GRIME OF THEIR LIVES
Celebs brag about shunning showers
The latest celebrity dirt is . . . well, dirt.
Last week, Jake Gyllenhaal became the latest actor in a string of celebs to admit that they do not regularly wash themselves.
“More and more I find bathing to be less necessary,” Gyllenhaal, 40, told Vanity Fair Thursday. “I do believe, because Elvis Costello is wonderful — that good manners and bad breath get you nowhere . . . But I do also think that there’s a whole world of not bathing that is also really helpful for skin maintenance, and we naturally clean ourselves.”
Mila Kunis, 37, and Ashton Kutcher, 43, also believe their bodies have a self-cleaning setting.
“I don’t wash my body with soap every day,” Kunis said on actor pal Dax Shepard’s podcast “Armchair Expert” in July. “But I wash pits and tits and holes and soles.”
Kutcher espoused a similarly slimy philosophy in the joint podcast interview: “I wash my armpits and my crotch daily, and nothing else ever. I got a bar of Lever 2000 that just delivers every time. Nothing else.”
The A-list couple also revealed that they barely wash their kids Wyatt, 6, and Dimitri, 4. “If you can see the dirt on them, clean them,” Kutcher said. “Otherwise, there’s no point.”
Naturally, kiddie hygiene philosophies merited some discussion on “The View.” Appearing on the talk show last week, Shepard’s wife, actress Kristen Bell, weighed in.
“I’m a big fan of waiting for the stink,” said Bell, 41, of her approach with their two children Lincoln, 8, and Delta, 6.
It sounds potentially icky (not to mention the smell), but experts said bathing less can have benefits. Dr. Julie Russak, a private practice dermatologist in Manhattan, told The Post that dermatologists generally “don’t recommend prolonged baths or daily showers.”
Hot showers are known for drying out the skin — it’s one of the reasons we have to apply lotion immediately after taking one, Russak said. Plus, she noted, lathering up too frequently, especially with bar soaps, “really removes and destroys the skin’s microbiome,” which is “extremely important in overall health of the body.”
The derm also noted that it’s not terrible for kids to skip a nightly sudsy bath.
“I think we are over-bathing our children,” leading to overly sensitive skin in kids, whose dermis is already much more delicate than adults’ skin, Russak said. She shared that her son, who had severe eczema as a child, was allowed to shower just twice a week and only use the gentlest soaps.
Another skin-care forfeiture for the famous? Conventional deodorant. Cameron Diaz, said in 2014 that she hadn’t worn antiperspirant in “almost 20 years,” and Matthew McConaughey, who has copped to never wearing cologne or deodorant, might also be onto something.
Sweat is our body’s “natural way of detoxifying,” said Russak, adding that switching from antiperspirant to deodorant is a smart choice. “We do need to sweat.”
But it’s important to rinse that sweat off — especially if you’ve exercised heavily — because it contains “toxins” built up in the body, said Russak.
“Waiting for the stink” a la Kunis and Bell might mean it’s a little too late: Odors signify a bacterial buildup.
“You also have to still think about all the bacteria and [toxins] that accumulate on the skin,” said Russak. “When the body sweats . . . it’s all a natural way of removing toxins. And you don’t want to leave that sitting on top of your skin too long, encouraging pimples, folliculitis and other skin infections.”
Bottom line, the doctor said: “There has to be a healthy balance.”