Here’s What Happens to Your Skin When You Don’t Shower for 30 Days

Two beauty editors share the stinky and surprising truth about what happens when you forgo bathing for four weeks. (Photo courtesy of Total Beauty)

It sounds like something out of a dare, but one beauty editor decided to find out what would happen if she didn’t shower for a whole month. The inspiration started when Jill Provost, the editor in chief of Total Beauty, received Mother Dirt AO+ Mist — a live probiotic spray that’s supposed to replenish your skin’s good bacteria so you can bathe less frequently and improve your complexion. The theory behind the spray is that we’re actually too clean and that by eliminating good bacteria along with the bad, we’re leaving our skin vulnerable to inflammation. That, in turn, leads to skin conditions from acne and rosacea to eczema and psoriasis.

Since Provost herself suffers from eczema and psoriasis, her curiosity was piqued. For the experiment, Provost, who also enlisted Total Beauty editorial assistant Jessica for support, ditched deodorant, makeup, and soap (except for hand soap). Baths and showering were banned. Provost and Jessica were only allowed to rinse their face, underarms, and groin area with water every three days, and instead, rely on spritzing on Mother Dirt AO+ Mist twice a day to keep clean.

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Nixing makeup was a real challenge for Provost, who admits to Yahoo Beauty that on a typical work day she wears “the works”: a full face of skin care products and makeup, including face cream, a serum, sunscreen, primer, foundation, concealer, blush, eyeliner, highlighter and mascara. But by far the hardest part for Provost was forgoing showering. “My armpits continue to radiate a dead-animal smell,” she wrote in her Total Beauty article. Provost’s locks didn’t fare any better, as she described her hair as “clumpy with grease and smells like a moth-addled basement.”

But some positive things came out of the no-shower, makeup-free experiment: Provost’s psoriasis-related itching and flaking disappeared, and she didn’t break out with a single pimple the entire time. “The adjustment period was brutal, but once my skin adjusted to not showering, I was shocked to learn that I don’t need soap — shampoo is another story,” Provost tells Yahoo Beauty. “Water is all I needed to get perfectly clean.”

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So now that the 30 days are over, what effect has the experiment had on Provost’s hygiene and beauty routine? “I am definitely a changed person,” she tells Yahoo Beauty. “I shower way less — probably two times a week, sometimes with soap, but often without. I wear less makeup and use fewer beauty products — maybe a moisturizer, a CC cream that contains sunscreen, blush, and mascara. I also don’t stress as much about how I look, because people aren’t paying as much attention as you think.”