The ‘Everything Shower’: an intense and almost ritualistic act of self-cleansing. Imagine self-care taken a step too far, then add about 10 more steps and you might end up with something close to the Everything Shower.
Many women choose to undergo the rigorous weekly process of exfoliating, cleansing, moisturising, shaving, and lotioning (and about a million other steps that I’m probably forgetting) in order to feel clean and put together for the following week.
The key principle behind it is that by setting aside one day of the week to scrub, wash and moisturise every inch of your body thoroughly, you get to spend the next few days feeling completely clean.
It’s meant to bring a cleansing sense of “sigh…and now, I’m finally clean”.
And that’s a great idea in theory. After all, surely it’s practical and time-saving to set aside one day a week to tidy your bedroom and meal-prep, so why wouldn’t this same logic apply to Everything Showers?
The problem becomes more apparent when you start to hear other people describing their Everything Showers.
The work begins before you even step foot in the bathroom: hair masks, hair oils, detangling, dry-brushing…
Then in the shower, you have to double shampoo and condition; then apply body wash, exfoliate, apply body creme and body serum – and the routine doesn’t stop when you get out of the shower. From here, there’s sometimes fake tan, teeth whitening strips, eyebrow dye, hand lotion and a seemingly endless amount of different products to apply, all in a very specific order depending on the person.
It’s time-consuming, it’s expensive and, I’d argue, bordering on unnecessary.
So why do we still do it?
A study reported on by The Independent showed that women in the UK will spend an average of 456 days of their life in the bathroom, compared to men who only spend 373 days.
That’s a lot of time spent in front of the mirror. But I’d argue that it isn’t vanity at play here.
One Everything Shower-enthusiast on TikTok described the Everything Shower as something that she felt she had to do to feel clean, and I think that perfectly encapsulates the problem here. The concept of Everything Showers reinforces the idea that women have to go to extreme (almost unattainable) lengths in order to feel beautiful. There’s always another step to do, another product to buy, and another thing to feel insecure about.
To quote Taylor Swift: “it’s all just f*cking impossible.”
It isn’t enough to simply maintain essential hygiene practices; there is a societal expectation placed on women to go beyond this, to always be smoothed and primed to perfection like a doll. And, crucially, the woman’s hard work is often unnoticeable to everyone but herself.
Some girls may genuinely love the whole experience of Everything Showers and the feeling that comes along with it. It can be cathartic, relaxing, perhaps a rewarding way to spend an evening. But if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the amount of time it takes to feel beautiful, or even just clean, remember your self-care time should really be all about you. There should be no one way to feel clean!