oooh that smell

...can't you smell that smell?


It's not good.

    It's the 21st century, and I have a problem. There's a silent but deadly issue that really needs to be addressed: 

HYGIENE, or lack thereof.

Here's a snippet from the New York Times (October 2010): 

Defying a culture of clean that has prevailed at least since the 1940s, a contingent of renegades deliberately forgoes daily bathing and other gold standards of personal hygiene, like frequent shampooing and deodorant use.
To the converted, there are many reasons to cleanse less and smell more like yourself. “We don’t need to wash the way we did when we were farmers,” said Katherine Ashenburg, 65, the author of “The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History.” Since the advent of cars and labor-saving machines, she continued, “we have never needed to wash less, and we have never done it more.”

The New York Times makes it sound downright trendy and hip to bathe less and go deodorant-free. To use the reason, "we don't because we're not farmers" is LAME.


One guy admitted to letting his hair get greasy so he could style it better:

"Mr. Johnson, an every-other-day bather who resembles the late singer Elliott Smith, also confessed he lets his shaggy hair get oily so he can style it the way he wants. “Right now it’s cool to appear like you don’t care about what you look like,” he said. “You have to invest time, and often money, into making it look like you’ve done neither, or you can take the easy route, and just don’t wash your hair for a week and a half.

John Wesley Wilder Jr., 30, a salesman at an eyeglass store in Philadelphia, is not only a convert to unwashed hair — he shampoos only once a month with Head & Shoulders to reduce frizz, he said — but also to what one might call his personal perfume." 

Excuse me while I gag. 

If you're going to follow this trend, please don't use it as an excuse to not take care of yourself. The rest of us can tell. Really. 

I have a sensitive nose, and it doesn't like the smell of unwashed body.

A free and helpful tip:

Guys, if you want to get a girl to be around you, you need to smell good. A stinky man is a major turn off. MAJOR. If you don't use deodorant, don't be surprised if you're avoided.  Realize you don't have to bathe in body spray, but please, please, please don't smell like a set of dirty gym clothes. There's a balance.