Are Ashton Kutcher’s Shower Habits Gross, or Totally Fine?

Is soap and water on your armpits and crotch enough?

Ashton Kutcher speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019 at Moscone Convention Center on October 04, 2019 in San Francisco, California. The actor's hygiene habits have come under scrutiny.
Ashton Kutcher speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019
Getty Images for TechCrunch

Generally speaking, we tend to think of celebrities as being especially well-groomed. After all, they’re paid to look good, and they have access to the best stylists, makeup artists and products money can buy. But as a new interview with Ashton Kutcher reminds us, celebs are just like us — and it turns out that means they might be kinda gross.

In a recent episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Kutcher and his wife Mila Kunis discussed their approach to bathing their young children, revealing that they only do so when “you can see the dirt on them.”

“I didn’t have hot water growing up as a child, so I didn’t shower much anyway,” Kunis said. “But when I had children, I also didn’t wash them every day. I wasn’t that parent that bathed my newborns — ever.”

“Here’s the thing,” Kutcher added. “If you can see the dirt on them, clean them. Otherwise, there’s no point.”

The actor also revealed that he’s got a pretty relaxed approach to his own shower habits, admitting that he just uses soap and water on his “armpits and crotch daily” but “nothing else ever.” ““I do have a tendency to throw some water on my face after a workout to get all the salts out,” he said.

It sounds less than hygienic, but is Kutcher’s routine actually fine? Are we too preoccupied with showering every day? We know that cutting down on the number of showers we take is better for the environment — trimming a minute off your shower time will save you 550 gallons of water, 170 tons of CO2 emissions and $60 each year — but is it sanitary?

As we pointed out earlier this year, it turns out we’re all probably showering too frequently. The number of showers a man should be taking per week depends on his lifestyle, but generally speaking going without a shower a couple times a week, as long as you’re washing your hands, armpits and private parts daily, seems fine.

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