r/hygiene

For nearly three decades I have been brushing my teeth the way I was shown as a kid: hard, fast, side to side, two minutes, done. I thought I was doing great. I floss. I use mouthwash. I even use one of those expensive electric toothbrushes I saw a dentist recommend on a video. I genuinely believed my mouth hygiene was above average.

I went in for a routine cleaning last week and the hygienist got very quiet while she was doing the initial check. Then she called the dentist over. They were both poking around and using words like "recession" and "wear pattern" and I started to get that sinking feeling.

Turns out I have been brushing way too hard and at completely the wrong angle for my entire life. You are supposed to hold the brush at a 45 degree angle toward the gumline and use tiny circular strokes with almost no pressure at all. I was essentially taking a wire brush to my enamel and gums twice a day every single day since I was old enough to reach the sink. The damage to the gum tissue at several teeth is permanent. It does not grow back. I have visibly receding gums at 28 years old and I caused it myself by trying to be clean.

The thing that is making me spiral is that I was never doing nothing. I was actively brushing. I thought I was being diligent. This whole time the effort I was putting in was literally making things worse and I had no idea because nobody ever corrected me after I was about seven years old.

I looked it up when I got home and apparently this is extremely common. Toothbrush abrasion is one of the most frequently seen issues in dental offices and most people have no idea they are doing it. You want to see almost no white on your bristles after two minutes because that means you barely pressed. If your bristles splay out like a fan after a month you are brushing way too hard.

Please go look up the modified Bass technique right now. Watch one video. It took me about three minutes to realize everything I knew was wrong. I wish someone had told me this when I was a teenager instead of just telling me to brush more.

The clothes you take outside with you, and sit on the public transit, sitting on the ground, it’s touching all the public surfaces that everyone else also uses, if you bring that to your home and equally don’t bother changing out of those clothes and you lay on your bedding, you’re simply spreading all the dirt from out there in your bedding. Seriously, the public transit is absolutely disgusting with all types of fluids and dirt and BEDBUGS that’s on those chairs, don’t take that onto your bed.

I’ve seen some people say this is too dramatic, but personally this is very reasonable for me and I don’t see why you wouldn’t change.

edit 1: as expected, some people are already crying in the comments about this statement i’m making and someone is already calling me ableist. it’s simply a personal opinion, if you don’t want to change then don’t, wth. i’m just sharing some tips

edit2: okay, it’s psychological but it still makes me feel better

I am a reasonably clean person. I wipe down the toilet, I scrub the sink, I mop the floor once a week. My bathroom does not smell. Guests have complimented it. I felt good about it. Past tense.

My sister bought a UV blacklight flashlight off some cheap site because she wanted to check a hotel room on a trip. She left it at my place afterward and I figured I would try it in my bathroom as a joke. I want to be very clear that I was not prepared for what happened next.

The toilet bowl outside the rim. The grout between the floor tiles. The underside of the toilet seat hinge where you cannot really see it. The wall behind the toilet going up about four feet. The base of the toilet where it meets the floor. The side of the cabinet next to the toilet. All of it lit up like a crime scene. Bright. Glowing.

Everywhere. I stood there in the dark with this little purple flashlight and genuinely could not process what I was looking at because the surfaces I had mopped and wiped the day before were apparently covered in biological material I had never once targeted with any cleaning product.

I did not know that flushing with the lid open sends a microscopic spray across the entire bathroom. I did not know that the grout specifically absorbs and holds contamination in a way that normal surface wiping does nothing about. I did not know that the hinge area of a toilet seat is basically an uncleaned surface in most households because nobody thinks to lift it and scrub underneath with a brush.

I spent three hours that night with an enzyme cleaner, a grout brush, an old toothbrush for the hinges, and a genuine sense of personal failure. The difference under the UV light before and after was staggering. I also moved my toothbrush to a cabinet with a door, which I will be doing for the rest of my life.

If you think your bathroom is clean, buy a UV light. They are around ten to fifteen dollars. Either you will be pleasantly confirmed or you will spend a weekend scrubbing things you never knew needed it. There is truly no downside except for your peace of mind, which was apparently a lie anyway.

What are some things that some people claim you HAVE to do in order to be hygienic? I have a few on my mind:

1. shaving for women

2. those excessive skincare routines

3. conditioner, leave in conditioner, and hair oil EVERY SINGE TIME YOU WASH YOUR HAIR OTHERWISE YOUR HAIR WILL DIE

I used to be really consistent with my hygiene routine. Washed my face properly morning and night, changed pillowcases regularly, never slept with anything on my face, kept my hands away from my skin throughout the day. All the things you are supposed to do. And my skin was still breaking out constantly in the same spots on a pretty predictable cycle regardless of how careful I was externally.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to connect it to what I was eating. I think because hygiene and diet feel like completely separate categories in your head. One is about what touches your skin from the outside and the other is just food. The idea that a packet of something I had been eating casually for years was undermining everything I was doing externally just never crossed my mind seriously until I started paying proper attention.

What actually made me look at it was noticing that my skin was consistently worse after certain weeks without any obvious external reason. Same routine, same products, same everything. The only variable was what I had been eating. Once I started tracking that properly the pattern was pretty hard to ignore.

I went through my regular groceries properly for the first time and actually read what was in them. Used a couple of tools to help make sense of the ingredient lists because doing it manually is genuinely confusing without some context. What I found in things I had eaten without question for years was surprising enough that I started making gradual swaps.

The combination of keeping my external routine consistent while also cleaning up what I was eating internally made more difference than either one had done separately. My skin has been consistently calm for about five months now which is the longest stretch in probably three years.

I guess my point is that hygiene from the outside only goes so far if what is happening on the inside is working against it. Has anyone else here found that diet had a bigger impact on their skin hygiene results than they expected?

When I was growing up I was always told to rinse my mouth with water after brushing my teeth and spit it out. Now I am hearing that you are not supposed to rinse. Instead, it is better to leave the toothpaste/fluoride on your teeth so it works for longer. This doesn't make sense to me because what about all the debris you've just brushed off your teeth. Is that just supposed to sit in your mouth and land back on your teeth?

Talking about clothing that usually has another layer beneath and doesn’t have open contact to your pits or junk. I’ve seen people say to wash your wool knits especially only once a season, as wool is supposedly naturally antimicrobial…and hand-washing and then pressing and air drying wools is a labour-intensive faff.

I worry about the “perceived” vs “actual” cleanliness of my garments. If I spot clean them, they look clean, and they smell clean to me, is that…just fine? Maybe I’m too paranoid but I always worry that an overshirt that hasn’t been washed for a while might…I don’t know…smell to other people even if it smells fine to me?

Eventually it hits a logistical turn-point for me, where stuff that’s been worn for a bit ends up washed regardless of if it looks/smells dirty or not. I don’t want to put items that have been worn outside back into my wardrobe to potentially “contaminate” the clean stuff in there (side point: how realistic is this concern?), so things eventually get washed just because I have too many items “on the go” and some need to get processed so that I don’t have like five shirts hanging out around the room.

tl;dr How often do you wash this kind of stuff, and if something looks and smells clean is that enough for you to keep it in rotation? Am I fussing unnecessarily? I used to work around customers who would wear the same knits or outerwear all the time and who stank to high hell, and I guess I’ve grown worried about “being the guy who doesn’t realise that they smell”, but tbf those folks probably also had other stuff going on hygiene-wise beyond only wearing the same stuff a lot.

God I feel like such a disgusting beast. So for some context, I’m a woman, 29, almost 30, 210 pounds, just had a baby 7 months ago. I started birth control (the pill, called Hailey). I had a normal Pap smear. Just trying to bring up anything that may be relevant.

Why are my underwear always damp from sweat?! Unless it’s urine or discharge? I feel like it makes me stink. I’m so self conscious, I hate walking past people. Even just a few hours after a shower, I feel like I stink. My OB said my vagina doesn’t have an odor. I use powder, I use Lume deodorant. & I still feel like I smell. I absolutely CANNOT skip a day in between showers because then I get stinky down there. Like it’s musky, it doesn’t smell like fish or anything though. & on top of that, I’ve peed myself twice while I was sleeping since having my baby 7 months ago. Wtf is going on with me?!

This has been happening for years. After I drink a cup of coffee, I’ve noticed that I smell like coffee. At first, I thought it was just coffee breath but even if I brush my teeth, floss, and use mouth wash, I will smell like coffee. Like, I can literally sniff my armpit and it smells like coffee beans. The first person who pointed it out was my ex-girlfriend about 2 years ago because she actually enjoyed it and thought I smelled nice lol. It’s not a bad smell, but I literally have to shower after I drink a cup of coffee just to smell like myself again. Does anyone have an explanation for this?

I have a good diet of mostly whole foods, I drink plenty of water, and I typically have 1-2 coffees a day (mostly lattes).

Title

Many people mistake a dry scalp for traditional dandruff (seborrheic dermatitis), but the treatments are opposites. If you’re seeing small, white, powdery flakes rather than oily, yellow ones, you’re likely dealing with a moisture barrier issue rather than a fungal one.

Environmental factors like cold weather, hot showers, or harsh surfactants can strip your natural oils, leading to tightness and itching. For example, using a clarifying shampoo too frequently can leave the skin on your head as parched as dry elbows.

To fix this, you need to switch to a targeted dry scalp shampoo & conditioner. Unlike aggressive anti-dandruff treatments that further strip the skin, these formulas prioritize humectants like hyaluronic acid or soothing agents like almond oil and aloe vera. The goal is to hydrate the skin while the conditioner seals the cuticle without causing buildup.

What specific ingredients have helped you restore your scalp barrier?

i thought about this while standing in front of the bathroom mirror, feeling the warm water trickle down and the toothbrush scraping gently across my teeth i love these small routines, they makeme feel fresh, alive, in control, but sometimes I wonder if the real benefit isn't just cleanliness, but the tiny moment where I pause and care for myself in a world that rarely stops moving.

I shower then leave a day in between then shower again so for example I’ll shower Monday, I won’t shower Tuesday, I’ll then shower Wednesday and so on. In between I use deodorant every day, wash my hands EVERYTIME I use the toilet. Use wipes at home (don’t have a bidet it’s the uk) and at work I use spray and wipe. Come by the afternoon most days I feel like I start to smell a bit that or I just feel musty I don’t know. I came home from grocery shopping after work toddy I had been sweating because I was wearing a big jacket but the sun decided to come out along with carrying very heavy items around the store and to my car. Mum said I smelled a bit and that the only way she could describe it was farts covered by perfume. She’s never noticed it the usual days I feel a bit dirty in the afternoon only today after id been sweating carrying that stuff.

I have anxiety and smelling bad is one of my biggest fears. I’m not sure what I’m missing as to why come 2pm I feel like I’ve not showered even if I just showered the day before. It’s getting exhausting I posted about this before and people said it could be a form of ocd but my mum saying I smelled today makes me think maybe I do and I’m worried. Is there anything I can do to ensure I 100% smell good?

Everytime that I need to wash my hair, I dread it since my hairs so thick even though it’s unbelievably straight, so it takes forever to out shampoo on everything around my scalp. But no matter how much shampoo I put in or how hard I wash it afterwards, my hair still smells like the oil on my scalp and sticks together forming all these spiky points. When I touch it, it doesn’t even feel that wet, it’s like a shirt you took out of the dryer half way through. This makes me lose my mind and I have no idea what to do, I’ve changed my shampoo and conditioner more times than I can count and yet no one else in my family has this problem, they just say it feels like I have hair spray in my hair still.

I have been struggling with wearing jeans and long pants. The rubbing on my legs is causing me a lot of discomfort. Does anyone else have this issue? Has anyone found anything that relieve the discomfort? Thank you for your assistance.

Is it normal that my penis smell fishy after i ejaculate, even if i just mastrubate alone, no sex?
(It,s not the semen itself that smell fish, its the penis head, and the smell usualy appears 15. minutes after i came)
My girl is getting a BV treatment, but my own doctor will not give me the treatment as i can't carry BV?