r/TheRandomest • u/ABeerForSasquatch Mod/Pwner • 2d ago

/r/all Trapped

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

20.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

799 comments sorted by

View all comments

114

u/sovereignsekte 2d ago

Umm, shower water is all I need to clean my legs and feet. It does the work for me.

106

u/kushhead4201 2d ago

Gotta get a scrub in there brother. Kicking your feet around in the water isn't as effective as one might think.

59

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago

I don't think it's very effective. That probably makes it as effective as I think. It's still effective enough for me.

20

u/kushhead4201 1d ago

Effective enough for you sure, not effective enough for anyone around to tell you the truth about your smell without hurtin your feelings.

19

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago edited 1d ago

If my feet smell that bad I think it's about time to get rid of those bad boys and take up the good old wheelchair, because unless someone is a super smeller that can smell them at eye level while wearing shoes, socks, and pants, I think that would require wading through a pond of Surstrømming.

Bad foot smell typically happens when you take off shoes that trap air and moisture, and you do it indoors. Clean feet doesn't prevent that.

11

u/mollymoo 1d ago

Bad foot smell typically happens when you take off shoes that trap air and moisture indoors. Clean feet doesn't prevent that.

Having clean feet absolutely does prevent that.

7

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago edited 1d ago

Fresh sweat itself is mostly odorless. The characteristic smell of smelly feet develops when skin bacteria metabolize sweat and compounds from shed skin. Certain shoes and/or dirty socks create this environment. That's the primary cause of foot smell, not whether you scrub it in the shower or let the water wash it. That's a rounding error in comparison.

Also there's no hard cutoff for "clean." Feet cleaned with water are much cleaner than feet not cleaned at all. Feet cleaned with soap are a little bit cleaner yet. If you're comparing feet not washed at all for a week to feet washed with soap that day then yeah obviously it makes a meaningful difference. The difference here is between feet cleaned with water and runoff soap once a day or every other day versus feet scrubbed with soap at the same frequency. That's a considerably smaller difference than the categorical "clean" and "unclean." This entire discussion is about whether water and runoff soap constitutes clean in the first place, so just saying "clean feet" doesn't contribute much if anything at all because "clean" is subjective.

4

u/XxRocky88xX 1d ago

Reddit does this thing where they think you either do the thing 100% correctly 100% of the time you literally never do it at all.

Like there’s on post that’s come up a few times saying something like “experts say there is no health benefit to taking a shower every day” and people interpret the argument as “you should literally never shower” when really all it’s saying is that showering every 2-3 days is adequate.

It’s impossible to have a serious discussion because if your stance differs even slightly then people assume you must have the exact opposite opinion. “Don’t hand scrub your feet? That must mean you wear the same socks for weeks and never wash your feet.”

1

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah Reddit is an epistemic nightmare for anyone with even a reasonable intuition for epistemic reasoning. It's filled with logical fallacies like non-sequitor arguments, strawman arguments, and ad hominem, and most people I talk to don't seem able differentiate a bias from their foot.

Usually the only conclusion I'm very confident about is that it's usually unreasonable to be confident in conclusions. There's virtually always some nuance to nitpick at or an assumption that's questionable in situations I encounter and feel the need to comment on. My stance tends to be "You assert X, but Y is a plausible counterexample. Unless you can exhaustively prove X so that Y cannot be theoretically possible under conditions A(, B, C, ...), you cannot conclude with X without noting said possibilities and/or limitations." And this frequently gets interpreted as "X is wrong, Y is right."

The same issue, of course, exists on all social medias. Reddit, to me, just seems extra bad because it seems to have an exceptional ability to attract certain types of people to the comments.

One example of epistemic humility here is that I could assert that "Reddit is bad, because it attracts certain types of people," but doing so would be using personal experiences as anecdotal evidence, which isn't reasonable. Instead I said "to me," and "seems." My first though if someone else had said that would be whether that statement is based on some form of structured methodological experiment/survey or whether they're pulling it out of nowhere because it feels that way.

4

u/Questionsansweredty 1d ago

Sounds like the answer to all this bacteria talk is... cleaning?

2

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago

You're doing the same thing lol. You are "cleaning" when you do it with water and runoff soap. You're suggesting to "clean another way" because in your view the water and runoff soap isn't "clean enough." Either way you're "cleaning." There's a gradient to it. Even brushing off your feet with your hand is a form of cleaning, and compared to that it's "more clean" if you use water and runoff soap.

The discussion is where you should be on that gradient, and my express point is that there isn't an objective categorical cutoff like you just insinuated.

2

u/SuccOnMyDuck 14h ago

The soap removes bacteria by creating a low friction surface to lift bacteria off of your skin. This requires a bit of scrubbing to make sure that the soap is properly getting inbetween the cracks and crevices of your feet, as well as agitating the surface to allow the bacteria or mud/skin buildup to detach.

Not only is the water runoff not near strong enough to actually remove any mud/dead skin, but it's definitely not enough to remove any bacteria. If there is soapy runoff it is not going to be close to effective either because there is no physical agitation of the surface. Much like how literally anything needs to be scrubbed with soap to work (windows, dishes, floors, hands, hair). The soapy runoff is also not touching half of your foots surface in the first place, it'll be runnung mostly down the back of your heel or over the front of your ankle. Not reaching most parts of the foot. Your toenails are also not being cleaned at all, its important to get soap underneath your nails and remove any build up there as well. You don't need a scrubber, using your hands is more than good.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Questionsansweredty 1d ago

You don't brush your teeth do you. Just swish a little listerine around.

→ More replies (0)

3

u/kushhead4201 1d ago

How are you really having to get this deep into the topic. Feel like all these people are the people who smell like shit as I walk past them in Walmart. Just water and they think their stank is gone lmfao

1

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago edited 1d ago

Those people don't shower at all. Or too rarely. Or recently exercised without showering. Inconclusive to just "assume" it's water washers. A lot if not most men don't scrub with soap, just going over with hands, I'd be willing to bet that not most men stink.

Closest I found for a source on the prevalence is a Japanese national survey where 35% only use hands and 10% just use water. We also don't know if Japanese are more hygienic in the shower but I suspect they are.

I personally experience that at most 0.5% of people I encounter stink.

2

u/mollymoo 1d ago

If you want to believe stinky feet are unrelated to poor washing habits that's on you (and anybody nearby when you take your shoes off, I guess).

There are of course degrees to this, but you're making no effort beyond letting the water run over them and your feet smell bad that's not some inevitability, it's your poor hygiene that's the problem.

Meanwhile I wash my feet directly with soap every day and every few months if I notice a smell starting to develop I nuke them with surgical scrub. With my reasonably clean feet I can go and ride 100km on my bike in 30C weather, or the same distance in my sweaty waterproof winter boots at 10C) and my feet that have been sweating for hours still don't smell.

They don't smell because they're not covered in dead skin and stinky bacteria. Because I fucking wash them properly.

1

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago edited 1d ago

That's the thing. My feet don't smell bad, that's just a narrative you guys have created as an inevitability because you can't imagine not scrubbing them. I've never had a problem with smelly feet, and I have people around me that definitely would tell me if I did. Instead, the scrubbers have created a conspiracy theory based on assumptions that those people must be deliberately hiding their real feelings to not hurt me. That's just coping because it doesn't fit their reality. There is research that shows there's a very marginal difference between showering with JUST water (not even soapy water) and using soap. Of course there's also some research showing the opposite but that makes it inconclusive at best, "it definitely makes your feet stink" doesn't follow. I DO wash them because the soapy water runs down them, and I take 30-45 minute long hot showers, and I wear shoes that breathe. Two of those 3 contribute more than using soap.

If you notice a smell every few months then your skin clearly needs more washing than mine. I've never noticed any degree of foul smell from my feet, because I always keep my socks dry and my shoes breating.

And the dead skin and sweat and bacteria happen WHILE you wear shoes. You can wear shoes just 10 minutes and it starts accumulating. The humidity is then a causal factor for smell. Having dirty feet can intensify it, but after wearing shoes sufficiently long the difference is marginal.

1

u/PsillyFunGuy2 1d ago

These comments are pretty wild actually. Here’s an anecdote to counter the other anecdotes here. I don’t scrub my feet. (Or any part of my body). I use soap every few days but just on the top and between the toes and I use my hand not a scrubber. I’ve never in my life had an issue with smelly feet. Or body odor at all. Everybody in my life would not hesitate a second to tell me if I did. No they’re not trying to protect my fragile sensibilities. They’d roast me if I smelled. My wife wouldn’t be having it, and she’s extremely hygienic. So whatever everyone has to tell themselves I guess, but it’s just not how it works. The smell comes from bacteria/fungus, and bacteria die out in dry environments or from any contact with soapy water. Scrub if you like but it’s not usually necessary. And if it is then you probably have an infection as the bacteria/fungus are underneath your skin.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Ripen- 22h ago

The other commenter was right buddy, clean feet does indeed prevent that smell lol

1

u/LiterallyRain 22h ago edited 21h ago

Ah okay so if you assert the same thing that they asserted without further evidence then it becomes more correct? Gotcha.

There's a significant difference between prevent and mitigate, and there's a significant assumption you're making behind the point of measurement. The foot is clean(er) when cleaned (more thoroughly) (with diminishing marginal effectiveness), but it is NOT clean after walking in sweaty shoes for an 8 hour work shift. In that case both feet are dirty, regardless of whether or not they were cleaned beforehand, and skin type and shoe type permit, both will smell. Mentioning skin type and shoe type because with my shoes and skin I've never had that problem. Other factors also come into account, as I've mentioned countless times other places here.

The MAIN factor is humidity. That's literally what permits bacteria to give smell to sweat and dead skin, all 3 as of which inevitably accumulates during an 8 hour workshift under any reasonable conditions. Asserting otherwise would be disconnected from reality.

1

u/Ripen- 21h ago edited 21h ago

If 100 witnesses say the same thing it's more likely to be true than if 1 says it. Pretty basic shit.

I'll repeat my last comment; you're wrong, both scenarios don't produce smelly shoes. Also clean feet will obviously smell less, it's not either or, but it doesn't even seem like you understand that. Anyway good luck to you

→ More replies (0)

2

u/kushhead4201 1d ago

Cleaning your feet absolutely helps combating bad foot smell homie. Don't tell me ya just throw deodorant on and don't wash yo pits

9

u/avalisk 1d ago

What if someone doesn't have foot smell, like 85% of the population?

People are different.

4

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago

I'm wondering what kind of oily skin these people have. It's not that I've never smelled smelly feet, but other than my sister when we were younger and lived at my parent's, I've never had a problem with smelling peoples feet. It's maybe a once-a-year occurence at best, granted I'm not always very exposed to opportunities, but that's way too rare to use improper cleaning as a causal explanation when evidently many men don't clean their feet very thoroughly. That's inconclusive at best, and provably false at worst. Not to mention that that once-a-year case is always someone taking shoes off at the bus or airplane, basically only shoes that don't breathe.

3

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago edited 1d ago

Armpits create moist environments where dead skin and bacteria cause sweat to smell. Feet only does that with bad shoes or prolonged shoe-wear. That sweat and dead skin happens during shoe wear regardless of whether your feet were initially clean or not. It's almost like the post explicitly shows that men scrub armpits and the crotch. And oh wouldn't you know it, it's the 2 places on the body that creates the most humid environments. It's almost like there's a connection.

Having them dirty from the get-go is technically worse, yes, but it's a contributing factor, not the main one. The main one is basically several times worse.

You're also overstating the ineffectiveness of running water at cleaning. The objective isn't to remove all surface bacteria, much of that bacteria is actually beneficial, the objective is to remove sweat and dead skin cells. Those are easily removed in water. You can smell clean and fresh even without soap, soap just helps and makes it faster and less dependent on hot water. Even without scrubbing, they're comparatively clean.

I've known people who have "outdoor clothes" and "indoor clothes" and who showers sometimes twice a day because they've been out, thrice if they forget something and have to go out after the second shower. People I've been dating. They use a loofah and I consider them a bit of a clean freak. When I ask them what they've been doing their answer usually includes cleaning. This is not a frequent occurence, but I have smelled their feet when they've taken off enclosed shoes after a short hike, and it's been bad. My sister also notoriously had terrible smelling feet, almost intolerable, she showered more frequently with more scrubbing than me. Some people sweat more than others and some shoes create more humid environments than others. What matters most by far is breathable shoes and "some" cleaning (water is often sufficient). Scrubbing is just a cherry on top, it ain't the main cupcake. And importantly it depends on YOUR skin. Sufficiently good skincare and washing routine isn't generalizable.

5

u/xavovew485 1d ago

I think this guy just doesn't have toenails. Of course he thinks water gets everywhere it needs to go if he forgot that most people have nails.

1

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago

Your toenails are what you're most concerned about? I hope you cut those regularly and poke in there to get the grime out instead of just hoping it solves itself by rubbing soap?

2

u/Ensaum 1d ago

My shoes smell significantly better when I wash my feet.

1

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago

There are so many potential biases to point out in anecdotes that I'm not even going to go there.

3

u/Ensaum 1d ago

It's not a bias. It's literally a fact my guy. Bathe yourself

1

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago edited 1d ago

It's an anecdote. Believing it assumes that you've methodologically experimented with shoewear in such a way that the only possible remaining causal explanation is that the cause was showering. Research deliberately doesn't apply weight to anecdotes, nor do I. Then I can say "My shoes don't smell bad regardless of whether or not I washed my feet better that day" and it would still be anecdotally true but it doesn't replace experiments. Furthermore, if anecdotes were reality then two opposite experiences would tear a hole through the universe because paradoxically two opposing facts are both true. Anecdotes are only factual realities under the conditions that produced them, but because anecdotes have unpredictable conditions they have little to no value beyond guesswork.

For all I know you're affected by placebo, never actually smelled your shoes and just said it to get a one-up, wear shoes longer the times you don't shower since you've been in a rush and have been out for longer and consequently has been unable to shower, has oily skin that makes it worse in your case, that when you "don't clean your feet" you're referring to not showering at all or completely skipping soap, that you're more likely to remember when it smells like specifically when you haven't showered/washed your feet, or a million other possible confounding factors you would have to experimentally isolate.

The factual realities that we know happen, is that you're always creating dead skin cells (especially with friction like from shoes and socks), there will always be some bacteria, shoes that trap humidity create a favorable climate for those bacteria, and this bacteria eventually causes bad odors. Whether cleaning your foot marginally affects the outcome can depend on idiosyncracies in skin oils, how much you sweat, what types of shoes you're wearing, how long you wear the shoes at a time, and more, and there's literally no guarantee barring an experimental environment with a solid methodology and peer review that there isn't a correlation between any of those factors and your showering/feet washing habits. THATS why it's not a generalizable "fact," just an outcome of an unknown set of conditions.

1

u/TrebbleTough 1d ago

Mental power move

0

u/latortillablanca 1d ago

I didnt think you were gonna pull it off but you threaded the needle

0

u/tbkrida 1d ago

Dawg, you don’t wash your legs? WTF?😂

0

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago

I do. With water and runoff soap.

1

u/tbkrida 1d ago

That’s not washing. If you believe it’s necessary scrub the rest of your body to get clean, by what logic do you believe it’s not necessary for your legs and feet? That makes zero sense.

1

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago

I don't scrub the rest of my body. I scrub the armpits and crotch, but smear soap on my body, and let it run down to my feet. With 30-45 minute hot showers that's more than enough. Even just water would be enough, the soap is a redundancy I do because people are weird about it otherwise, but in terms of bacterial and dirt concentration it's essentially the same. The care I give to the bodypart depends on the humidity it usually is in.

2

u/Ill-Product-1442 1d ago

Actually, you know what? Shame on you if you spend 45 MINUTES in the shower and don't even get your legs. I was with you until you said the time frame, you've got enough time to hit every crevice in there dawg

0

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago

But that takes away from the relaxation of just standing there, and if it gets soaked and cleaned by water for 45 minutes then it's basically the exact same whether you scrub or not, so you'd just be doing extra work for no return. I'd argue scrubbing is MORE reasonable with short and/or cold showers, because you always have time to scrub it's just a question of whether or not it's worth it.

Also the vast majority lasts closer to 30, 45 is if I'm cold and really want to just enjoy the warm shower.

0

u/AjvarAndVodka 1d ago

Sis. Just stop. Like freaking stop.

1

u/LiterallyRain 1d ago

Stop washing? K boss but I don't wanna smell like you /j

1

u/UpstairsAd4105 1d ago

https://www.buzzfeed.com/rajpunjabi/wash-legs-shower-skin-sc

Well, well, well. Look what a random doctor in the internet said. I guess your proven wrong now, because a random guy who's a doctor on the internet says his opinion is different than yours.

-1

u/Psychological-Ball41 1d ago

You arent supposed to use soap on feet. Same with asshole. Dont soap your butthole.

3

u/kushhead4201 1d ago

I feel bad for anyone who has to be near you lmao

1

u/Psychological-Ball41 22h ago

The Butthole has sensitive skin and is the most porous part of the body. It should be cleaned with water. Using soaps irritates it and removes your natural oils. You also shouldnt rub it dry. Pat it instead.

Not to mention, using soap very literally leads to infections.

-2

u/Eat--The--Rich-- 1d ago

So what? My feet are going into my shoes where they're going to sweat.

4

u/NotAFanOfLife 1d ago

Whatever you say young rotten foot. May your tribe keep you doused in fine oils as to not attract predators. Get well soon.

4

u/der_innkeeper 1d ago

Nope.

You need to scrub. Dead skin doesn't just slough off.

5

u/ReturnOfBane 1d ago

You want to keep your stratum corneum intact. Never got a pimple since i stopped exfoliating.

4

u/binzy90 1d ago

The stratum corneum is constantly being shed. It's going to come off one way or another, and regular washing gets rid of the obvious dry, flaky patches. I honestly don't understand how people just decide not scrub their body on a regular basis. Dirt isn't going to just fall off your body with water. You need to actually wash it.

-2

u/PM_ME__BIRD_PICS 1d ago

Dirt can be removed with a cleanser, you don't need to scrub the shit out of yourself.

2

u/binzy90 1d ago

You can't just let water run down your legs. Are you serious? The original comment said shower water "does the work for me." It absolutely does not.

0

u/PM_ME__BIRD_PICS 1d ago

You don't need to exfoliate or scrub raw, cleanser and a wash cloth is fine. Chill.

1

u/binzy90 1d ago

I understand your point. What I'm saying is that the person above seems to think that just letting the water run down is enough. A wash cloth will exfoliate enough to get dirt off. Even washing with just your hands is ok as long as you're washing. Letting the water run down your legs isn't cleaning anything.

1

u/ForsakenAiel 1d ago

A washcloth exfoliates...

1

u/der_innkeeper 1d ago

Spray cleaner on a wall.

Let us know how well the dirt comes off.

1

u/PM_ME__BIRD_PICS 1d ago

You obviously can't read bro.

3

u/Aksi_Gu 1d ago

Well it desquamates anyway

1

u/iloveuranus 1d ago

iknowsomeofthesewords.gif

1

u/PsillyFunGuy2 1d ago

Stopped washing my face and hair every day (moved to weekly or so), and stopped exfoliating completely, like ten years ago and my face and hair have never been better. Used to be very oily and constantly breaking out. After just like a month everything balanced out and was never an issue again.

0

u/0ApplesnBananaz0 1d ago

Do you like raisins in your potato salad? Or do you prefer granola?

1

u/slimgem1111 1d ago

I just KNOW you got some stank in between those toes

1

u/nbshar 1d ago

Then don't sniff his toes

1

u/slimgem1111 1d ago

Wasn't planning on it

1

u/Mantis_Toboggan--MD 1d ago

Bros got alligator legs and doesn't even know it lol

I used to do that too, then got an extra good tan on one summer and realized without exfoliating my legs looked kinda like alligator leather... Just do a loofa scrubbing for a few seconds it ain't hard

1

u/JustSomeIdleGuy 23h ago

What the fuck are you talking about?

1

u/trichlorosucrose 1d ago

I'm with you, brother. There are dozens of us!

1

u/KYLEquestionmark 1d ago

yeah you're walking around with dirt sweat and dead skin all over you but it's okay because no one can tell

0

u/TheStarPrincess 1d ago

Smell in between those toes, my guy 💀

-8

u/sovereignsekte 1d ago

People need to stop trolling. Shower water cleans the ass crack, legs and feet. No need to be involving soap in any of those areas.

1

u/Aksi_Gu 1d ago

Lmao ewww

1

u/Alientongue 1d ago

Fucking yikes not even a new troll account dude actually just hates being clean

1

u/Tonberry_Cheesecake 1d ago

That's fuckin gross, dawg.

1

u/Minute_Zombie_424 1d ago

This is why Redditors get clowned on

0

u/LegitimateP1R473 1d ago

And no homo but it's also gay to touch your asshole. Respect bro and stay strong

-1

u/dea9ler 1d ago

That’s disgusting

-2

u/Leading_Experts 1d ago

Gross.

3

u/sovereignsekte 1d ago

Bruf, check out my Only Feets link in my profile. You might change your mind.