I shower daily, but only use soap on my ass. Dandruff shampoo once a week or so on my hair and that’s it. The women in my life think I smell just fine. Most of us probably don’t need all the soap we use.

Does anyone know of any testimonials of this from people of Mediterranean descent? My hair gets very, noticeably, oily if I don't shampoo every single day. It's kind of gross.

I know many people who don't shampoo every day, but they're all of different European backgrounds: English, Irish, German, etc.

Do you only use shampoo, and what kind? You should really use a mild shampoo and then a high quality conditioner. My hair used to be incredibly oily all the time when I used shampoo or shampoo+conditioner combo, even if I showered every day. Now it takes around 3 days to get greasy and I shower every few days. My skin is much more balanced and healthier (less acne, more even sheen, no dryness issues). I also do the equivalent of conditioner for my body- I use cetaphil on any part that I notice routinely gets dry (the bottoms of my feet, elbows, face, knees, etc.) since I started doing all this, my elbows went from being dry and ashy and scaly to looking just like the rest of my skin. I do use deodorant every day and have a bidet, but I don’t have any scent issues as far as I’m aware (I do ask others to check me, and days where I don’t use deodorant, I can smell myself, so I don’t think it’s a false bias.)

So does mine, and my skin too. My ancestry is half Scots-Irish Borderer and a quarter each Austrian and Italian, of which the latter seems strongly expressed in my integument; for example, despite half my family being very fair, my skin has an olive undertone, and I tan easily and well.

More to the immediate point, I likewise have rather oily skin and hair, to the point where if I don't shower daily with ample soap and shampoo, I start leaving smears on anything I touch. I've tried the experiment of going without soap a few days, to see if the oiliness was in compensation, and it wasn't; it's just that I either wash daily or turn into a greaseball, and always have done.

(I'm also one of those people whose skin oil gradually dissolves ABS plastic with regular contact. Of the last ABS set I used, to the tune of ~10M keystrokes, before switching to PBT caps, the spacebar had enough material removed to put a distinct curve in its lower edge where my thumbs would strike. Too, I now belatedly wish I'd put a protector on the Wacom tablet that doubles as a touchpad for my work machine. Not sure if the plastic-melting thing is related, but it seems fairly uncommon and so worth mention in this context.)

I’m a mix (maternal grandfather was Lebanese/Greek, rest of my family various European) and also had fairly oily hair. It also didn’t get less oily overnight when I started washing less, it took maybe a few months and yeah it felt gross. For what it’s worth.