Every single time I read about this, it's the person adopting it who claims they don't smell. Not others around them.
Then there's the unspoken but critical exceptions, which seems par for the course in health social media now. The acquaintance doesn't use soap, with the asterisk (there's always an asterisk today) that he "does wash his hands with soap and, in the cases where there’s actual dirt or grime on him, will lather up." He doesn't use shampoo, but maybe in another asterisk he uses some other cleaner instead? Toward the end of the article the author mentions someone who doesn't use soap, with the asterisk that he means "everything but his armpits and crotch"... which seems significant especially given that lather is likely running elsewhere.
I do wonder if cleaning routines could change, to use gentler cleansers, or different strategies to moisturize and condition skin and hair. That would be a different and maybe more productive discussion.
This article breaks your observational streak: "And before you ask: He appears well-kept, dresses stylishly, and always seems to be dating an impossibly beautiful woman. Also, he doesn’t smell."
I think my underlying impression is the same: there's always a caveat or asterisk or footnote, or it's the person in question making the claim about lack of odor. In this case we're left not knowing what he considers "grime" or whether there's some other product he's using he's not talking about. We don't really know what his personal routine is, how he exercises or doesn't, and so forth. The author didn't say they were spending a lot of time with this person (maybe he was caught on a "good day"), in close physical contact (the author doesn't have to be physically intimate with him), and explicitly mentioned that he didn't ask him the really confounding questions (such as about his "nether regions"). We're left to assume because he has an attractive partner he has no smell, as if any problems with smell would keep anyone from getting a date at all and wouldn't cause problems in a relationship, or be something the partner would wish were different, and that there are no other reasons why an attractive woman might date someone.
It's just always so vague and significant questions are left unanswered, or if they are, there's a caveat or exception or asterisk. My general impression is that these people are maybe washing less, or being more selective in how they wash, or using gentler products, but that they're not forgoing "soap" completely (I assume they mean surfactants in general? This is another "gotcha" I wondered about.)
Well, when I work on a car engine, I use something like Gojo to clean up. Washing in just water or regular soap&water doesn't cut it. But my Gojo use was always rare.
When I go swimming, the pool requires washing with soap before entering the pool, to avoid urea in the sweat from reacting with the pool chemicals and making that pool smell.
Post-COVID I now wash my hands with soap and water far more often than I did before.
I had surgery, and had to wash with an antibacterial soap beforehand. I had lice and used a lice shampoo treatment.
From all accounts, the people who avoid normally washing with soap would still use soap for these occasions, which all count as a caveat or exception or asterisk.
I don't think the point is to avoid soap at all costs, but to point out that soap is used far, far more often than is required. Searching just now, https://www.nateliason.com/blog/soap "You don’t need to use soap 90%+ of the time you’re using it right now, assuming you’re not regularly doing some kind of dirty laborious work. Water and a towel will do fine."
Even Hamblin, who this article says started the modern dialog back in 2016, says to use soap to wash your hands. (About 5 minutes into https://archive.org/details/theaspen-Clean_-_The_New_Science... ).
At https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/what-happens-if-you-stop... we can read an interview with Hamblin: "And if you think Hamblin’s wife may just be flattering him, he put his co-workers and friends on the spot while he was working on the book, asking them to say so if they ever thought he smelled bad (what are friends for, eh?). “As people knew I was doing this, they wanted to take part because they want to tell you you smell,” he said. “That was honestly the whole book tour. So I didn’t conduct a clinical trial here, but I asked enough people regularly enough, and I have enough self awareness to know I’m not offensive to people.”"
Also looking around, I see page upon page of people who are disbelieving and disgusted by the idea that some people rarely use soap, so I can also well understand why people who rarely use using soap don't want to be public about it.
The reduced soap argument seems to be (from https://bigthink.com/health/james-hamblin-doctor-didnt-showe... ): #1. An obsession with soap might be creating allergies; #2. Your skin is crawling with mites which 'potentially act as natural exfoliants' and without them 'you might even be more susceptible to breakouts and infections'; #3. Marketers convinced the public that everyone should buy a lot of soap; #4. The skincare industry is largely unregulated; #5. Disinfection isn't a simple panacea, and #6. The marketing machine makes us feel incomplete ("B.O." is a marketing term created to sell soap) — so we have to buy products that make us feel whole.
(Yes, #3 and #6 seem the same.)
But having more smell might be attractive due to pheromones.
palata•3mo ago
I am highly sceptical of every argument starting with "evolutionarily". Many times it just doesn't make any sense. "Evolutionarily, why would we travel in cars? I have this friend who stopped travelling in cars and hasn't been sick ever since".
Not that the soap question is not interesting, but anecdotal evidences ("I know a guy who...") never convince me.
JohnFen•3mo ago
Besides, evolutionarily speaking, everything is about reproduction and raising children to sexual maturity. If women tend to prefer to mate with men who wash themselves regularly (there's strong evidence that's the case), and/or if washing regularly increases the chances of boys reaching sexual maturity (there's also evidence that's the case) then that's the behavior evolutionary pressure is encouraging.
treetalker•3mo ago
This article makes me concerned not only for the physical hygiene of our species, but for its mental hygiene as well.
cafard•3mo ago