how often to shower and bathe?

Because Ive heard some horror stories and now I am really self- concious and bathe religiously several times a day to make sure i not emiting any odor besides soap and body spray.

I have done some research, and im curious if japanese find the natural body odor of foreigners very strong or offensive?


This is not to be racist. But many people in america say that they can smell a a natural body odor from other blacks, white, hispanics, even after they bathe. I need not get into the details of what they smell like. All you got to do is google.

And, they say they most asians dont have a strong body odor because they have less sweat glands. and thats why they only need to use that spray, instead of the deoderant stuff that westerners cant seems to live without.

I always thought, 'well japanese technology is pretty good, Im sure that spray stuff works fine to eliminate odors or keep your underarms dry.'

but maybe there is some truth to it, some girl said her japanese husband was in the hospital for 3 weeks and he couldnt bathe at all during that time, and he didnt smell bad at all.

Some japanese havent been around foreigners alot, but some guy i know wrote about a foreigner 'you stink, you havent taken a bath in weeks, i think its pollution'. Even though the person did take a bath that day? lol

so either he never met a foreign before and wasnt used to the smell, or I dont know, has a really sensitive nose.

so I ask, do you smell anything different about foreigners or other races, and how often you reccomend bathing to eliminate this smell, and any products out there to eliminate odors from the skin?


i guess there are lotions, but i wonder in people can still smell the natural body order over those products. and i heard there was some kind of surgury about removing sweat glands or something...

Hey

I have been to Japan and nobody told me that im stinking!

Black people or Indian stinks more...im sorry I don't want to stick up agains you...but its just normaly because of the food they eating! thats the cause they are smelling more than others!

you can try it out yourself! If you eat pizza, hamburger or some other fastfood and get to sweat after hours later of the next day...you sweat will smell a bit of the pizza etc. It was a experiment I saw somewhere in th TV!

You're the Reina Jess and you're joking, right?

Well, I don't know what part of what story sounded like horror to you, but the scariest part of your original post is that you "bathe religiously several times a day" and it's winter now.

Yes, I can smell a natural body odor from blacks, whites, hispanics and orientals, so what's wrong with that? Every living creature has natural odors and they're not necessarily bad. When I was a 7 year old kid attending elementary school in the U.S. where it's a melting pot, we used to smell each other all the time and touch each other's hair and enjoy all of it.

I'm not surprized about a hospitalized person not smelling either, because when you're sick you tend to metabolize less. Boy, you should smell my teenage son 12 hours after he's taken his last shower!

And how often do I reccomend bathing to eliminate this smell? It better be less than once a day in winter or 3 times a day in summer, or else you won't be able to pay your water and gas bills and sooner or later your city will lack water supply!

let them lack water supply then. LOL. if im black, apparently we have a stronger smell than asians, so i think i less than once a day is too little. if i work everyday i bath each time before going out.

if i stay home and dontgo out at all, especially on a lazy weekend, then i bath less.

i think natural smell isnt bad nor particarly pleasant. just some other people i know also said stuff like i love your smell but make sure to take bath each time cuz it might be too loud for others. since japanese dont have strong odor and maybe other used to their scent. apparently you cant smell yourself or same race people natural scent.

one more wierd thing is black africans smell different than black americans. not a bad smell, just something earthy. maybe everybody has some different kind of earthy smell.

most blacks in america can tell the difference between african blacks and american blacks due to different physical features. I guess its only nature that we would smell different too. I dont know if other people notice that though.

I havent spent a lot of time around koreans or chinese, and I can tell the different facial-feature wise.

I cant really smell japanese. maybe Im immune to their smell. But I wonder if I go to china town, if I going to smell something different.

im curious if the average japanese person in japan even know that everyone smells different, because you cant smell yourself. so maybe we are smelling weird around them. And I just wanted to make sure that natural scent its not offensive in anyway. haha.

all I can do is take bathes or stay away from the public. or hang around with the japanese who are obsessed with blacks.

I agree with Uco that you shouldn't take too many baths/ showers a day. It isn't good for your skin. 2 quick showers a day is fine.
Obviously it also depends on your work, if you exercise and sweat a lot etc.
Watching what you eat is very important too. Some vegetables, spices, meat can give one a strong body odour even after one had a bath

It is true too that some people tell every one else around that they stink yet think that they have the right to wear so much perfume one can smell them from around the corner.

I--and many people --find that the clothes of smokers smell much worse than any body odour (unless a baby in the bus near you let himself go...)

I work in health care so we are used to strong body odours from some patients..that's life and death..

We aren't allowed to wear perfumes, scented deodorants and the like, around patients, in meetings etc. as they can produce allergies
(and if 30 people in a room wear different perfumes it smell funky too), not to mention that many perfumes and scented products contains harsh chemicals that are unsafe.

There is a well known case in Canada of a teenage boy that showered 3 times a day --so far so good--then covered his whole body from neck to toes, back and front, with strong ''manly'' deodorant. He died at 16 of poisoning from the deodorant.

Several times a day is going to be too much for anyone really- it's not good for your skin, especially if you're using soap every time. While I find that Japanese people tend to smell less than some other nationalities, I have come across some really stinky people as well here. Occasionally it's BO, but a lot of the time it just has to do with too much garlicky food/cigarettes/can coffee, so I think you're worrying too much really.

Surely in winter you are wearing so many layers of clothes that you aren't really sweating and no kind of smell is escaping through the clothes anyway? I usually shower twice a day in summer, but in winter it seems a lot less necessary, and once should be enough. I don't know where you find the time to wash that often anyway- are you at home all day? If you are, who would you be bothering with your smell?

Had you noticed that most Japanese people don't go overboard with fragrances? If you are actually smelling of your soap and body spray enough that people standing near you can smell it, that may well bother people more than any kind of subtle natural smell- I myself hate sitting on trains or taking elevators near people who are wearing clouds of perfume and I know that a lot of Japanese people feel the same way.

One sure sign appears to most eaters of red meat,and smokes and drinks alcohol. The accumulated acidity in the blood pours out of the skin pores; BO is obvious, sweat smells acidic/sourish. Japanese older generation folks eat lots of neutral dishes: fermented veg, miso soup, seaweed, and noticeably they hardly projects any odor even when they have alcohol and nicotine.

To show smell/acidity is apparent after shower, and towel dried, scrape the skin hard at the back/ arms a few times etc. There will be a strong sour/rancid odor from those who indulge in acid diets-red meat, fast foods; hamburgers and fish and chips. We are what and how we eat

ah ok, recently i only eat rice so i should be ok. not even with furikake or soy sauce lol.

putting deoderant all over the body? thats very weird.

and i dont put on tons of perfume. I spray on Shiseido AG+ deorderant powder spray. The one that has no fragerance, and destroys germs and controls odors... (or so it says). usually i spray that over my clothes, cuz even if i bundle up, wont our clothes still smell like your natural odor?

I think our house also smells a certain way that new people who visit can notice. and since our clothes is seeping in that odor all day, then I guess other people can still smell it.
So either use the order killing thing, or something like frebreeze... do they have frebreeze here or whats the name of the japanese equilavent product? so I can go buy it and spray that over my curtains or sofas when new visiters come by...

As for my showers, I go out and always go back home. I take shower in the morning or afternoon before going out, then I might be out a few hours meeting clients or shopping.. then i go home again. and then I have evening job and I take another bath before going out.


so its bathe or at least shower, each time before you go out for an extended period of time. The only time I dont bathe is if im going to a conbini. :(

and even when I shower now it takes a really long time, those used to be quick showers. I once knew this mixed girl in college, we stayed in the dorm. I was an R.A. She always took a shower for like 2 hours or more. I dont know what thats about. but oh well. maybe it takes almost an hour, Im scrubing, brushing teeth, etc. or exactly an hour or so, if I wash my hair too. maybe thats normal for some people. maybe its a start of a new obsession. how long should the average shower be? lol

You are worrying about how you smell way too much, to the point where it could (already has?) turn into a form of OCD because you spend so much time thinking about it.

Yes, an hour in the shower 3 times a day suggests an unhealthy obsession with washing. Twenty minutes once a day including hair washing should be more than enough for any normal person. When I have a second shower in summer that's usually no more than a 5-minute rinse.

Everyone's house has a certain smell, but that has to do with a lot of other factors like food and just what the house and things in it are made of- I really don't think that your house and all your clothes are permeated with some kind of bad smell that the people around you are noticing unless you have a really severe problem.

The Japanese equivalent of Febreze is Febreze- it's advertised on TV all the time. I hate spraying around chemicals though, so prefer more natural alternatives.

ok. yeah i found
the frebreeze.and also i have long dreadlocks so maybe that has something to do with the time its takes... and its much easier to wash these when taking a shower rather than standing over the sink. ocd, i dunno. guess i will research it. i would rather obsess about showers than keeping everything a certain way or walking around a certain way and other weird rituals i saw on mtv.

Like I said before, I had many black classmates (we were in an era when the municipal divided schools so that students from black neighborhoods and white neighborhoods could merge equally), and I enjoy going to the annual African Festa in Yokohama, and I can say that blacks aren't particularly smelly. Some smell stronger than others while some don't smell at all, and to me it has nothing to do with race. Although the ones who do smell, smell in a black way, just as the Japanese smell in a Japanese way. Actually, I think it also has a lot to do with what you eat.

1 Shower a day is good. I usually do it before I sleep, so I can be fresh in bed :) Some people do it after they sleep so they can wake up. I do an extra shower if my schedule is weird or if I did something like dust or wash my pets... or if it's summer and I sweat or I worked out a lot..
Usually a hot shower because it melts the body oils. If you don't have a lot and you are a dry person, don't use too much hot water, or use water with minerals in it.