Beauty Entrepreneurs’ (Surprising) Reactions To The Great Celebrity Bathing Controversy Of 2021

There’s something about being squeaky clean that Americans really value. It’s at least part of the reason why personal hygiene is a huge priority for them, two-thirds shower daily, and oil-based cleansers light on suds have been a tough sell in the United States. Americans’ obsession with scrubbing even extends to their stuff. Two-thirds wash their cars once or twice a month.

So, it’s hardly surprising that, when actor Jake Gyllenhaal, and celebrity couples Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher, and Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard revealed they or their progeny aren’t hopping into a bath or shower with alacrity, the country collectively seemed to gasp. Speaking for undoubtedly many, rapper Cardi B asked her Twitter followers on Tuesday, “Wassup with people saying they don’t shower?” Alongside a confused emoji, she added, “It’s giving itchy.”

The great celebrity filth controversy of 2021—maybe rub-a-dub-dub-gate? the forget-that-Gyllen-hall pass affair?—started last month with Kunis and Kutcher discussing their kids’ bathing habits on “Armchair Expert,” a podcast hosted by Shepard and Monica Padman. “If you can see the dirt on them, clean them,” said Kutcher of his kids: daughter Wyatt, 6, and son Dimitri, 4. “Otherwise, there’s no point.” As for himself, Kutcher said he washes his “armpits and my crotch daily, and nothing else ever.”

Shepard and Bell kept the cleaning (or lack thereof) conversation going during an appearance Tuesday of last week on “The View.” Shepard shared his two daughters with Bell—Lincoln, 8, and Delta, 6—will go five to six days without bathing. “I’m a big fan of waiting for the stink,” said Bell. “Once you catch a whiff, that’s biology’s way of letting you know you need to clean it up.”

Later in the week, Vanity Fair published an article in tandem with Gyllenhaal’s unveiling as the face of Prada’s fragrance Luna Rossa Ocean (in what could be a miss for the label, it’s a bright citrus rather than a dirty musk) that delved into the star’s bathing restraint. “More and more I find bathing to be less necessary, at times,” he said in the article. “I do believe, because Elvis Costello is wonderful, that good manners and bad breath get you nowhere. So I do that. But I do also think that there’s a whole world of not bathing that is also really helpful for skin maintenance, and we naturally clean ourselves.”

The business implications of not bathing for a bath, body and baby care sector that depends on grimy people constantly cleaning themselves could be vast. According to Statista, the U.S. bath and shower products market is expected to hit $48 billion in sales next year, up from $41.5 billion in 2018. If greater numbers of Americans adopt Gyllenhaal’s bathing abstinence, that could spell billions of dollars going down the dry drain.

Interestingly considering the potential business fallout, brands within the sector, particularly the baby care slice of it, generally aren’t opposed to celebrities’ opposition to bathing. While the American Academy of Dermatology Association advises that babies should be washed two to three times a week, Shelly Ann Winokur, founder of baby care brand Kiss Kiss Goodnight, suggests one to two times a week is sufficient along with spot cleaning daily for the diaper area, face, hands and feet.

“This is because, during the first few years of life, children are developing their microbiome, acid mantle and skincare barrier,” says Winokur, who estimates Kiss Kiss Goodnight’s customers typically wash their kids every other day rather than follow her suggestion. “Over-washing, especially with harsh and fragranced cleansers, can damage these components of their skin by removing beneficial microbes from the skin, removing natural oils and, if you use soap that has a basic pH, damaging the acid mantle. When the chemistry of the skin is disturbed, children develop sensitive skin and skin ailments like eczema.”

Sweta Doshi is an advocate for moisturization over bathing, and her position caused her to start her baby and child skincare brand Bubbsi with an assortment centered on its bestselling Body Cream. Similar to Winokur, she says, “Frequent exposure to water is a leading cause of dry skin and eczema, so we try to educate Bubbsi customers that baths aren’t an everyday necessity, especially in the baby phase. I bathe my kids—ages 4 and 7—every other day on average, but it varies based on their activities and what they’ve put on their skin.”

From a baby care product sales point of view, the emphasis shifts from shampoos, body washes and bubble baths to moisturizers. Doshi says, “We encourage the Bubbsi community to create each child’s skincare routine based on their individual skin needs—dry versus normal skin, daily activities, etc.—and we also create content around alternatives to the traditional nighttime bath routine, for example, nightly moisture massages with our Body Cream or Oil Balm that have a myriad of skin and developmental benefits for babies and older children.”

“Parents, set your kids up for success. You don’t want other kids telling them they smell!”

As children age, medical recommendations—and societal pressures—change. The AADA advises 6 to 11-year-olds to bath at least once or twice a week, and tweens and teens to shower or bathe daily. For girls, Audra Robinson, founder of bath and body care brand Rocky Robinson, says the years prior to puberty are “a key time to instill healthy habits that will stick with them as they grow and develop.”

Later, Robinson proposes bathing regimens that don’t mirror Kutcher’s or Gyllenhaal’s are prudent. She says, “Tweens and teens should shower or bathe every day given puberty and activities with peers that will certainly let them know it is time to step up their body hygiene and grooming game. Parents, set your kids up for success. You don’t want other kids telling them they smell!”

Bathing customs aren’t merely driven by medical counsel or personal preferences. Critics of the anti-bath celebrities assert their personal hygiene practices and public proclamations of them reek of privilege. “I am genuinely shocked by how rarely (some) white people bathe themselves and their children. And how comfortable they are discussing it. During a pandemic,” wrote “The Bad Feminist” author Roxane Gay in a Tweet.

In another Tweet, she continued, “Lots of groups of people can’t afford to do all these weird once a week, bird bath things you are all opining about. Black people, poor people, immigrants, fat people have all been labeled as ‘dirty’ by society and I assure you, we can’t just skip around unwashed.”

Winokur says the connection of privilege to celebrities’ kids skipping daily bathing is “part of the stigma that not bathing every day makes you unclean, and it’s just not true. Helping your child develop a healthy microbiome by cleansing less will actually help prevent body odor. A balanced microbiome is healthier than ‘squeaky clean’ skin.”

La Shonda Tyree, founder of skincare and body care brand Nyah, picks up on Gay’s point about the pandemic and highlights the possible harm of people replicating celebrity stances against washing at a moment when it’s critical. “During the pandemic, we saw the importance hand washing had on the spread of the coronavirus. In fact, cases of the common cold and the flu were down tremendously during this past winter due to hand washing and other measures,” she says. “In third-world countries, where they are dying from communicable diseases, that can be significantly reduced by having soap and clean water to bathe in.”

“Helping your child develop a healthy microbiome by cleansing less will actually help prevent body odor.”

Bell and Kunis apparently grasp that there are grave issues tied to bathing. A week after her and Shepard’s appearance on “The View,” Bell explained her family curbs its washing for environmental reasons. She said, “We don’t have a ton of water, so when I shower, I’ll grab the girls and push them in there with me so we all use the same shower water.” The circumstances of Kunis’s childhood in Russia didn’t make bathing regularly easy. She said, “I didn’t have hot water growing up as a child, so I didn’t shower very much anyway.”

No matter the reasons for celebrities’ and their kids’ limited bathing, Tara Darnley, CEO and co-founder of family essentials brand Darlyng & Co. and haircare brand Peculiar Roots, thinks the spotlight on it won’t have much of an effect on business and will soon fade. “We don’t view this as a trend,” she says. “This will not have a direct impact on Darlyng & Co.”

Winokur hopes it is a trend and one that doesn’t fade because she believes reduced bathing will be better for kids’ skin. “Sensitive skin and skin ailments are increasing because of over-washing, a trend brought on by soap companies in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and it’s time we reverse that,” she says, stressing, “The long-term ramifications of bathing less are going to be beneficial for the next generation.”