What To Do If You Do not Want To Shower

As a streaking joggler, you take many showers. It’s a reality of the sport. You run or joggle, you sweat. You sweat, you smell. And in my world, offensive odor is not endearing.

There have been days when my joggling activities have required me to take 3 showers, morning, noon, and night. In fact, in 2005 I quite possibly held the title of the “Most Shampooed Head In America”. (I’m also a cosmetic chemist who creates shampoo formulas so I washed my hair over 1500 times that year).

But sometimes, you just don’t feel like showering. Stripping off your clothes, stepping into the water stream, soaping up, rinsing, repeating, shaving, drying, putting on deodorant, teeth brushing, combing your hair and re-dressing can become a great pain. Especially when you have to do it 2 or 3 times in a day.

Shower alternatives

The hassle of showering and the lack of facilities has occasionally made it difficult or impossible to shower. Here are some tricks you can do to avoid it without smelling like a barn. Used alone or in combination, they’ll usually keep you un-offensive.

Towel Tidying. Probably the easiest thing to do is to wipe away your sweat with a dry towel. It’s quick and mostly effective particularly when you’ve only joggled a couple miles or less.

Soap Sanitization. With this method you take liquid hand soap and wash the key odor-producing places. For most people this is their armpits and the area between your legs. Just foam the soap up in your hand, dab it in the necessary areas and wipe dry with a paper towel. No need to rinse. It doesn’t feel great but it’s effective.

Deodorant Disinfection. To make sure you’re not a smelly joggler, just take a deodorant shower. After drying, apply to your armpits and between your legs. It’s also a nice touch to dab some around your neck. This helps take care of hair odor. Body spray deodorants work best for this kind of shower.

Cologne Cleansing and more. No deodorant? That’s ok you can try other things like cologne, body lotion, hand moisturizer, or rubbing alcohol. Pretty much any personal care product with a fragrance can be used. Caution: Do not use things like air fresheners or cleaning products. The chemicals in these products are not meant to be put on your skin.

No Rinse Refining. Since your hair holds sweat and odor, it’s always a good idea to cover the odor with a product like hair gel, mousse or other styling product. Better yet, try out this No-Rinse Shampoo or dry hair shampoo products. It works like a charm and requires no water.

Clothing Cleanup. You forgot a towel? No deodorant, cologne or other fragrant fixer?  Well, just wipe away all the perspiration droplets with your hand and put on some dry clothes. Hopefully, you won’t be around too many people.

Run Less Smell Less. Another alternative to showering is to only joggle a little bit.  There is a point where you don’t exercise long enough to create much perspiration.  Find your “sweat point”.  This will usually depend on the length of time run and the temperature.  Hotter running will create sweat faster.  Normally, I can joggle about 1.5 miles without breaking a sweat.  If I know I can’t shower, I won’t joggle farther than that.

Embrace Your Essence. The final method is to just come to grips with your smell.  You learn to love it and get over any feelings of embarrassment it might cause.  Yes, you’ll offend a few of your schoolmates or co-workers but so what.  Why should someone’s character be measured by the pleasantness of their odor?  Embrace your essence!  You smell.  Everyone should just get used to it.

Joggling, running, and most other forms of exercise cause you to sweat.  To prevent offensive odors, showering is your best bet.  But if you can’t or don’t feel like it, try those alternatives and hopefully, you won’t become known as the “smelly” joggler.