WASHING IS SOMETHING WE ALL DO almost every day and yet there are no standard instructions on how or what we should do. No wonder the nation is in crisis.
First of all you have to decide what implement you are going to use. The most pernicious of these is the face flannel. This is an absorbent piece of cloth that captures all the grime, bacteria and pus from your face, marinates it on the side of the bath overnight, and then deposits it all back on your face first thing the next morning. Face flannels wouldn’t be so bad if they stayed on your face, but they are also used on parts of your body that only your doctor or somebody who loved you a very great deal would ever go near.
People who wash in the bath have all sorts of washing aids including big scrubbing brushes to reach parts of their backs that nothing else can reach. But consider for a moment: if nothing can reach round there, how dirty is it likely to get?
Everyone agrees that soap is a good thing but no-one quite knows what it’s for. Soap can make you smell like a lemon which is great. But if you said you were going into the bathroom to make yourself smell like a lemon, people would understandably think you were a little odd. (Pity the poor lemon plucked from a balmy grove to end up in your armpit. It’s not much of a life.)
If you only wash one place this year, do your armpits. It’s amazing how many travel, work and play situations require other people to get close to your armpit. Everyone will be better off if you get there first. You should also pay particular attention to your private areas. Genitals are the most badly designed bits of the human body with all sorts of completely unnecessary flaps, ridges and wrinkles. If these areas aren’t washed regularly, huge fungi and edible mushrooms can grow overnight.
Parents have this thing about cleaning the parts of the body you never think about. For example what is so important about the behind the ear region? Have you ever noticed somebody in public with filth behind the ears? Of course not.
There are a lot of specialist products for washing the face – such as scrubs, exfoliators etc. Be careful of these as they can actually scrub your entire face away leaving a smooth plate-like effect. Men wash by applying soap to their entire body, rubbing vigorously and then sandpapering any three dimensional dirt off. Women think they will achieve the same cleaning effect by reading a Women’s Weekly magazine in a bath with a drop of Ylang Ylang.
© GUY BROWNING IS AUTHOR OF ‘NEVER PUSH WHEN IT SAYS PULL’ AND CREATOR OF ‘TORTOISE IN LOVE’ (DVD) – USED BY PERMISSION.
