Experts Say You Actually Don't Need To Wash This Part Of Your Body In The Shower, And We Need To Know If You Agree Or Not
What’s the “right” way to draw an x? Are Sour Patch Kids-flavored Oreos delicious or nasty? Is a hotdog a sandwich? The internet is always happy to offer — and debate — an answer for whatever ridiculous question won’t stop rattling around in our heads.
But one question stopped us in our tracks when we saw it pop up in 2019 and it’s continued to haunt us since then: Do we really need to wash our legs when we’re in the shower?
Countless people claimed that because the soap from lathering the upper parts of our bodies trickles down our legs as we bathe, there is no reason to specifically wash our legs. Others argued that without deliberately attending to our legs, they’re still dirty after we get out of the tub.
So who’s right?
That’s what we — Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast — asked Dr. Divya Shokeen, the founder of Ocean Skin & Vein Institute in Manhattan Beach, California, when she dropped by the studio to talk about all the ways we might be showering wrong and how to do it better.
“I don’t think you do [need to wash them],” Dr. Shokeen told us. “Unless you’re, like, aggressively sweating and you just biked 20 miles. Then, yes, please wash your legs.”
That’s because our legs are often covered by our pants or other clothing, which protects them from dirt and grime, and they aren’t “hot spots,” like the armpits or crotch, where sweat and bacteria tend to flourish.
“I think water dripping down or soap dripping down [your legs] is okay [for cleansing],” she said, adding that it’s actually better not to manually wash our legs because that keeps the skin from drying out or becoming irritated, which can happen when we cleanse too aggressively and too often.
However, if your legs are visibly dirty or you’ve been participating in an activity that might have soiled them (say, swimming in a lake or doing baby goat yoga), you should give them a wash. Otherwise, just let the suds do their thing as they cascade their way down to the drain.
Dr. Shokeen suggested we spend the time we’ll save by skipping our legs on those aforementioned hot spots, because we’re probably not washing them for as long as they should ideally be washed.
“Those need at least a minute to allow [your cleanser] to work,” she said. “That doesn’t mean you have to be rubbing down there for a minute. If you have the time, then do it, but you can suds up [those areas] and leave it [while you wash other parts], ... so your cleanser has to have the chance to actually do something.”
We also chatted about why she never faces the showerhead, the one thing we should all be doing before we get out of the shower, and much more.
Listen to the full episode above or wherever you get your podcasts.
For more from Dr. Shokeen, visit the websites for her dermatology practice and her skincare line. This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
