Man expresses his frustration with friends who 'dry shower' instead of actually bathing: 'It is the visible layer of day-grime that stays on the skin'

JR Atkinson • Writer and Editor

Jun 29, 2026 10:00 AM EDT

Have you ever 'dry showered' instead of taking an actual shower?

Sometimes you're in a pinch, and you want to feel clean, but you have no way of hopping in the tub. Maybe you're camping, or in a rush, or you just don't feel like it. You wipe yourself down with a washcloth, and you're ready to go. Who hasn't done that? It can make you feel (and smell) a little bit better, but it is far from fixing the issue. It's something to do in a pinch, not a long-term solution. But that's not what the people in this story, which was shared on the hygiene subreddit, thought. They thought they could get away with refusing to take an actual shower. Little did they know, their friend was losing his patience with this kind of behavior.

Nobody wants to be around someone who isn't taking care of themselves. It makes you worried for them. We might have all had moments when life has overwhelmed us, and we've lost track of some of the basic human stuff. Maybe we let things slip for longer than we meant to. But this is hard to inflict on your friends, and that's not the situation these folks were in. They were proud of their stink, and they wanted to let it fly. The people around them, though, were unsurprisingly not so sympathetic to the cause. You have to show up clean in order to hang out in public in polite company. You can't be reeking to high heaven.

via Unsplash+ (Yunus Tuğ)

A man wipes his hands off in front of a truck
This "dry shower" trend is just an excuse to be dirty and it is obvious.

via Xylothane
via Xylothane
via Xylothane
When everyone else is doing something, should you do it too? It's not easy to call out a friend, but sometimes it's your job to do just that. They won't hear it from anyone else, so it has to be you. That's what the friend in this story was trying to do, and it wasn't quite working out for them. Keep scrolling to read the rest of the story and decide what you think about it. Then let us know your take in the comments below.
Commenters wondered what might be going on here.

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A man with dirty hands wipes them off with a washcloth
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