Must I shower in the mornings? There’s a ‘correct’ answer to this question – and here’s why

Once again, another minor controversy has washed up on the shores of our tiny island – the seemingly mundane question of whether you should take a shower in the morning.

This debate started as all debates do in this modern age: With a social media post. A TikTok user posted a video claiming that our public transport stinks in the morning because people do not shower before leaving home.

Comments that came in were mostly supportive, until another TikToker posted a separate video asking people to stop asking Singaporeans to shower in the mornings because the few minutes in the bath could be better spent as a few more minutes of rest for a famously overworked, sleep-deprived people.

This video threw open the floodgates, getting more than a million views since it was posted on Jan 22. It now seems as if online users are pouring out posts, comments and even articles arguing against one side or the other. 

"MANDI-LAH SINGAPURA"?

On one side of the camp are those chanting “Mandi-lah Singapura” – both “take a shower, Singapore” in Malay and a play on our national anthem Majulah Singapura.

The question of taking or not taking a morning shower is not new, although perhaps it has never been this contentious. TikTok users are creating fake MRT announcements that passengers would be kicked off trains for “being smelly”. A Malaysian musician even made a rap song shaming those who do not shower.

Most said that the reason people need to freshen up before leaving the house is because of the smell of body odour on the MRT trains during their morning commute to work or school.

TikTok user Steph Leong said in a video, adding in a gag for good measure: “You all smell like you have not washed your bed sheets in months and you have marinated in months of night sweat and hair oil.” 

TikTok influencer Runner Kao (jokingly) described the debate as a “serious matter”, adding that people who leave home without morning showers do not realise they smell and that it threatens the country’s well-being.

Even our neighbours in Malaysia are asking us: Why are you not showering, Singapore?

Of course, those who skip morning showers are not quiet either.

Some said that having showered the night before, they usually wake up clean and do not need to wash up again before starting their day. After all, many people rely on air-conditioning to get through hot, humid nights, so doesn’t that enable them to go straight from sheets to streets without passing through a shower?

One TikTok user, saying that it is a waste of water, wrote: “I don’t really sweat at night, so there is no point in showering.”

Others, such as the creator of the viral TikTok video with a million views, fervently agreed that the extra minutes of sleep were a much higher priority for tired Singaporeans. After all, we are so pressed for time that we are barely even eating meals anymore. 

PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITY AND DECENCY

Cleanliness aside, there are proven benefits to showering in the mornings, such as shaking off the sleepy inertia and making you feel refreshed for a new day.

Yet, underlying the furore over morning showers is not really strong feelings about soap and water. It is about the grey area where personal hygiene overlaps with public responsibility.

As someone who is not particularly tall, being hit by an odour bomb when a fellow commuter more vertically endowed than I lifts their arm to grab the handrail can ruin the hour-long journey to work.

I am also hardly the only one who has been grossed out by the sight of oil left behind on a bus window by a sleepy commuter whose scalp is begging for mercy.

As for the argument on lacking sleep, there is a curious irony to spending 10 minutes in front of the mirror putting on makeup or doing one’s hair, but forgoing everything else below the neck. No amount of concealer or pomade can camouflage the scent of your skin. 

Is there a point to looking presentable from a distance, only for others to catch an unpleasant whiff of you when you are an arm's length away? At what point do we start thinking seriously about sleeping earlier, or ways to get a better night’s rest?

Above all, it wouldn’t hurt to question how we are constructing our own morning routine and habits. 

Admittedly, as someone who also has long hair, a full morning shower is troublesome, but basic hygiene is not impossible. Wash your privates, armpits and face before putting on some deodorant. 

Dermatologists say that most of us can get as clean in two minutes of showering as we would in 20 (unless we just completed a sweaty gym session). If even a few minutes in the shower feels like an unnecessary sacrifice, perhaps we need to re-evaluate how we are thinking about our time.

Just like basic societal norms of not littering and keeping shared spaces clean, keeping our public spaces smelling a little less sour is not a difficult task. It is arguably our civic duty as members of society.

So, for all our noses’ sake, Mandi-lah, Singapura.

Loraine Lee is a journalist at CNA TODAY.

If you have an experience to share or know someone who wishes to contribute to this series, write to voices [at] mediacorp.com.sg with your full name, address and phone number.