Dirty Hippies!

Bathing is sooooo last week

The New York Times has just reported on a new trend towards what's sometimes known as soap-dodging. Among those who have cut down on daily showers, baths or hair-washing were a woman who swipes a sliced lemon under her armpits instead of deodorant, another who uses baby wipes to freshen up after her lunchtime runs, and a salesman who shampoos only once a month and gave up anti-perspirant for three years.

No anti-perspirant, bet he's fun to be around. Wait, listen to this guys reasoning as to why no bathing.

There are, of course, environmental benefits. In a bid to reduce his carbon footprint to the absolute minimum, environmentalist Donnachadh McCarthy, 51, limits his showers to about twice a week. "The rest of the time I have a sink wash," he says. "I believe that I'm as clean as everyone else." It has helped him to get his water consumption down to around 20 litres a day – well below the 100 to 150 average in the UK.

As McCarthy points out, it's only recently that we have expected people to bathe or shower every day. "When I was a kid," he says, "the normal thing was to bathe once a week." Head much further back into history, and we find Elizabeth I bathing once a month, and James I apparently only ever washing his fingers. In 1951, almost two-fifths of UK homes were without a bath, and in 1965, only half of British women wore deodorant.

Environmentalism, laziness, you choose the vernacular. people didn't bath back then because it was a huge production, what with no indoor plumbing. Now we have these great things called faucets. Brings the water right to you, instead of having to go get it bucket by bucket. I'll keep my daily showers thank you.
On a side note, I think that with all these low flow toilets and shower heads, and everything else used to cut down our water consumption, there will be an unintended consequence in that there will not enough liquid flowing through our sewage system to push all the solid waste material. This lovely sludge will build up like plaque and we will start seeing failures in our sewers and lovely poop fountains in the streets. Enjoy that visual as you finish breakfast.