For the average American, the day isn’t complete without a shower. More than 60 percent of U.S. adults reported showering at least once a day, for an average of 8.2 minutes each time, according to a 2021 public poll.
As indispensable as they are today, showers are a fairly new addition to human civilization. For most of recorded human history, dating back to roughly 3,000 B.C., evidence suggests that communal baths played a central role in daily life. From the ancient Greek baths to the Japanese onsen, people of all social classes would gather at the bathhouse to exercise, bathe, and socialize.
Today, people largely enjoy solo showers rather than social bathing, prioritizing efficiency over communing and relaxation. But as deeply ingrained as showering may seem, the practice is not necessarily preferable from a health perspective. Experts reflect on the evolution of bathing culture and what has been gained, and lost, in the process.
Thousands of years of bathing
As a central part of life, bathing practices throughout history have reflected changing ideals around personal care and health.
In ancient times, particularly within the Roman Empire, bathing was almost entirely a public affair. Only the wealthiest few had their own private baths, while everyone else participated in the ritual of communal bathing, which often took place in sprawling bath complexes and included massages, libraries, and even food and drink.
“There’s lots of artistic illustrations showing parties and things going on in the baths and people having dinner in the bath,” says Virgina Smith, a historian and author of Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity.
For the ancient Greeks, bathing was often a ritualistic self-purification before religious rites or welcoming guests, according to Katherine Ashenburg, author of The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History. Traditional Japanese-style bathhouses were used for both therapeutic and religious purposes, and later as social gathering places. Russian banyas and Turkish hammams were also historically important hubs of social and religious activity.
“Bathing was not always connected in people’s minds with cleanliness,” Ashenburg says. “Sometimes getting in water was thought to be, not just doing nothing for you in terms of becoming clean, but was actually dangerous to your health.”
During the Black Death, for instance, public baths closed because Medieval Europeans believed that opening the pores with hot water would allow the plague to enter through the skin.
Though this thinking was incorrect, there were hygiene concerns in public baths, according to James Hamblin, a physician and lecturer at Yale University and author of Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less. “Some accounts of ancient bath houses…described layers of slime across the surface of the water,” he says. “If anything, you were exposing yourself to pathogens.”
A new era of bathing
Large-scale communal bathing would eventually die out around the turn of the 20th century in the West. One major driver was the emergence of germ theory of disease, “when bathing became strongly associated with cleanliness,” Hamblin says.
Starting in the mid 1800s, cities in the U.K. began to build public baths and washhouses mainly for the poor. A similar phenomenon would soon play out in the U.S., most notably in New York City where plumbing was still fairly inaccessible and immigrant populations boomed. With the development of the so-called “rain bath”—an early shower that was first used for European military and industry workers—came a new vision of public health and mass hygiene.
Gone were the days of long, luxurious, communal baths. Because of its space, water, fuel, and cost-efficiency, the rain bath became the preferred bathing setup. As people began to get plumbing inside their homes, personal bathtubs and showers grew increasingly common and, eventually, became the norm.
Naomi Adiv, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto Mississauga, largely attributes this shift to the “rise of industrial capitalism” in America. “The idea that you would go, you know, hang out at the bath for the afternoon is not in keeping with worker productivity.”
Public bathhouses do still exist around the world, including in Turkey, Russia, and Japan. But our daily cleaning rituals have largely been relegated to individual baths and shower stalls—and not necessarily for the better.
“We’ve lost a social aspect of [bathing], and for many people a feeling of enjoyment,” Hamblin says.
Which is better, showering or bathing?
From a sanitation perspective, there’s little research about whether showering or bathing is preferred. Given a clean water source, both are effective for personal hygiene, says Kelly Reynolds, professor of Community, Environment and Policy at the University of Arizona, and “really seems to be a matter of personal choice.”
To those worried about soaking in unsanitary water, Amy Huang, a dermatologist at the Medical Offices of Manhattan says “unless you’re extremely dirty…there shouldn’t be any concerns.”
Much like the gut microbiome, the skin biome contains thousands of species of microbes that live on and support skin health, Hamblin says. Both bathing and showers can temporarily strip this biome or damage our skin if the water is too hot, if too much soap is used, and if scrubbing is too vigorous.
“The ideal regimen is basically a gentle soap…no fragrance, no dyes, and ideally non-sudsing,” says Huang. You don’t even need to scrub everywhere—focus on the armpits, the genitals, the feet, and the scalp if you’re washing your hair, she adds. Katrina Abuabara, associate professor of dermatology at UCSF, adds that “using loofahs and washcloths can damage the skin barrier, and washing with one’s hands is sufficient.”
For people with eczema or other skin conditions, for instance, baths can be an effective part of their treatment regimen. “Because you’re sitting in the bath for longer than you do in the shower, you’re making the skin softer so that when you apply medicine…your skin absorbs it better,” Huang says.
Taking a warm bath can also act as a physical and mental boost, according to Justine Grosso, a mind-body psychologist in New York and North Carolina. Immersion bathing, more so than showering, “has been shown to lift mood in people with depression, improve sleep for people with insomnia, and have positive effects on the cardiovascular system,” she says.
How exactly warm bathing affects the body is still being researched. “There is some evidence that it works through vasodilatation, in which blood vessels widen allowing more oxygen and nutrients to the periphery of the body,” Grosso adds.
“It’s about the heat,” says Ashley Mason, a clinical psychologist at UCSF’s Osher Center for Integrative Health. Preliminary studies suggest that immersing oneself in saunas, steam rooms, hot tubs, and hot showers or baths at least once a day could be beneficial.
Overall, when it comes to cleaning ourselves, Hamblin says, less is more. The personal hygiene industry has “medicalized” a practice that has very little to do with disease prevention, he says. Without discounting the necessity of soap in public health, he blames modern marketing for manipulating consumers into distorted beliefs about the importance of a daily ritual using expensive products.
From a medical standpoint, communal bathing was never a means to better health, Hamblin adds. But “in terms of connectedness socially, of relaxing you psychologically, I don’t doubt that it had some effect.”
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