Of people who bathe daily, what percentage bathe in the morning after
waking up, at night before going to bed, or during the day sometime?

Hi!

I love this question - I'm a night bather, myself!

The short (and boring) answer is that there aren't really any hard and
fast statistics on who bathes when, out of those who bathe daily.  Of
people who bathe/shower daily, many have erratic schedules that
necessitate a change in bath/shower time, so it's rather difficult to
track.

The longer (and more interesting) answer is that when a person bathes
seems to often be a matter of medical, cultural or environmental
significance.
[http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/0986.html]

For example, in areas of Germany where water conservation is a
priority, families bathe at night, and share the water.  The reasoning
is that by bathing at night and going to bed clean, bedding stays
cleaner longer and decreases the frequency of needing to launder the
bed linens. (This from personal experience)

In Thailand, it appears to be taboo for women to bathe at night.  No
mention is made of when men men bathe, but "that last shower before
sundown" appears to be quite important to Thai women.
[http://www.pattayamail.com/425/columns.htm#hd13]

The Japanese, on the other hand, typically bathe at night. 
[http://jet.org/sydney/jetjapan.pdf]
[http://www.stanford.edu/group/scti/scti97/Krishna/Documents/homestay_handout.html]

Busy students shower or bathe at night to allow for a little more
sleep time in the morning, and mothers looking to ease the strain of
the morning rush often have their children bathe or shower at night as
well.
[http://bodysoul.chickclick.com/articles/12018p1.html]
[http://www.rhsroyals.com/royaltimes/1rtime99/page%203.htm]
[http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2002/01/01-24-02cm/01-24-02cm-column-03.asp]
[http://www.localmom.com/content/PH/0800/08-PH-F1-schedule.jsp?city=Philadelphia]
[http://www.connectforkids.org/info-url1564/info-url_show.htm?doc_id=8517]


Night bathing seems to be required of people who spend time outdoors
during tick season [http://familyfun.go.com/raisingkids/child/health/childhealth/dony89enc_rock/],
and of those who suffer pollen and other allergies, in order to ensure
that the sufferer doesn't take the allergen to bed with them,
exacerbating the symptoms.[http://www.ahealthyme.com/topic/topic100586410]
 Those afflicted with varicose veins are similarly instructed to bathe
at night, to alleviate symptoms. 
[http://www.chw.healthinkonline.com/dohealth/member/vitSelfCare.asp?scID=358]

US Army ROTC cadets and Army enlistees can expect to be required to
shower at night.
[http://www.utep.edu/milsci/basic/preparing.html]
[http://www.bhsu.edu/rotc/morebasiccamp.htm]
[http://www.geocities.com/risawn/basic/faq.html]

This was a fun question , I hope I was able to give you an idea of the
number of night bathers there are!

---

Request for Answer Clarification by toddbradley-ga on 29 Apr 2002 06:31 PDT

I find it very hard to believe that "there aren't really any hard and
fast statistics on who bathes when".  Given the amount of money spent
by the marketing arms of every major US pharmaceutical company, I
suspect they've done some very extensive and specific surveys into the
matter.  If you're selling a billion dollars of soap per year and want
to market the benefits of your soap over another, I think it would be
very important for you to know how and when your customer is going to
use your product.  Are you sure no data exist from either medical
research or soap marketing research?

---

Clarification of Answer by missy-ga on 29 Apr 2002 09:26 PDT

You might think that, with all of the other marketing studies done for
virtually every product extant, someone might keep statistics on who
bathes when.

Surprisingly enough, they don't.  The overwhelming sentiment seems to
be "We don't care what time of day people use our products, as long as
they use ours and not someone else's!"

So says Carmen at Colgate-Palmolive's Consumer Affairs division
[212-310-2000, ask for Consumer Affairs], Nancy at Helene Curtis
[1-800-621-2013], Michele at Avon [212-282-7000], and Letitia at
Clairol [1-800-223-5800].

Joseph at Johnson & Johnson [1-877-298-2525] says his company does not
keep such statistics, but ventured a guess that probably half of
people who bathe do so at night, and suggested that older folks were
more likely to bathe at night than younger. (This is not company
information, just one representatives guess at an interesting
question.)

Tanya at Proctor and Gamble [1-800-285-5170] says that they don't keep
such information and further told me that even if they *did* keep such
statistics, they would not be shared with the public, as such
statistics would be considered private research and development
information.

E-mail from Galderma (which makes Cetaphil skin care products and
several prescription soaps and salves for hospitals) says virtually
the same thing that the Procter and Gamble rep said - they don't keep
such statistics, and if they did, it would be proprietary information.
 They advised that R&D information from all pharmaceutical companies
is closely guarded and would not be shared with anyone for any
purpose.

Wow, I never knew so many people were interested in this subject! 
missy-ga definitely did her homework on this one.

My guess would be that the answer wouldn't be found in soap marketing
research, but research done relating to electricity consumption. 
Electric utilities (natural gas, too) have an interest in discouraging
additional energy usage during peak periods (because of the high
marginal cost of increasing capacity).  The following document doesn't
answer the question, but it does provide an example of a study that
did look at the times when hot water was used in a select group of
homes.
http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/~bdac/pubs/PF300/HHppr.htm

I don't know that that such a study would be particularly conclusive,
when one takes into consideration all of the reasons hot water is used
*besides* bathing:  washing one's hands, washing the dog, washing the
dishes, cooking, doing laundry, even drawing a couple buckets of water
to wash the car.

I have no reason to doubt the soap manufacturers who said "We don't
ask that question in our surveys.".  For their purposes, *when* their
product is used is irrelevant.  Their concern is only who and how much
are they buying.

You got wrong information about Thailand.  I'd say in general most
people bathe twcie a day, in the morning and at night.  I has been
bathe twice since I was born in Thailand, lived in Singapore, and am
staying here in the U.S.

Singaporean bathe once, either at night or in the morning, no stats on
that.

I must concur with toddbradley-ga that missy-ga most *certainly* did
her homework here!  I am a new researcher and in my first few hours on
Google Answers I am already astonished at the thoroughness and
professionalism found in answers provided to even the most abstract
and difficult to research questions. My hats off to you missy-ga! 
With this sort of quality researchers on Google Answers, this service
is certain to set a new benchmark for the rest.

I think mvguy might be on to something.  Washing the car/dog doesn't
usually take much hot water, and cooking and laundry are normally done
a little earlier - you'd need pretty finely-grained usage stats to
distinguish between dinner hours and the later period when people
might or might not be bathing.
But laundry is normally not done first thing in the morning, so
perhaps morning residential utilities usage might be more telling - if
there is a lot of hot water usage in the morning, what else would it
be going to?  (You could also look at apartment complexes that don't
have laundry machines and house bachelors if you wanted to eliminate
the cooking/laundry/washing-the-dog factors as well.)

I agree missy's answer was great, though. :)

In Malaysia, generally people bathe twice a day. Morning before going
to work, and at night, after work.

I think this is also a matter of national culture. I was born in Chile
and most of people bathed in the morning, as well as in Uruguay.
Nevertheless, in Brazil, I would say that 99% of eople bathe at night,
the reason being keep the bed linen longer clean.

I question lexi-ga's comment that little laundry is done in the
morning. What do you base that on?  That's when my mother and wife do
laundry, and when I was a kid, I remember seeing lot's of laundry hung
out to dry early in the morning. You still do in rural areas, not so
much in the city where hanging laundry out is not smiled upon by
neighbors now that nearly everyone has a dryer.

As for tracking hot bath/shower water useage times via utility Co.
demand, I just don't see how that'd work.  Electricity and gas are
used for many other things in homes which use far more energy than
heating hot water for bathing whether done at night or any other time
of day. Heating and A/C for example use vastly more energy than
bathing. I also agree with the Google researcher that even if soap
companies had this info, they'd NEVER let it out of their sight.
Consumer reseearch is held very closely because it costs plenty to
acquire and could help the competition.

staygreen,

In my home, laundry is an ongoing process.  Some days, it's started at
8AM, some days it's started at 3AM.  With kids in the house, it's
never truly "done", though - and if it's not started in the morning,
the chances of it being close to done slip to practically nothing.

I know these are the sort of statistics collected by water utility
companies.  I believe they do exist, especially in areas where water
consumption is an issue.  In order for the government to change
peoples consuption habits, it must first know what people are doing
with the water, and when.  For example, the LADWP and the MWD of
Southern California area monitors when people use water and power in
order to balance out the consumption over a day, week, month, year.

However, where the information is available, it will likely be
regional in nature.  So, I also doubt that they exist for the whole
US, say.  Unless someone at a university is doing research in water
consumption.

Claudietta

In the ancient hindu Vedic system priest are supposed to shower 3
times a day. To this day in India you find that people of the poorest
catagory, which means poor beyond American conception, will bath once
or twice a day.  This also includes always bathing after one does the
# 2 you know, poop.   The International Society of Krishna
Consciousness has also brought this culture the western part of the
world in which it members also follow these principles.  Rememeber
cleanliness is next to Godliness.  Hare Krishna