The Beauty Idiot Strikes Again

This morning, I bathed for the first time in three days.  Which is an explanatory statement meaning: I was kinda gross.

 

The longish story is that, because of the holiday Tuesday, my schedule was off, and I went an extra day without a shower because it seemed silly to shower in the morning and then go work out in the evening.  Even though that is what I used to do all the time.  I don’t think I smelled particularly bad and I got compliments on my hair the whole day (I did snakes hair – two French braids, largely because on the third full day of no washing, there is little one can do besides keep it contained), so I’m calling it a win.

 

This whole dry shampoo thing is a bit of a revolution for me.  Even with a newborn, I tried to get at least a quick shower once every 24 hours.  Well, okay, 48.  Okay, fine, fine, 72, but that was the max, and I spent those first few weeks in bed or on my couch with newborns, so who’s to judge?  But dry shampoo?  Killing it.

 

I bought Suave, which is cheap, and seems to do the trick.  Everything is mega dry and static-y this time of year, so once I use the dry shampoo, I then have to rub some lotion or something on the ends to keep them from being to crinkly.  But the time I have saved!  The water I have saved!  The TIME.  I’m on a regular schedule of bathing Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday morning – essentially after every workout and also before I ever go three days again.  It’s a big step to make it to two days between washings, so I think I’ll hang out there for awhile.

 

It still makes me feel pretty dumb, in a way.  Like, I am 31 years old.  How did I not know about all of this before?  How many hours have I wasted over the years bathing unnecessarily, primarily because my hair looked greasy after 24 hours?  I’ll just bet that no one else out there showers every day.  Like, duh, Amelia, that was just something we did in junior high because we were so self-conscious.

 

Oh, sure, some of you might say that one can still bathe and not wash one’s hair.  I say, if I’m going to take a shower, I’m going to wash my hair.  I don’t need to shower every day.  I don’t smell.  I don’t sweat unless I work out (that might, nay, probably will, change this summer – then, daily showers are necessary for getting sunscreen residue off of my ghost-like, descendent-of-a-redhead skin).  I would probably shower after eating at a Mexican restaurant or Five Guys because I don’t deal well with grease odor.  Otherwise, every other day suits me fine.  Especially now that no one small is barfing partially-digested milk on me every few hours.

 

My skin has calmed some, too, though I wash my face as often as I did before I cut back on the showering.  I think this largely has to do with a tiny, nearly overlooked piece of advice I found regarding adult female pizza face: change your pillowcase daily.  Bacteria being the number one cause of skin craters in a woman’s reproductive years, and the pillow being the number one place to lay one’s face every night for 6+ hours (if I’m lucky!), it only makes sense that having a new, clean pillowcase each night might lead to fewer breakouts and less re-infection of offending bacteria.  Take that, acne!  I’ll just do more laundry!