I do not wash my body with soap.

Some of you may have had a visceral reaction of disgust when you read that statement.

I have practiced this for years now.

And no, my close friends, family, and my wife can attest to the fact – I do not smell like a feral homeless man.

Keep your uninformed biases to yourself.

Soap is harsh. Soap is a detergent. A detergent is designed to grab lipid molecules, the stuff that makes up all fats, grease, and last but not least – cell membranes. Yes, cell-membranes of bacteria and other microscopic beings of the like. Grab them and pop them open.

Well I don’t know about you, but the bacteria on my skin. They’re my friends.

They’re my epidermal custodians.

Nothing gets past my skin barrier unless they know about it; and these bacteria have a vested interest in keeping me alive.

I give them a home, three square meals a day, and a comfortable environment of oils, salts, and keratin for them to live their best lives. Do you think I would fuck that up for them?

Genomic sequencing of samples taken from the skin of adults from different areas reveal colonization with species of the bacterial genera: Propionibacterium, Corynebacterium, Streptococcus, Micrococcus, Staphylococcus, Veillonella, Enhydrobacter; and fungi genera: Malassezia, Aspergillus, Candida, Zymoseptoria, Epidermophyton, Pyramimonas, Nannizzia, Parachlorella, Tilletia, Nephroselmis, Cyanophora, Aureoumbra, Pyconococcus, Gracilaria, Leucocytozoon, Trichophyton – just to name a few.

There is a party going on the surface of your skin all the time. Don’t be a party pooper.

Microbes are a chatty bunch. They are constantly sending out and receiving messages to and from everything in their environment. Including you. They are constantly sending and receiving messages to and from you. Just as they are constantly sending and receiving messages to and from each other.

Some of those really nasty bacteria, actually respond respectfully when a member of their own genus is talking to them. There is a strain of Staphylococcus epidermidis that secretes a serine protease glutamyl endopeptidase protein called GluSE that prevents Staphylococcus aureus (the villain of the infamous Staph infection) from forming a biofilm and adhering to your epithelia [1]. They are two guys, descendants of the same clan hero, just different villages. When the violent one starts to get a bit out of hand, the more peaceful one reminds him to chill out. Reminds him that this is not the place for all that. Microbes are used to living in community. Stop blowing up their community everyday, for no reason.

Another example of this is Staphylococcus lugdunensis inhibiting the growth of the S. aureus via the production of a peptide antibiotic coupled to a thiazolidine ring, aptly named lugdunin [1].

The coolest part about this discovery is that, when you continue to expose the S. aureus to these “antibiotics” produced by their friends, they don’t even try to develop a workaround for it. I.e. they don’t develop resistance to it the same way they do to man-made antibiotics. They accept the message and don’t fight against it. Therefore I can’t even call these proteins “anti-biotics.” If anything they should be simply called bacterial regulators, (reg-biotics?).

But wait, wait. There’s more.

Multiple different species of Staphylococcus produce reg-biotics that WORK WITH human epidermal skin cells by creating a synergistic bond with the human protein – cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide LL-37 [1]. This bond creates a super reg-biotic that inhibits the growth of the nasty type of S. aureus. If they evolved with us, why wouldn’t this be the case? Bacteria have learned to read you and work with you long before you even knew they existed.

Our Ancient Medicine Man traditions share stories of tiny beings, not visible to the naked eye, that are part of families that inhabit specific areas in nature. One set of families live in the ocean water, others in the swamp water, others in the soil, others associated with certain animals or insects. This was well before the advent of the microscopic lens by Leeuwenhoek or Dr. Lister and the Germ Theory. These tiny beings are able to heal or cause sickness depending on how you mix them with other constituents or the type of environment you place them in. Yes, Medicine Men of indigenous peoples around the globe have practiced microbiology long before there was a syllabus for it in Cambridge.

Several skin conditions have been associated with altered skin microbiomes. Acne is well known for this association. Eczema is very common to have this alteration also, but very few people with eczema know of this association. Eczema is associated with a much higher colonization of S. aureus, especially during flares [1]. So now the question is one of the chicken or the egg. Who came first? The Staph or the eczema? There is not enough evidence to say. What we do know, however, is that infants that develop eczema by one year of age have a much smaller rate of S. aureus exposure at two months then children who do not develop eczema [1]. This at least provides some evidence to say that proper exposure to natural environmental bacteria, early in life, prepares the immune system and host microbiome to regulate those bad actors later in life. In other words, if you want to protect your child from bad things, it’s a good idea to expose them to some bad things.

Let your children – and yourself for that matter – roll in dirt. Not the NYC park dirt that has used condoms, glass, and heroin needles in it. No, I’m talking about the good wholesome country soil that has worms in it. Or the wild untamed soil of a deep forest with beetles in it. That kind of dirt.

The soil also has its own microbiome. The soil is the skin of Mama Gaia. What makes you think her skin and your skin shouldn’t mix?

Animals choose to roll in dirt all the time. They’re smart.

Now you may ask. What about smell? What about it? When was the last time you smelled like a happy, healthy human being? Not perfumed and cologned up, but really smelled like an actual man or woman. Smell is a communication tool just like sight, sound, touch, and taste. Your body odor is how the body communicates to you what is going on inside. The skin is always trying to give you a report of the state of your internal organs. But instead, most people go on in their unconscious ways. Slathering their body with toxic lotions, a shampoo with one fragrance, a body soap with another fragrance, fragrance in the laundry detergent, and to top it all off even more fragrance sprayed all over yourself from a fancy $120 bottle of horseshit. At the end, what are you trying to smell like? Do you want to smell like herbs and flowers? Go buy some fucking herbs and flowers. Make a bath with them and rub yourself with that. I guarantee you will smell 10 times better than that caustic odiferous concoction you call perfume.

I can smell the meat that I eat in my armpits.

Men, can smell the vileness in a woman when she opens her legs.

A healthy woman has a healthy smelling yoni.

A healthy man has a healthy smelling grajo.

Smelly feet are another one. Feet should not smell bad.

Walk Barefoot. In The Dirt.

Stop using all soaps and fragrance. During the first week, your body will overproduce oils because it is in a default state of constantly trying to replace everything you keep washing off. Let it do it’s thing, get oily and nasty for that week. Keep rinsing yourself down everyday, two to three times a day as needed. Let the skin normalize. Then smell yourself, and ask honest people to smell you too. Note where there are foul odors emanating from. Close your eyes as you smell and ask yourself: Where did that smell come from? Is it that poorly digested pork chop that got backed up behind the cheesecake and the doritos?

Experiment with your diet and lifestyle and notice how your smell will change. Better yet, start to notice the difference in your skin quality and feel. You won’t need as much moisturizer anymore. Any small infections, abscesses, or reactions you used to have will now disappear. When you go out into nature, fewer bugs will bite you. They can identify you as a human being – not a lollipop.

Sources:

1. Byrd AL, Belkaid Y, Segre JA. The human skin microbiome. Nature Reviews Microbiology. Vol 16; Mar 2018; pgs 143-155. doi: 10.1038/nrmicro.2017.157