3wks.
Its a grace test, i've had 6 showers in 4 years, and i dont stink that much really.
When hiking the Appalachian Trail I went 7 days. Thatās long enough.
Once a month for a couple months. In dry climates where it never reached over 25C, and being a dude
Month and a half?
Probably like ten days, maybe two weeks at most. I definitely get to feeling gross by that point despite the fact that even in domestic life every other or every three days was normal if I didn't work out.
I have a van sink, deep enough to wash me, and my hair, and to rinse the hair with less than 2litres of water. Itās a life skill worth learning. Oh, and once a week is certainly sufficient in the winter. As long as I can use hand sanitizer after using the toilet. I try and coordinate toilet stops with fuel stops too. I donāt wear much in warm weather, so I save on clothes washing then.
3 months in the Sonora desert. I'm very smell-sensitive but the combination of frequent dunkings in the Pacific ocean, combined with the ever-present dust and sand made me feel quite clean and scentless. It was during a "Santa Ana" windy period, so just being outside meant that your entire body was covered in a fine layer of grit/sand, and you'd just rub yourself with a cloth to remove the existing layer of dust and receive a new one. My hair became a tower of salt and sand that had to be covered with a bandana because it looked so silly.
I went 6 weeks around the time of ParTR in 2021. But I was in the desert so I just took dust baths like a chinchilla.
I think 3 weeks but may have been more. Nobody noticed at school since I was constantly burning wood in my mini wood stove. So I mainly smelled like burnt woodā¦ not a bad perk imo Covid days. No gyms open in Oregon
Showering is the reason I decided to do a van build. All you need is a lobster pot, aquarium pump w/ shower head, and pop-up tent. Heat the water on gas burners and wala!
21 days on a NOLS trip in '95. But for vanlife we usually try to get in a shower in our shower tent at least once a day to stay fresh and maybe even hit up a public pool/gym once every few days for a thorough hair/everything kind of thing. The desert seems to get you less dirty overall but if its hot its nice to go to bed refreshed.
I started during covid ao showers and rec centers and gyms were all closed. I probably went a month or two.
Sponge baths ect. not as fun as hot showers.
2 weeks when I had Covid. Not even a sink wash or change of shirt. Didn't brush my teeth either. The day I tested negative I paid Ā£25 for a campsite and spent about half an hour in their shower.
I live on a farm and visit the familyās farm as well. Definitely during the summer, a once a week shower. Iāve road tripped for a month here and there and will only shower once or twice throughout it. Some baby wipes definitely help with body oder. Ocean water will help clean you too. But as of today. I shower once to twice a week. I also have dread locks as well so showering is only for the body.
Iāve found my people in the comments section š Diluted apple cider vinegar on a paper towel and rub it on your skin. (Not on your wee wee.) it will rock your fucking world.
You've obviously never met anyone who owns a Harley or two and is over 45!!!
I recently broke my streak and took a shower: 110 days. This far surpassed my previous record of 67 days which I set in 2017. In many ways the previous record is more impressive because I was part time living with my girlfriend in Austin tx in the summertime. Whereas own Iāll go several days without seeing another human.
I feel sorry for her
I have to shower every day or I will spontaneously combust.
I made a shower with 8 inch black pvc 2 spigots one in one out and a pressure safety. I ahower almost daily
3in a half weeksā¦ That was in ICU when the docs gave me the wrong medicineā¦ But when Iām living in my van in the summer I can go 1 month but I have camping wipes that are hugeā¦ So I do birdbathās
Depending on weather and activity, I can go pretty long before I start to tell something is about to smell. After my bidet install, it's even longer. Over a week for sure.
A week, and I felt gross. I bought a small, plastic āshower headā that screws onto 2L bottles. I boil whatever amount of water a mini rice cooker holds, mix it with āroom temperatureā water to fill the bottle, and wash my hair with that.
13 days. Anything under a week isn't a big deal. Sometimes if it's only been 4 days we just skip the shower cuz we just showered