Slashdot Mirror
Four Weeks Without Soap Or Shampoo
An anonymous reader writes "A biotech start-up from Massachusetts has an unusual product: a bottle full of bacteria you're supposed to spray onto your face. The bacteria is Nitrosomonas eutropha, and it's generally harmless. Its main use is that it oxidizes ammonia, and the start-up's researchers suspect it used to commonly live on human skin before we began washing it away with soaps and other cleaners. Such bacteria are an area of heavy research in biology right now. Scientists know that the gut microbiome is important to proper digestion, and they're trying to figure out if an external microbiome can be similarly beneficial to skin. A journalist for the NY Times volunteered to test the product, which involved four straight weeks of no showers, no soap, no shampoo, and no deodorant. The sprayed-on bacteria quickly colonized her skin, along with other known types of bacteria — and hundreds of unknown (but apparently harmless) strains. She reported improvements to her skin and complexion, and described how the bacteria worked to curtail (but not eliminate) the body odor caused by not washing. At the end of the experiment, all of the N. eutropha vanished within three showers."
She sounds hideous.
If you want subjects who don't mind not bathing for four weeks, just go to any CS lab.
I suspect there are slashdot readers who, uh, know someone who takes long spells between showers...
Most people have known this for some time. I haven't washed my face in years. It was the only thing that stopped acne. By "not wash", I mean don't use soap or cleaners. Obviously, some shampoo trickles down on it and I rinse with water each day.
Hair can be handled the same way if you have naturally dry or frizzy hair.
Captcha: untidy
Scientists know that the gut microbiome is important to proper digestion
Gut bacteria is more than proper digestion, it's a second mind.
It's interesting as well that one of the most important parts of a cell are the mitochondria, which by all rights are their own separate critter that set up a successful house in just about everything alive.
What a menagerie.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
A 4 week test on something related to skin and they used a female journalist? Could by chance her skin complexion improved because of her menstrual cycle? There's about a 75% chance that she wasn't coming off of her period right before application so of course she probably noticed improvements to her skin, especially her face, over a 4 week test.
Where are the control groups? Shouldn't there also be at least a few of these:
1) One group that showers daily and uses the spray.
2) One group that showers daily and sprays plain water.
3) One group that doesn't shower for 4 weeks and sprays plain water.
Number 3 is almost required for any accurate study and I would think it would
the other 2 wouldn't hurt either.
the bacteria worked to curtail (but not eliminate) the body odor caused by not washing
I used to work with sailors who would come back after long fishing trips. And I can assure you that they definitely did not have this bacteria present.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
You bathe for health. You don't bathe for an optimum natural balance; you do it so you get nasty pathogens off your body, and don't get infected wounds.
Apparently some health comes at the expense of some other health, like how antibiotics destroy gut bacteria but save you from death by sepsis.
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I ask myself if the showers that kill the flora is just water or use soap.
Shampoo is something I long ago stopped using and after a short period I stopped producing excessive amounts of oil. The only times I have to shampoo is when because of a skin condition.
Using soap in general isn't something I feel is needed since a regular rinsing leaves me non smelly.
Question is if I am actually breeding these little microbes and my lack of soaping is why I don't smell or if it's simply because I'm not a smelly person as some of my friends and family asserts?
IIRC from the book "The Life That Lives On Man," the skin count of undesirable bacteria is maximized by daily showering. That's just frequent enough to wash away the desirable strains, and to keep things moist enough for the undesirable strains to proliferate. That research is over 20 years old, so I'd love to see an update.
Ship a crate to Stallman! Along with a box of chocolate covered toenails-and-bunions.
"She reported improvements to her skin and complexion, and described how the bacteria worked to curtail (but not eliminate) the body odor caused by not washing."
That must have been one funky monkey...
According to the blog linked in the article, it was apparently somewhere between cut onions and marijuana.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I've gone 10 days without washing (other than water), on a wilderness backpacking trip. Despite the fact that I was sweating a lot every day, at the end of the expedition I didn't feel as "dirty" as I would've expected. I think we could find a happy medium between our modern antibacterial-soap fetish and ye olde annual bath.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Was the reduction of body stench independently verified? Maybe she just got used to it.
At first I was stinky and greasy. Later I was just greasy. But hey, I've got greasy skin. So I went back to product, because I didn't want to be greasy. But I have hippie shampoo and soap, no patchouli involved — unscented shampoo, and peppermint soap. No deodorant, I smell at least as good now as I did when I used it in conjunction with a bunch of toxic crap.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ya know what I'm thinkin'? D&D conventions.
Have you ever walked into a hobby store on a Saturday with gaming tables set up? Fucking unwashed pigs.
"Shut up!!! It's Baron Harkonnen cosplay! >:-( "
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
That must have been one foul coochie. Allow me to be the first to say, "NOT IT!"
Baking soda is a base, and as such converts oils into soaps on contact - my first guess would be that it's converting some of the more aromatic oils on your skin. I've heard of it used to clear up enlarged pores as well - the combination of mild abrasion and high PH do a number on the sebum (waxy oils) that otherwise build up in your pores. PH cold definitely also have an effect on your surface microbes though.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I'll stick with soap.
Was the reduction of body stench independently verified? Maybe she just got used to it.
Absolutely possible. This is just her anecdotal report. She has other anecdotal reports in TFA, though:
Jamas, a quiet, serial entrepreneur with a doctorate in biotechnology, incorporated N. eutropha into his hygiene routine years ago; today he uses soap just twice a week. The chairman of the company's board of directors, Jamie Heywood, lathers up once or twice a month and shampoos just three times a year. The most extreme case is David Whitlock, the M.I.T.-trained chemical engineer who invented AO+. He has not showered for the past 12 years. He occasionally takes a sponge bath to wash away grime but trusts his skin's bacterial colony to do the rest. I met these men. I got close enough to shake their hands, engage in casual conversation and note that they in no way conveyed a sense of being "unclean" in either the visual or olfactory sense.
And, honestly, it makes some sense on an intuitive level. Perspiration doesn't really have an odor on its own -- the odor comes with the bacteria and such that start growing in the minutes and hours after perspiration.
If we get rid of all of them every day, we're going to select for certain strains of fast-growing bacteria.
If we instead let things "ferment" over weeks or months, we'll probably select for other types of bacteria, which tend to be adapted to our bodies, rather than whatever random fast-growing stuff happens to land there after a daily shower. Undoubtedly, the odors produced with a hygiene regimen change will be DIFFERENT.
And, since soap and daily showers are a relatively recent invention, one would think that humans would be less likely to find the build-up of long-term bacterial colony odors offensive, since from an evolutionary perspective, natural body odor shouldn't drive potential mates away. And it's therefore more likely that we'd be adapted to not care about such odors (of even sometimes be attracted to them -- historically, we have lots of accounts of people who describe natural body odor as a significant aphrodisiac).
I'm not saying all of this is true. But it at least makes sense that a DIFFERENCE in body odor seems likely when bacterial colonies are allowed to establish themselves over time and be selected for in daily body excretions.
Kind of like trying to create a sourdough starter: if you just mix together flour and water and let it sit for a few days, you have a high likelihood of mold or undesirable things forming over time. If you just empty the container, scrub it out, and try again, you're likely to have similar results. But if you let it sit over a period of weeks and gradually feed it, eventually you'll select for specific bacteria and yeasts. And after a while, you end up with robust bacterial colonies that won't likely mold or grow nasty stuff -- because the microorganisms create an environment conductive to their own growth, rather than the undesirable stuff.
Much of body odor comes from short-chain fatty acids, produced when various bacteria break down skin oils. Baking soda turns those acids into salts, which don't smell nearly as much. However, it can also saponify your skin oils, so it's hard on your skin if you use too much.
I believe in taking care of myself and a balanced diet and rigorous exercise routine. In the morning if my face is a little puffy I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. I can do 1000 now. After I remove the ice pack I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion.
Shower as usual to strip the skin of all microbes and then moisturize with a probiotic. Seems more logical to me.
:-)
I declare this idea to officially be in the public domain
Greed is the root of all evil.
They've been testing this for years in France.
The research lab is on a road named something like Rue The Day.
No brain, no pain.
There is a lot of research to be done on human bacteria.
I know many people here react dismissively towards wet science, but there's ample evidence that, for as long as there has been animal life, there have been closely related bacteria hitching a ride with us. And some of those bacteria have co-evolved with us to do useful things -- like termites being able to digest cellulose because of their gut bacteria.
If we wipe out those populations of bacteria that have been evolving with us for tens of millions of years (or more), it seems pretty reasonable to suggest that there will be repercussions.
On the more speculative side, my hay fever is largely gone now (no more runny nose, ever, during pollen season -- but my eyes still get scratchy on the worst days) since I've been dosing myself with bacteria (some commercial, made for sufferers of ileitis colitis, and some wild, homemade kefir and spontaneously pickled veg). I've talked to a researcher in the field; he said I basically hit a home run. Out of the possibly hundreds (thousands?) of species of bacteria I'm missing (sickly kid, lots of antibiotics, born by C-section, bottle-fed), I managed to load myself with probably a couple dozen strains of bacteria (mostly bifido and laco) that managed to help regulate the inflammation causing my seasonal allergies (i.e., my nose dripped like a tap).
FWIW, yogurt as a probiotic is unlikely to do much of anything for you. Most of those bacteria have been bred to produce lactic acid, and little else, as fast and as reliably as possible. Most of them are also unlikely to take up residence in your gut; they've been bred to survive in milk.
I, for one, really want to see more research in this field.