Currently using:
-XL Korean shower mitts…though I do need to try a proper African net at some point – especially good if you’re not a weird bendy person, so you can also scrub your back! (…& do get your recommendation from/support a Black TTer who knows their stuff, as apparently there are fake knotless ones going round?)
-Original Source Tea-tree & Mint shower gel
-American Dream Oudh Dark Amber body cream
…& I just bought – post video recording – Jax of London ‘Attraction’ men’s body oil – smells like Dior Sauvage, & also the Millionairess women’s one – I’m liking both a lot; I also tried Angels and Signature, not so keen on those, they’re a bit watery and samey smelling, but the first two, gorgeous!
I’m sorry to say I’m hopeless with TT usernames, and this info’s come from many accounts, both Black and white, over the past months, making it hard to give TT recommendations to go directly down the rabbithole with, *but* try the search terms ‘showertok’, ‘African net’, or ‘everything shower’, & that should get you going down the path! 😀 (And honestly, as someone on the spectrum with other mh issues, I’m finding showering so much less awful, mentally speaking, since learning this stuff? I do have sensory (not to mention body dysmorphia D: ) issues around showering, utterly *hate* that first bit when the hot droplets wallop all over you, so I can be a bit guilty of soap-dodging in colder weather, meep! …but since the Washcloth Debate started, it’s become a GAME! 😀 How soft & shiny can I BECOME?! Having new products that smell delicious always helps, too, so thank you to all the TT shower-tokkers for this weird lil rabbithole!)
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licensed esthetician here!! i also have very pale (and sensitive and acne prone) skin and i love the brand naturium for my body care <3 paired with korean exfol mitts & a glass foot file!!! certain chemical exfoliants can actually be MORE GENTLE for sensitive skin (when slowly incorporating) since you’re letting the ingredients sit on your skin to get rid of dead stuff rather than aggressively scrubbing. i also reeeeally love using vitamin e oil at the end of my routine since it’s very nourishing and healing!! i love that this is even a topic where so many people are learning and sharing their tips 🥰
This isnt about skincolor. I think its more about culture. White European here and everyone I know, use a washcloth and showergel. Bar of soaps is seen as unhygenic. Remember that most of those black versus white stems from the US.
Btw dont get your knowledge from tiktok. At some point, there was a discussion on tiktok about black men not washing their asses because they thought is was gay. I doubt, you can say, that this is a thing for all black men.
i know "men" dont look down in the shower…
My entire life changed because of this debate! I have changed my entire routine, so much to learn from the black community, especially black women
The hand can be super efficient if you scrub dead skin
If you wash your skin, rub your hand
But a washing glove is really efficient to remove dead skin
But you need to wash 3 times
The first it remove sebum the second : completely
Ant the third it really clean the skin
And i advise to wash your face, makeup or not woth shower gel, it will change your life
Zots are due to dead skin and sebum usually
Shower gel is better
I have really bright shiny skin and I don't really exfoliate but once a week using bondi tan remover that has urea in it and I only use hydrating products so if your skins really hydrated you won't need to exfoliate so much
I have genuinely never heard this as a black vs white issue, but I have heard of this as a female vs male issue (females using a cloth/sponge & males using their hands/soap bar). But it has always been my opinion that it's just common sense people vs.. others lol. I've used a sponge my whole life and it was amazingly shocking to me that some others did not.
That intro omg 🤣🙏🩵
Yeah the amount of people I met who don’t shower properly is astounding. What do you mean you don’t scrub your legs and feet???? Just cause water runs down doesn’t mean they’re clean 🥲
I’m also Italian and have been living abroad for the past 9 years, you don’t even understand how much I miss my bidet…
12:10
It's the dead skin you need to insist on with the pulp of your finger of a washing glove but you NEED to wash 3times
It's not a question of exfoliation just that you stop washing when you aren't clean enough.
When you havent removed all of the dead skin, rub the pulp of your finger you'll feel it
But a washing cloth is efficient if you wash 3times !
"yearly baths" are straight up bullshit. Even during medieval times, people would regulary bath. Sure, not as often as we do nowadays. But they would still clean themselves daily. Only bathing once a week and doing a "kitty wash" daily, was actually the norm until not too long ago. My grandparents and parents still live like that.
Besides that, bath houses were a major thing in medieval times. It even went so far, that entry was almost free for poor people, in order for them to afford going to one regularly. People didn't walk around all stinky and dirty back then, you know.
I don't know anyone that doesn't use a wash cloth. I always thought that's what you did. Soap up a wash rag and use it.
As an asian person, may I also advise oil cleansing your chest and neck? Preferred balm form because you can rub that on dry skin. If you message/rub it on your skin for 15+ seconds, you can feel all the gunk gather into balls. Inkey List and elf cosmetics has one for less than $15.
Hi, Dorian! If you're looking for more hygiene tips from the black community; here's a few I've been using since I was a child:
– Always shower after a bath
– Pour a splash of apple cider vinegar into your bath water
– Always use two washcloths. One for the face, one for private areas
– Use a net cloth for the rest of your body
– Wash your full body 2-3 times in the shower
– For the 1st wash, use African black soap or castile soap. That's your base cleanse. It'll remove majority of dirt and dead skin
– For the 2nd and 3rd wash, use your favorite scented soaps
– Moisturize your body with a mixture of shea butter and coconut oil. If it's colder outside, put lotion on top of that
– Use Vaseline for rougher areas like elbows, knees, hands, and feet
i went from washing my body with my hands to scrubbing with an African net sponge and it's totally been a game changer. Make sure you get an authentic one tho. They're really stretchy so you can get your whole back, neck, and shoulders and up your butt crack lol
I bathe my entire body in oil. Recently, I use a shave oil that smells divine. It’s EOS Pink Champagne.
I also skip conditioner b/c it’s always such a mess. I go straight to hair oil on the tips only.
I heard Lucid Living Co has good body oils and they are themed after characters like morticia, persephone, lilith, and a lot of other different themes !!
I started this exfoliating routine, and my skin got beautiful. By the way, I am a white woman. BUT! My elbows, elbow pits, and underarms started turning into a light brown, dirty color. What is it? Why? Please help.
Puerto Rican here: I have always used a loofa, pumice stones/coral , wash cloths for gentle facial exfoliation (not my body because thats what the loofa is for), scalp massage, and now just introduced shower/bath oil at 41. Islanders are like "Oil! Oil!! OIL!!!"
Cleopatra used to soak in milk baths. We now understand that lactic acid is a mild exfoliant, and is often used in chemical peels.
Just food for thought ~
I wish someone had told me about using benzoyl peroxide for my underarms as a stinky white teenager 😭
Big, ashy white guy here. Some of the best hygiene tips I learned were from plus size black women like, 12 years ago on YouTube lol. Every time I use baking soda to deodorize my summer clothes I think of her.
It's not all white people. Some people are just gross proper hygiene is not a color/race thing.
I'm white, and I was today years old when I learned that using washcloths wasn't a universal thing? Like obviously there's gonna be the random odd guy who doesn't know how to bathe properly, but you're telling me that there's a sizable demographic of people who just don't wash with a cloth like ever??
I will say, I am quite bad about washing my legs, but that's because I have dermatillomania so I pretty much always have open wounds and scabs on my legs, so scrubbing them down hurts quite a bit
But I do wash my feet quite religiously bc I don't want dirty feet in my bed and stuff so I'm quite good about that
I learned the washcloth thing from a comedy skit about a white lady staying in a black home. Also a handful of reddit comments have illuminated my blind spots about lotion. My last bf was like "how is you skin so soft" and I'm like "you're half black, you know this stuff!"
Thank you for this video!! My mental health is slowly getting better and my current goal is to improve my hygiene.. I've neglected myself too much and it makes me really insecure when I have to interact with people, so this is really helpful.
Do we even live on the same planet? 😂😂😂 I am not “black” and some people consider me “white”. I consider myself Mediterranean with a dash of Amerindian, full stopppp. I bathe meticulously and have always scrubbed like crazy. I have no idea who would bathe the way you say “white” people bathe, but I call BS for many so-called “white” people bathing that way for everyone who is considered “white” across the board. There’s a lot more variation in the real world than is being shown in these circles you’re describing here. I’ve known if so many “white” people using sponges and other scrubbing things to shower with. I need to finish the video, but so far I am flabbergasted that you think this is across the board for Europeans. 😂 Romans taught good hygiene. If some Europeans forgot the good lessons we, Mediterraneans, gave you, then I don’t know what to tell y’all. 😂😂😂😂 I’ll probably reply when I finish the video hehehe
16:43 I personally ‘spot treat’ with Vaseline in any places that need extra attention (backs of arms, elbows, knees, etc.) along with whipped beef tallow (there are varying studies on this but I like supporting local farmers that sell it). Similarly I do this around my collar bone or anywhere that I want perfume or cologne to stick!
About people from cold countries not washing themselves because it's so cold: people from Finland (and other cold countries too) have had saunas for thousands of years for this reason! The sauna is a huge cultural thing in Finland and historically it was a place for all kinds rituals and cleansing, even for giving birth. It's so interesting how different hygienic practices people from different cultures have. I go to sauna multiple times a week and the hot steam in the sauna softens the dead skin on my body so it just falls off (some rubbing required, I use a glove) – it's pretty cool that that's how I get squaky clean and people from other cultures scrub themselves clean! Obviously summertime and wintertime cleaning routines are pretty different because during the winter the air is so dry any amount of skin rubbing pretty much destroys the acid mantel of the skin, hehe. And it depends on the person too!
I think that's a generalisation, In Australia shower scrubs and liquid soap are everywhere. So please don't generalise. Also NewZealand pre liquid soap and Shower scrubs were using Facecloths ( flannels) and soap. So I think we switched to shower scruns made from tuelle or whatever, we swapped to that in Australia in the 90s.
Honestly if you told most people in Australia or New Zealand that you just used raw soap straight on skin they'd say eww gross. And possibly baulk at the fact that people in Britain aren't washing themselves properly.
I am totally neurospicy with two particularly vexatious weird fixations contrary to each other. One of many such pissy-pairings as I call them but these are my two most primary. I am both a hygiene freak but also bc a touch of the 'tism I HATE the chore of completing the act of bathing. So, though I MUST be clean, I'm literally cussing the entire time I'm going through the routine. I absolutely hate bathrooms bc of the amt of time I spend in them. It's a constant battle. My grandma was equally OCD about it so I come by it honestly. She taught me to wash so thoroughly I use everything short of bleach in my bath. Im also full figured so my rolls and I have a life long personal vendetta against each other due to my extreme nit pickiness. It can be maddening! Just an fyi of you have naturally very dry skin…goat's milk I use it in my lotions, baths, soap everything it keeps you so much better hydrated without any greasiness.
As a white person, I have never NOT used a loofa or wash cloth. This was also not something that I learned from anyone else but my mother. Like…can we not paint all white people incapable of washing themselves correctly? Because it isn't true.
Those African exfoliating net scrubbers are a game changer bc you can get your back and doesn’t damage your skin the way a plastic shower poof does. I always finish with baby oil gel on my legs and dry oil by Nuxe (French brand) on the rest of me. My manicurist can’t get over how smooth my arms/legs are and I’m 56.
People don't use scrub nets/loofah things?? I'm white and have used one my whole life. Never knew people just rawdogged with soap… Also, the amount of shower gel one must get through just putting in on one's hands is ridiculous! Not even from a cleanliness perspective, this seems nonsensical
Alright girl under 30 seconds and I am a filthy white gay boy! And I always find the straight men filthy I’m going to keep listening!
I am a white chick with very coarse curly hair and I use black hair products because they are the only kind that really work well on my hair. If I don't brush my hair for a week it starts to dred and I have had to cut knots out of my hair before. My elbows are dry as hell and I really need to exfoliate in the shower more.
Shower tok got me onto african net cloths and omg what a game changer. I've always loved the feel of something exfoliating (my sensory seeking coming in clutch) so I'd just keep buying those cheap exfoliating sponges and dispose of them regularly until i discovered the african net cloth (tried washclothes they never felt exfoliating enough for me personally). They stay exfoliating and don't lose their scratchiness over time like a regular washcloth or sponge and you can wash them + hang them dry so there's no buildup of mould or bacteria. Never understood how people just use their hands or a bar of soap directly. Had to do that whenever I had to shower at other people's houses and I just didn't feel properly clean
I know this is not a historical channel so I don’t expect everything to be researched thoroughly but the claim that Europeans were smelly and bathed only once a year, implying this is the only time they cleaned themselves, is ridiculous. People in the Middle Ages thought smelly air (miasma) caused diseases. There were bathhouses (mostly steam baths) everywhere and people donated money to the homeless to be able to go there. If you look at the sauna culture in Finnland I would say is hasn’t gone completely. Then in the renaissance all the bathhouses closed because of syphilis, so that probably wasn’t a great time for hygiene in Europe. And the Industrial Revolution had most people living in poverty and squalor, so the example of Europeans not cleaning themselves thoroughly a 100 years ago is probably not far from the truth. But then again, 100 years ago people were starving on the streets because of the Great Depression
I don't have a clue about this side of TikTok, but it was normal using a wash cloth in Germany ever since I can remember. I grew up with wash cloths. I never heard about an anniversal bath tho….I know back in the day, people from one family took turns in the same bathwater.
just wanted to say i thought it was adorable every time you expressed how amazed you were by your new silky, silky skin! 😂 and I had a good laugh when you said you wanted a back massage, just so that you could show off your skin to another person. it does feel like an accomplishment everyone should know about!
Some people wash with just soap and no cloth, but i honestly don't believe that the majority of people are washing with one family bar of soap like you describe.
I also find the whole debate very unfair to people who are on lower income and can not afford certain wash products. We have people in the UK who can literally not afford shower gel or to run a boiler to get hot water and have to get hygiene packs from food banks and charities. I think that is a more important think.to focus on than hahaha some people don't know about Exfoliating.
I think people may have got the impression that people don't use a wash cloth or scrunchy because on adverts for products they just show people washing with it straight from the bottle.
Exfoliating and wash cloths are done by the majority. Just look at the average supermarket and see how many of these products are sold there. Exfoliating is not a secret. If people didn't know about these products why would supermarkets have them?
Also , 100 years ago is 1925. People were not having ' a yearly bath' in 1925 lol.
wow I love your choker and the whole mermaid theme going on <3 ^^you are so beautiful 😘😍🥰🙃
It's a real challenge, since developing psoriasis; I've had to back off on sloughing off dead skin cells when I bathe because the activity can trigger lesions. It's not fun.
I spent my childhood with my skin on fire, because my parents bought the cheapest stuff to use in the bath. In fact, my father was known to use dial soap to wash his hair. Also, we didn't keep any body lotions in the house that were worth a darn. It wasn't until I was an adult, and figuring more out with m own budget, that I realized I need to use really gentle products in the shower, as well moisturize my entire body after every shower. In fact, the work I do after I bathe takes as least as long as the shower itself.
Wish I could find a cloth that was easy on my skin, but also effective at gentle exfoliation. Nothing hits that sweet spot, but I keep trying.