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Comment by klodolph | Hacker News Reader

Most other animals? Well, most birds bathe. Elephants shower themselves with their trunks. Cats bathe themselves with their tongues, dogs get in the water and then shake themselves dry, and pigs wallow in the mud.

Seems like what makes humans different here is that we use soap.

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Animals also use things akin to soap. Birds love to bath in the ashes of a fire, the lye burns parasites, the dust chokes them.

I've watched many a bird do so, after a fire.

Using ashes/lye directly on greasy human skin forms a primitive sort of soap too and isn't unheard of in human hygiene practices. And real fine dusts and grits in general seems pretty common as a method of hygiene for animals and humans alike.

Some animals even rub themselves on ants' nests because formic acid kills bacteria.

A lot of animals use sand - rolls in it or throws it at themselves.

I know it is not the same as soap, but it is an interesting parallel.

Charity to the question, I think it is a good question why we bathe as much as we do. Water animals spend a ton of time bathing, no surprise. Many animals are fine with dust baths, though. And many are severely hampered by being wet. Look up a picture of a wet owl.

Unlike many (but not all) other animals, humans spend considerable time in close proximity to other humans in enclosed spaces. If you are pungent, other people in an enclosed space with you will not appreciate your smell. I've done quite a few multi week hikes with only fresh water bathing (no soap, no deodorant) with others (2-18 other people). During the hikes we are outdoors and although we gather reasonably close (less than 1m, or a couple of feet) around a campfire or common place to eat it isn't often you'd be offended by someone else's smell. At the end of these hikes when we first get back to civilisation and are in an enclosed space again - you bet we suddenly notice how much we stink.

Many humans cross paths with hundreds to thousands of other humans every day and the set of people interacted can have great variability across days. Growing up we were taught at home and in school how important it is to regularly wash your hands. The only other examples of such a high level of social mingling for other species that springs to mind are insects swarms/hives/nests and when there are plagues (mice, locusts etc). Unlike these groups, humans are unique in having a very high degree of share tool use (door handles, public seating for transport, cross walk and lift buttons), so there is a huge potential for cross contamination. Bathing and washing with soap is probably one of the key reasons we are able to live in cities the way we do without regular disease epidemics.

Body oder is an odd one. I saw a sibling post talk about skin biome and I feel that has was more traction than it is credited.

As an example, I can definitely develop body oder. However, it generally takes me longer than the rest of my family. I can do 30 miles on my bike and just need to change clothes. And I basically never use deodorant.

To see this at a notional level, consider that deodorant is not common in Japan.

There was an amusing viral video not long ago about people remembering growing up that they had a bath day. Typically Saturday or Sunday, when they would bathe for the week. This is not that uncommon. Well, was not.

Everyone I’ve ever met who thinks they don’t stink, does.

Certainly not discountable. But the number of folks I've shocked by letting them know I don't use deodorant is rather amusing. They typically think I'm lying.

Edit: more relevantly, the number of times I've seen people complain about how someone must not shower, to then learning that person showers daily, is also amusing. BO is something that has a quick onset for a large number of people.

This is a very interesting point. Indoors is quite different from outdoors.

Not so sure about the disease spread part. Hand-washing was... not particularly universal, not so long ago.

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