Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard defend controversial 'waiting for the stink' method
Topics: Celebrity, Entertainment, Health
Niamh Spence
Featured Image Credit: Peru Williams/Variety/Rick Kern/Getty Images
Topics: Celebrity, Entertainment, Health
Common consensus is that you should wash everyday, but Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard are having none of that.
For parents, it can be a nightly battle trying to get children to go for their bath or get in the shower and just to keep them clean in general.
Yet it turns out not everyone is following the daily washing ritual.
Bell and Shepard revealed their strange hygiene habits for their children whilst being interviewed on The View in 2021.
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The couple said they don't bathe and shower their kids everyday as Kristen explained: "I'm a big fan of waiting for the stink.
"Once you catch a whiff, that's biology's way of letting you know you need to clean it up. There's a red flag.
"Honestly, it's just bacteria; once you get bacteria you gotta be like, 'Get in the tub or the shower.' So I don't hate what [Mila and Ashton] are doing. I wait for the stink."
Whilst the concept sounds strange, it turns out they're not alone in this and there can actually be health benefits to washing less.
The comments came after Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher appeared on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast, where they admitted they're not that into bathing themselves or their two children and don't prescribe to the full body daily washing ritual.
In the chat, Mila admitted: "I don't wash my body with soap every day, but I wash pits and tits and holes and soles."
Mila also added: "When I had children. I also didn't wash them every day. I wasn't the parent that bathed my newborns—ever."
Kutcher joined in as he explained: "Here's the thing — if you can see the dirt on 'em, clean 'em.
"Otherwise, there's no point."
According to some scientific research, the anti-bathing celebrities might be onto something.
WebMD says on its website: "This line of thinking, called the 'hygiene hypothesis,' holds that when exposure to parasites, bacteria, and viruses is limited early in life, children face a greater chance of having allergies, asthma, and other autoimmune diseases during adulthood."
Thom McDade, PhD and associate professor and director of the Laboratory for Human Biology Research at Northwestern University, has also backed the rarely bathing approach.
He went so far as to say that not washing your kids could reduce their risk of heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's as adults.
He explained: "We're moving beyond this idea that the immune system is just involved in allergies, autoimmune diseases, and asthma to think about its role in inflammation and other degenerative diseases.
"Microbial exposures early in life may be important… to keep inflammation in check in adulthood."