Today 13th January 2023 I was mentioned in an article published in the Guardian Newspaper. It came about because they were looking for men to comment on the rise in Male Grooming and Self Care. So I wrote a few words on how I live my life and my final comments were

“It was a revelation for me to realise that the whole cosmetic industry is based on a confidence trick. We simply do not need these products.”

As this was not what the journalist, Amelia Hill, expected and as such it must have caught her attention she contacted me to discuss and my response was included. Basically I said that I use no products at all.

I feel the that I should explain how this happened, About 15 years ago I was staying with a friend and he had long hair, at the time my favoured look was a crew cut, very short and gave me a somewhat rugged look. He came out of the shower and I was struck by how good his hair looked and asked him about it, he told me that all he did was to rinse it in plain water. I was surprised and when I decided to grow my hair some years later I started to follow the same regime and have not used any form of shampoo on my hair since. This is for more than 12 years.

When I moved to my present house with the burn nearby I began my daily bathing in the river and when it was necessary simply carried on the practice of rinsing my hair in the fresh water that flows of the surrounding hills.

My daily routine was to stand under an outdoor shower that I had installed up near my swim spot and wash myself with Organic Castile Soap which is fully biodegradable, rinse off, and then plunge into the burn. It was at this time I decided that I was not going to use any form of deodorant and after a few weeks noticed that I did not smell no matter how active I was during the day, in fact neither did my clothes.

Two winters ago the shower froze and it was such a nuisance going into the burn, getting wet, soaping myself and then going back into the water to rinse myself that I simply stopped using the soap. I just enter the water and rinse my “Bits and Pits”, to use the common parlance, and then dry myself.

To my surprise I do not smell.

I’m not a scientist but it has made me wonder if it is the products that we use that contribute to our body odour? As the chemicals break down are they cause of the smells that we experience? I certainly think they contribute to the staining that we see on the underarm parts of our garments. There is also the wider issue of what are we doing to the microbiome that inhabits our skin? From the ongoing research into this area this along with our gut microbiome seems to be linked with our intrinsic health.

I fully accept that the way that I live my life is extreme but the point of this blog post is to question the idea that we need to enhance ourselves, that we are not good enough as we are, that we should conform to some abstract norm. When in fact we are an integral part of nature and nature is perfect and so are you…….

If you wish to read the whole article the link is below. It may be behind a paywall if it is, I have a PDF copy that I can send direct to you if you contact me.

https://www.theguardian/fashion/2024/jan/12/i-can-see-change-spreading-why-male-grooming-is-booming