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Health

Debate over using washcloths in the shower goes viral but here's what the experts really say

Are you #TeamWashcloth? Or prefer the hands-on approach?

@causingascenepodcast1/TikTok, Photo credit: Canva

For as long as there have been showers, there have been shower debates.

We’ve debated about how often to shower, what time of day to shower, which direction to stand in the shower and whether or not shower snacks are appropriate.

But today, the hot topic of shower conversation is this: is using a washcloth the superior way to get clean, or just completely gross? You better believe people have strong opinions.

Though of course people have had this debate before, it recently went mainstream again thanks to a viral soundbite from “Causing a Scene with Sarah and Natalie.” Though hosts Sara Gretzky and Natalie Buck typically discuss pop culture topics, personal hygiene got thrown into the mix when Gretzky asked Buck if she was for or against washcloths.

“Do you use a washcloth?” Gretzky asked. Buck replied with a passionately whispered “no,” to which Gretzky agreed, “Me either... That is disgusting.”

Buck went on to joke that using a washcloth to clean her body was a “UTI waiting to happen,” before Gretzky informed her that they were likely “in the minority” with this opinion.

She then asked her co host the all important question “what are you washing your butt with?” Unapologetically, Buck answered, “My hands” and declared she’d “burn” her washcloth after using it.

From there, the comments section was all a flutter. Many could not understand why Gretzky and Buck were pro-hands and anti-washcloth.

@causingascenepodcast1 Do you use a wash cloth? #causingascene #podcast #shower ♬ original sound - Causing A Scene

“Hands? That’s like using your finger to brush your teeth,” one person wrote.

Another retorted, “NOT using a washcloth is a UTI waiting to happen.”

But, as adamant as viewers seemed to be that washcloths are superior to hands, experts seem to think differently.

Both washcloths and loofahs are breeding grounds for bacteria since they are likely to never fully dry out in between washings, nor is someone likely to sterilize them often enough in between showers. If you are this diligent, kudos to you.

Of course, washcloths do beat out loofahs since you can more easily throw them into the washing machine after each use, but simply using your own hands (once they are washed, that is) will not only get the dirt off, but do it in a way that’s gentle for sensitive skin. So…sorry washcloth folks, but hands are technically the superior hygiene tool.

But what about exfoliation? you might ask. There are ways to get a good scrubbing without a washcloth, including cleansers with chemical exfoliants like salicylic or glycolic acid and dry brushing. Exfoliating mitts, which obviously still need to be dried and cleaned in between washes, are also a good option because they have a low carbon footprint,” according to Dr. Elizabeth Trattner in an interview with Oprah Daily.

The overall verdict seems to be that washcloths aren’t so detrimental to skin health that you should stop using one immediately. So if you’ve grown attached to your shower accoutrement, just be sure to dry it out, wash it regularly and maybe avoid using it for your face or private parts.

And still, even if expert opinion doesn’t change anyone’s mind, it’s funny to see the hills people are willing to die on when it comes to their shower routine.

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Health

Dermatologist reveals 3 places you absolutely must wash to avoid life-threatening infections

You will never forget to clean your belly button again.

via Dermguru/TikTok and Karolina Grabowska/Pexels

Dermatologist Lindsey Zubritsky has a warning for everyone.

Remember when you were a kid learning how to take a bath and your mom said, “Don’t forget to wash behind your ears!” According to a viral TikTok video by dermatologist Lindsey Zubritsky (@Dermguru on TikTok), your mother was right.

In a post with over 3.3 million views, Zubritsky reveals the places you “absolutely need to be washing more often than you are.” They are behind the ears, beneath the fingernails and in the belly button. Zubritsky says that failure to keep those areas clean can result in some severe health problems that can be life-threatening.

First, let’s take a look behind the ear.

If you put your finger behind your ear and “notice an odor to it or you feel something you should be washing it more,” Zubritsky says. Dandruff, sebum, other hair, and materials from the hair and head can build up behind the ear, leading to dermatitis.

@dermguru

Think twice next time you take a shower #showertok #skintips #hygienetips #dermguru #staph #mrsa #skininfection #folliculitis #dermexplains#greenscreen

Next, let’s do a little navel-gazing.

Zubritsky says the belly button is a common area to collect sweat, debris and dirt buildup. According to the dermatologist, some extremely gross things can happen if you don’t clean there often enough. After watching this video, you will never forget to clean your belly button again.

“In fact, if you’re not cleaning it enough, you’ll have so much debris and dirt in there that you’ll develop a navel stone that looks like this,” she said as she shared a photo of a black stone protruding from someone’s belly button. The stone-like object is known as an omphalith and it may require surgical removal.


Finally, take a look beneath your nails.

“When you’re showering, you really need to get under those nails with a scrub brush to get rid of the dirt, debris and buildup,” she explained. Failure to keep your nails clean can lead to infections and pinworms.

Zubritsky concludes the video with a serious warning. If you don’t keep those 3 areas of your body clean, you could become a carrier of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). MSRA is a bacteria that is resistant to several antibiotics.

According to the Mayo Clinic, MRSA can lead to staph infections that produce painful boils that require surgical draining. In severe cases, they can burrow deep into the skin, leading to life-threatening infections in the bloodstream, bones, joints, heart valves and lungs.

Zubritsky has 1.1 million followers on TikTok and 576,000 on Instagram. Her social media fame has opened up a world of opportunities for the dermatologist.

“My work on social media has provided me with the opportunity to work with the American Academy of Dermatology on their social media campaigns and become an editor in the prestigious Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology,” she told Washington & Jefferson College. “My platform has allowed beauty editors from some of the biggest news outlets and magazines to consult with me on editorial pieces, and I have been featured in Forbes, CNN, Yahoo!, Vogue, Women’s Health, Allure, and many more as an expert dermatologist.”

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More

He turned a $5,000 truck into a mobile shower that's making a big difference.

Jake Austin has been volunteering with the homeless in St. Louis, Missouri, for years. But he just recently had a huge epiphany.

Meet Jake. Photo by Shower to the People, used with permission

"Most of my life I've been volunteering in different capacities," he said. "One group was doing food and clothes, and I went down there to help out. They had a hygiene table that was in disarray. So I asked if I could take it over."

Austin started bringing in donations — soaps, shampoos, etc. — and handing them out to folks in need.

But one day, a man politely turned Austin and his donated soap down. And that's when he realized: Donated hygiene items don't do people any good unless they have a safe, comfortable place to use them.

"People will say, 'I have 10 blankets and a bag full of sandwiches, but I haven't showered in months,'" Austin told Upworthy.

For folks who are homeless, a shower can be a rare and sometimes life-changing luxury.

Photo via iStock.

A hot shower might not trump the need for basic things like food and shelter, but that's exactly what makes hygiene such an overlooked need for many people who are homeless.

The fact is, being able to maintain basic hygiene is an absolute must for anyone hoping to secure or hold down a job. It's also a huge factor in warding off disease and infections.

Plus, it's hard to deny the fact that you just feel better when you're clean.

That's why Austin wants to make it easier for people in his city to get clean using an incredible mobile shower truck.

It's like a food truck, but for showers! Photo by Shower to the People, used with permission.

The brilliant name for his new nonprofit? Shower to the People.

Jake bought an old truck off Craigslist for $5,000, and after a successful GoFundMe campaign and help from a bunch of really smart people, he retrofitted it to house two private shower stalls with sinks and mirrors.

The unit hooks up to fire hydrants and heats the water using an external generator, meaning the truck can travel and provide free, warm showers pretty much anywhere in the city.

Photo by Shower to the People, used with permission.

According to Austin, St. Louis has plenty of homeless shelters, but the showers are usually only open to official residents.

"Folks will save up what money they can find and try to get a gym membership. Beyond that they'll use public sinks, libraries, the river. Or they'll go into people's backyards to use the hose," he says.

The Shower to the People truck is an awesome, low-cost solution that offers more privacy, more convenience, better-kept facilities, and shower services for 60 people every day.

So far, Shower to the People and other programs like it are making a big difference.

Austin and his crew, in partnership with FOCUS North America, had the cameras rolling during their truck's first day on the streets, and the reactions said it all.

He recalled one powerful moment:

"A couple of weeks ago there was a girl that came up to the truck. She was kind of crabby. Upset. Rightly so, given her experience. She had kind of an attitude, but we were being as polite as possible. She wanted to shave her legs — we were trying to be efficient, but I said, 'Hey, take as much time as you need.' When she came out, she was glowing. It was such an amazing experience."

GIFs via Shower to the People/YouTube.

It's a little early to tell if increasing access to showers will directly lead to big turnarounds for the folks who participate, but helping them feel a little better is a good start.

Shower to the People isn't the first group to provide showers for folks who are living rough, either.

There are also programs like Lava Mae in San Francisco and Think Dignity in San Diego that offer similar services. And Austin wants to take his own version of a mobile shower unit into more cities soon too.

Austin says, "Our goal isn't just to have clean people on the streets. Our goal is to help get people off the streets."

A hot shower won't solve everything for people living in extreme poverty, but it can be a step in the right direction on the path to a better life.

Kudos to Jake Austin for finding a simple solution to an underserved problem. Let's hope more smart people will be following in his footsteps real soon.

Family

Grandparents, your hands are amazing. But we all need to know this about our hand hygiene.

This new study is alarming, but what simple steps would a medical professional recommend we take to help our loved ones as they depart a hospital stay?

If you're a grandparent, your hands are amazing.

Image from Jessie Jacobson/Flickr.

Your hands might be soft and warm, meant for hugging grandkids or making batches of cookies. Or maybe they're a bit more worn, bearing the scars of years of hard work. After all, they're the same hands that may have raised a family or built a house or driven across the country uphill both ways without air conditioning. Your hands carry the legacy of everything you've created in your lifetime.

But if you're a senior and were recently in the hospital, your hands might be carrying something else too.

Roughly 1 in 4 seniors leaving the hospital and going to other care facilities may be carrying superbugs on their hands, according to a new study from the University of Michigan Health System.

Superbugs, also known as multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), are bacteria that have grown immune to antibiotic drugs, making them incredibly hard to treat and potentially deadly.

One of the most common superbugs is MRSA, seen here under powerful magnification. Image from Janice Carr/CDC/Wikimedia Commons.

"There are 2 million people who become infected with bacteria resistant to antibiotics," study author Dr. Lona Mody said in an interview, "and about 23,000 people die each year as a direct result of these resistant infections."

The results of the study suggest seniors picked up the superbugs while in the hospital — but the really scary thing is that while carrying the bugs on their hands doesn't necessarily mean those seniors will get sick, they can still transmit them to other people around them.

There has been a huge focus on making sure doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff have good hand hygiene, but Dr. Mody's study highlights the importance of educating and enabling patients to stay bug-free when they leave the hospital as well.

The good news: There are some really easy steps anyone who's been in the hospital recently can take to protect themselves and others.

The new study focused on seniors going to care facilities, but these rules could apply to anyone who has stayed in a hospital recently. So without further ado:

1. The best thing is also the simplest: Wash your hands with soap and water.

While this might seem obvious, there's actually a specific twist on this piece of advice based on the results of Dr. Mody's study — it turns out that while doctors and nurses already have to regularly wash their hands, most hospitals don't ask the patients to do the same.

Image from Arlington County/Flickr.

Hospitals should do this! No matter how scary a superbug may be, a good scrub with soap and water will usually eliminate any potential threat before it gets too far.

Dr. Mody also recommends that hospitals pay attention to the layout of a patient's room, which could make it difficult for them to get to a sink. If hospitals and care facilities work with patients to figure out how to make it easy for everyone to practice good hand hygiene, we can prevent these superbugs from spreading earlier on.

2. If you can't get to soap and water, alcohol gel disinfectants work too — and antibacterial soaps are not your friend.

If you can't get to a sink, "alcohol gel is an excellent alternative to using soap and water for hand hygiene," says Dr. Mody.

Image from Gadini/Pixabay.

You can leave the antibacterial soaps behind, though. After 40 years of government study, the FDA concluded that antibacterial soaps don't actually do much to curb bacteria.

In fact, when it comes to preventing the spread of superbugs, reaching for antibacterial and antibiotic products too soon may actually be harmful, because...

3. Too many antibiotics may actually make more superbugs.

Besides good hygiene, Dr. Mody says people can also help reduce the creation of superbugs by using antibiotics and antibacterial products as a last resort, rather than turning to them first.

MRSA bacteria under a microscope. Image via CDC/Wikimedia Commons.

Normally, antibiotics kill enough of an infection to keep us healthy. But sometimes, bacteria can mutate and pick up resistances to the drug. Haphazard use of antibiotics encourages these mutations and makes it easier for the newly dangerous bacteria to spread.

Using antibiotics more wisely, as Dr. Mody recommends, can help curb the spread of the superbugs.

What does this mean for you? Be more thoughtful about when to ask for them — antibiotics don't work for viral infections like the flu, for example. And many common infections, like ear infections, may not always need antibiotics — you should talk to your doctor and see what they think before requesting them.

4. That said, if you are on antibiotics, make sure you take all of them.

Image from freegr/Pixabay.

Don't just stop taking them when you're feeling better. If you stop early, there's a chance that a few superbug hangers-on will survive and become resistant to the drugs! Taking all your antibiotics will ensure that you get 'em all the first time around.

These steps may seem simple, but they're powerful.

Whether you're a hospital staffer who can reorganize a patient's room or remind them to wash their hands before they head out the door, or a grandparent eager to play with your grandkids, following these steps will help make sure we're all able to hug, touch, and play with our family and friends without fear of getting anyone sick.

Image from debowscyfoto/Pixabay.

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