Basic Hygiene Tips That No One Tells You About

This post is all about the basic hygiene tips you need to know about so you can maintain your physical and mental health.

What’s that smell? It better not be you! We have all been in a situation at some point in our lives whether we were either at work, a party, a date, or a simple gathering, and a pungent smell grazed our nose. Let’s just say it was not pleasant. You didn’t know if you should kindly let the person know in private, or just let it go. On one hand if you told them, they might get offended, but on the other hand, if you didn’t tell them, they would just constantly be showing up to gatherings coming unprepared in the hygiene department and that’s not good either. 

In any case don’t let that be you. You would never want to leave a room and have people remember you as the “smelly girl”. Why? Because the next time around your friends or colleagues will avoid you like the Bubonic plague and that never feels good. Also, having good hygiene is important for your health in general because the more bacteria you allow to collect on your body, the more susceptible you are to infections and getting sick. You want to keep that part of your beauty routine in tip top shape!

Basic Hygiene

1. Oral Hygiene

Let’s talk oral hygiene, shall we? This is probably one of the most important areas you should be taking care of because if you see people in person, which lets face it, almost all of us come in contact with someone at least once a day, you are most likely to converse with them. If you are anything like me, you won’t want to continue talking to someone once the first thing that comes out of their mouth even before they say a word is a smell so bad that whatever they have to say next is irrelevant since you’re still trying to recover from the rancid breath that just attacked you. 

Flossing

If you could have a penny for the amount of people I know who don’t floss, you would probably be rich. Seriously. So many people skip this step when it’s so crucial for the health and smell of your mouth. Think about it. When you leave food stuck in between your teeth and don’t remove it, think about the rancid smell that would cause. It would smell like the food has gone bad in between your teeth. Also, not only does food get stuck in between your teeth, but it gets stuck in your gums also. If you leave food stuck in your gums it can lead to gingivitis because of the irritation your are causing leave food and bacteria lodged in there. So please do everyone a favor and floss every single day.

Brush More Than Once A Day

Of course everyone knows to brush their teeth. I hope. However, you don’t just brush every morning, you should should brush every night as well. Yes, you want to start your day off fresh without morning breath so you brush your teeth in the morning but you have to be brushing your teeth at night too. Everything you ate and drank has to be brushed away from your teeth or things like cavities and plaque could form on your tooth again causing bad oral hygiene. 

Brush Your Tongue

For the love of hygiene please brush your tongue. This one is another one that people tend to forget about or skip and I don’t know why. Did you know that about 20 million bacteria exists on the tongue? So why in the world would you skip that part of brushing your teeth? Brushing just your teeth is just a small part of the whole process. To have a fully clean fresh smelling mouth, you need to clean everything and that includes brushing your tongue.

2. Dry Shampoo

For most of us, washing our hair every single day isn’t healthy for our scalps or strands because it can strip the hair from essential oils. If you don’t wash your hair every day and do some sort of physical activities throughout the week, dry shampoo is a savior! If you’re going from day to day without working out, your hair is not really going to smell so dry shampoo is great to bring back volume, body, and get rid of any excess oils. On the other hand if you do workout, sometimes your hair can get that post sweat session smell and some dry shampoo can get rid of the smell and refresh your hair.

3. Shower

So that you can have the best chance as having great hygiene, showering is a must! If you don’t shower every day, you guessed it, you will most likely smell. You will allow the skin the accumulate a build -up of dead cells which have an unpleasant stench. Even if you don’t think you smell bad, trust me, others will. It’s an essential that must be part of your hygiene routine.

Below are important areas some will neglect which make a huge difference if taken care of.

Ears

Everyone knows to wash their body when they shower, but forgot about the smaller areas of the body. Washing your ears is important especially the back of your ears because if don’t wash the back of your ears, crust starts to form and it doesn’t smell good. When people go in to give a hug or a kiss on the cheek, their nose is right by the back of ear. People will smell a funky scent so get to prevent crust from forming, wash your ears. 

Armpits

Throughout the day, your armpits are the most susceptible to sweat because they are folded under your arms for majority of the day. With that sweat comes bad body odor. Body odor that can be smelled by the people around you the most. Underarm body odor is so potent people may be avoiding sitting or standing next to you. Perfume on top of the bad body odor is not going to cut it especially if you have an active lifestyle. Yes you can use deodorant, but if you don’t wash that deodorant off properly before you go to bed and wake up the next day and apply more deodorant over that deodorant that was miked with sweat, you will smell worse. Scrubbing your armpits with a deodorizing soap until the sweat and deodorant is off will do the trick to prepare you for a fresh new day.

Down Under

Your lady bits are hidden under underwear majority of the day and also using the bathroom throughout the day. Not to mention, our menstrual cycle that comes once a month. Imagine how much it would need to be freshened up at the end of the day. When you shower, just standing under the water washing your body and not the cracks and crevices, isn’t going to cut it. You need to get in there and wash it with water. The outer parts of your lady bits can be washed using a ph balanced soap of your choice but NEVER put that soap inside your lady bits as that would be a recipe for yeast infections among other things.

Belly Button

This one is a quick one but so many people forget to wash their belly button! Now if you have an outie belly button you probably won’t get as much grime and bacteria in there. However, those of us with deep belly buttons should be cleaning it. Neglecting to clean it will result in dirt like grime being collected. Let’s face it, that doesn’t look cute while you’re in your bikini at the beach. 

Hair

Now, of course we wash our hair but please wash it when you should. Yes, washing it every day is a bit much which is why dry shampoo was mentioned above. However, there comes a point where no matter what you do to try to refreshen it, it still smells and it’s greasy, dull, and lifeless. That my friends, is when you know you are due for a wash day. I know depending on the type of hair you have, wash days can be pain and a process, but I promise you will feel so much better once it’s clean and you won’t have to worry about it for the next few days.

4. Nails

This isn’t a tip to always have your nails painted and done 24/7 because let’s be honest, sometimes you need to let your nail beds breath. However you should take a look at what’s underneath your nails. Because of all things we grab throughout the day, eat, or even depending on your type of workout, dirt collects. Then you’ll see a rim of grime under your nails and it just looks dirty. No one wants to shake someones hand with dirty nail beds. That’s why whenever you are doing something that can possibly dirty your nails, be cognizant about your nails and wash them right away.

Furthermore, make sure your nails aren’t broken and they are filed or cut nicely. When they are properly taken care of, it’s another great addition to your hygiene routine and you give give the impression of a clean beautiful lady who doesn’t miss a thing. When they are not taken care of properly but the rest of you is, it looks lazy.