If your mind sometimes gets wrapped up in a shower vs. bath debate, I can’t blame you. There’s no denying that taking a bath is relaxing. Soaking in warm water, reading a book, maybe even sipping a glass of wine—it’s so simple yet feels so luxurious. Except there’s one thing that always keeps me from fully relaxing in the tub: I can’t stop thinking about the fact that I’m just sitting in a soup of my own sweat.
I’ve always wondered if I should be showering before I climb in to make sure all the grime of the day washes down the drain first. Is taking a bath even getting me clean? Or is sitting in the tub just kind of gross?
If these questions also plague your otherwise-soothing bath time, read on to learn what the experts have to say.
Whatever’s on your skin when you bathe can, naturally, wind up in the water.
That doesn’t automatically mean anything bad, though.
This may not be what you want to hear, but it’s the cold hard truth: There are tons of microorganisms that live on our skin. Just like the gut has a microbiome, so does the skin. “There are bacteria on every surface of your body, and you’ll never eradicate them by taking a shower or bath,” Philip Tierno, Ph.D., a clinical professor of microbiology and pathology at NYU Langone Health, tells SELF. “When you slough off dead skin in a bath or shower, the cells contain many microorganisms that are on your skin.” Beyond bacteria, these microorganisms can also include things like fungi.
So, yes, that means you’re essentially sitting in water filled with the normal flora that lives on your body already when you take a bath. The idea of it might make you squirm, but the reality is that it isn’t going to cause any health problems like a skin infection. “I wouldn’t be worried, from a microbiological standpoint, about getting infected,” Dr. Tierno says.
The exception? If you have any open wounds or cuts, then there’s a chance some bugs that live on the outside of your body can get inside your body and cause infection. But unless you have breaks in the skin, it’s not likely you’ll pick up something from your own body, Dr. Tierno says. Your skin generally does a damn good job of keeping microbes out, where they belong.
Sitting in a bathtub may cause some issues for people with sensitive skin and conditions like eczema, says Teo Soleymani, M.D., board-certified dermatologist at UCLA Health. Sitting in stagnant water doesn’t allow oils and microorganisms on the skin to be rinsed off as well as a shower with running water, and for some people, this can perpetuate itchy rashes or acne, he says. Even the salts that end up on our skin’s surface after a good sweaty workout can be irritating for some people.
You also have to consider the soap you’re marinating in. “The other problem is that people tend to take baths with fragranced things, like soaps or bath bombs, and the longer you stay submerged in that solution, the greater likelihood you’ll have some sort of allergic reaction or some irritant dermatitis,” Dr. Soleymani says.
Soaking in fragranced soaps and other bath products can also throw off the pH of the vagina and cause irritation or even infection in some people, as SELF has previously reported.
Baths can also make the skin drier, so the American Academy of Dermatology suggests limiting baths to 15 minutes or less if you have a skin condition that makes your skin dry (like psoriasis or eczema).
Cleaning your tub often enough is key to avoiding bath-related skin issues.
While your own sweat and microorganisms aren’t likely to cause any problems, you can run into trouble if there are other microbes growing in the tub, Dr. Tierno says. This growth can lead to a pesky little phenomenon known as biofilm: a buildup of microorganisms, including various types of bacteria, that essentially stick together to form a film. You know that pink ring around the tub or drain? That’s biofilm.
This means, you take one article, and you use the article distribution system. It will generate thousands of unique versions of your article, and publish those unique articles to hundreds of websites that are related to your niche.
Take a look at our comprehensive guide to the best and most popular information ebooks and products available today on Detoxing, Colon Cleansing, Weight Loss and Dating and Romance. They are all in one spot, easy to find and compere to make a quick selection for the product that best fits your needs or wants.
So browse through a category and make your preferred selection and come back here to read more choice articles and get a few more helpful tips on ways to help your enhancement.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. “saubiosaubiosuccess.com is a participant in third party affiliate and advertising programs; The Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, Awin network, and other affiliate advertising programs are designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees and commissions by advertising and linking to products on other sites and on Amazon.com. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc, or its affiliates.”
We use anonymous cookies and various 3rd-party services to optimise and to offer you a better, more personalised, browsing experience with advanced accessibility enhancements.
Dismiss
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
