Hygiene

C

coyotlviejo

Joined
Mar 26, 2001
Messages
313
Howdy all. My wife wants me to get any kind of suggestions for taking care of hygiene issues in a primitive situation. She wants to be able to go on my primitive campouts but is afraid of the koodies.

Any good info out there? Any female forumites willing to impart their wisdom? If you're shy about posting for the whole world to see, just email me directly (see my profile). I'll pass it along to the Lady (we don't have the net at home).

Thanks!

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Camine con tranquilidad, sirva con humildad, y viva en paz.
 
Keeping things as clean as possible is a safe bet here. I carry Ivory soap, as it can be used on clothes, body, hair, dishes, etc and it's biodegradeable. Thorough daily checks for ticks etc is also a good practice.
Also, it doesn't hurt to have a lice comb in your kit, just in case. You might want to contact your local EMS Bureau for current protocol for tick removal and infestation control.

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It's not the pace of life that concerns me, It's the sudden stop at the end.
 
Female here, sir.
smile.gif


I carry the premoistened, citrus scented antibacterial wipes that come 15 or 36 to a pack. They are also great for washing bait off your hands when fishing, too.

You can even do a whole sponge bath with several of them if you want to, although I usually use my little solar shower.
 
My former girlfriend used to carry a plastic container of baby wipes. They worked quite well. If weight is critical, you can take them out of the plastic container and transfer them to a ziploc bag.

One piece of advice she gave was to get the plain ones rather than the ones with lanolin. She said the ones with lanolin don't leave you feeling quite as clean.

DPD.
 
Another thing to keep the ticks off is to spray your tent and clothing with permethrin before you leave. It lasts for two weeks.

I know you aren't supposed to, but after I found a tick in my hair, I also lightly spray my hair with it, too.
 
You know, if you want a good disinfectant and deodorant, use alcohol... but be careful, though, not all skins can handle it!! Rubbing alcohol works very well.

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My mind may not be sharp, but my knife is.
The Truth is out there. Go out once in a while and look for it.
Don´t let my Spyder bite you.
Always try to keep your mind sharper than your knife.
 
I'm a guy, but I still have to agree....baby wipes are great!

I've also been in the situation where women who might easily find themselves afflicted with a Urinary Tract Infection (or bladder Infection) carry a dose of medication. For those guys out there who have never experienced this, it feels like you are having a hot wire stuck up your you-know-what.

Early intervention with the proper prescription medication can make a huge difference in comfort. Most family doctors will provide a "just-in-case" dosage.....

Another good idea is to carry the "no-water required" antiseptic hand cleaners. Most of these are in gel form and are alcohol based.

 
For short trips baby type wipes are great, however you can start to get through them rather quickly. Some are better than others. They are a luxury item and shouldn't replace saop/water, toothbrush/paste and other essentials/first aid. A good freshen up in the field is one of those great joys of life. For the girls even a soap for the hair is worth the morale boost.
 
The best soap I have used is the biodegradable camping soap that you buy in a 4-oz bottle at Walmart. I repackage it into two smaller bottles with flip up spouts and it goes a lot farther that way. You can use it for shampoo, to wash dishes, and to bathe with.

A solar shower is the most wonderful hygiene item I've found. After a long, grimy, sweaty day in the woods, the shower makes you feel squeaky clean, refreshed, and the whole world feels new.

I had a big one that held 5 gallons and weighed 11 ounces. It worked great, but was too heavy for me to carry in a backpack. I replaced it with a little 3 liter model that only weighs a couple of ounces. I haven't tried the small one out, so don't know how satisfactory it will be.

If you pre-wet your hair, and mix the liquid soap with water in a cup, it will lather up well and rinse out very quickly, using the minimum of water.

Another item I saw posted by a woman on another board suggested taking a tiny spray bottle and filling it with water and a little bit of liquid soap. On hot days you can spritz with it and it gets rid of the grime and cools you off.
 
Soap is great, but can get messy, and runs out of usefulness after a short while. Plus it can scare off game.

Instead, a fist-sized rock can be used. One that's relatively worn smooth. The mild abrasiveness will scrape off dirt and grime, and dead skin. It leaves you feeling clean and with smooth, beautiful skin.

I hear that was an old pioneer's trick. It's kind of a beautician's trick, too.

Other than that, I love Q-Tips! I go through a pack of five hundred in about a week!

And they're not only good for your ears, they're great for every orifice of the body! Including a few I can't mention on a public forum.

You can use them to brush your teeth, massage your gums, or swab out your nose and belly button, use them in the corner of your eye, between your toes, anywhere any sort of goo, crust, or grime might accumulate. I even use them to swab out the end of my nipples, where sweat and dead skin can accumulate in the cracks of my vestigal milk ducts. I can say "nipples", right? If a hole is too big, you can use several together, better bring some rubber bands just in case.

If you're really dirty, you might try dipping the ends in a paste made from a little water and scrubbing powder. Comet works, but I like Barkeeper's Friend better, since it has a polishing agent in it.


You have to be careful about how deep you stick them in, though. I had to learn the hard way that you can really hurt yourself if you're not cautious.


It's a good idea to keep a speculum and a pair of tweezers with you, just in case. Hot dog tongs can be used in a pinch, but depending on where you lost the Q-Tip, it may hurt pretty bad when you're trying to remove it.

Baby wipes are a great idea. I wonder why I never thought of that???

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http://schoolofarms.tripod.com
 
Great ideas. About the smooth stone idea, in Mexico the people commonly use stones for washing. The finest stones are the ancient mano stones that the Indian predecessors used to grind corn. I call them "Mexican washcloths". These are not the long, elliptical or rectangular stones in use in the modern eras: they are small, hand-sized basalt stones that are flat on two sides and round in shape. In the villages where I've been the people did not even seem to know what the stones were, except that they were found commonly in their fields.

Snickeree, you're just too much!
biggrin.gif
Actually, I appreciate your willingness to address some real concerns that my wife has - the most personal ones.

I think my wife will appreciate all of the ideas mentioned. She already lives with baby wipes (something about having two small children...). The solar shower is a good idea, and so is the spray bottle. I think that my wife will be very interested in the Q-tip idea.

Keep the ideas coming. The more I can get her equipped to her satisfaction the more likely I can get her to go out with me. I think that it must be so much easier for a man. ("Hygiene? Whazzat?")
 
As far as "real concerns that my wife has" go, well;

DON'T CLICK THIS LINK IF YOU'RE A GUY!!!
(I was duped into it by a friend, we'll call her "Angela", and I haven't felt right since....)

www.thekeeperstore.com

Angela uses this nefarious contraption, says it works great. Well, she says she uses it, I do everything in my power not to know.

I don't know how others will feel about it. All the chicks I know are real weird. I only hang out with Angela because she's an Amazon warrior queen that could snap me like a toothpick, and if I didn't be her friend she'd probably beat me up.

Anyway, she's a radical feminist, and man, I mean MILITANT! Apparently for some reason I don't fully understand, and hope I never do, the alternatives are somehow against her beliefs.

Well, that's what she makes sure to tell me she's packing whenever we go on a wilderness excursion, anyway. I will say this, though I really don't want to, it takes up a lot less room than other stuff would, and makes for less of a mess.

This is one of those times when you really don't want to have to pack out everything you pack in, and this device takes care of it.

She's standing over my shoulder laughing hystericaly and telling me to write something about tennis. I don't want to know what that means, I don't want to get beat up, either.

It's Thursday night, and I need to take her out for dinner and a movie. She's about to pull my arm off, and she just brought my boots to me. That's a bad sign. I have to go....

Lord deliver us from the fury of the Northmen(Womyn)....
 
Snicker, the "alternatives" like Tampax actually have been studied and its been determined that they can be incredibly toxic. They actually contain amounts of really deadly poisons. They have for a long time too....its basically a case of profit vs. human life...profit usually wins out.

i'm sure a quick search on tampax will bring up something.

Nitin
 
oh..here's some more info for anyone interested...
(not the most reliable source of info i've seen...but i think it warrants a closer look.)

Nitin
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Subject: NEWS: Some Tampons Pose Risks A woman getting her Ph.D. at University of Colorado @ Boulder sent this.

Read on if you value your health ...
I am writing this because women are not being informed about the
dangers of something most of us use - tampons. I'm taking a class this
month and I have been learning a lot about biology and the woman,
including much about feminine hygiene. Recently we have learned that
tampons are actually dangerous (for other reasons than TSS).
Read on if you're interested, if not, that's fine too. But I'll tell
you this after learning about this in our class, most of the females
wound up feeling angry and upset with the tampon industry, and I for
one, am going to do something about it. To start, I want to inform
everyone I can, and email is the fastest way that I know how.
HERE'S THE SCOOP: Tampons contain two things that are potentially harmful:

Rayon (for absorbency) and dioxin (a chemical used in bleaching the
products). The tampon industry is convinced that we, as women, need
bleached white products - they seem to think that we view the product
as pure and clean. The problem here is that the dioxin produced in
this bleaching process can lead to very harmful problems for a woman.
Dioxin is potentially carcinogenic (cancer-associated) and is toxic to
the immune and reproductive systems. It has been linked to
endometriosis as well as lower sperm counts for men - for both, it
breaks down the immune system. Last September the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) reported that there really is no set
"acceptable" level of exposure to dioxin given that it is cumulative
and slow to disintegrate, the real danger comes from repeated contact
(Karen Houppert "Pullng the Plug on the Tampon Industry"). I'd say
using about 5 tampons a day, five days a month, for 38 menstruating
years is "repeated contact", wouldn't you?

Rayon contributes to the danger of tampons and dioxin because it is a
highly absorbent substance and therefore when fibers from the tampons
are left behind in the vagina (as usually occurs), it creates a
breeding ground for the dioxin, and stays in a lot longer than it
would with just cotton tampons. This is also the reason why TSS
(toxic shock syndrome) occurs.

Not only this, but I had also heard many tampon makers would include
asbestos in the tampon. Why? Because asbestos makes you bleed
more... if you bleed more, you're going to need to use more. Why
wasn't this against the law since asbestos is so dangerous? Because
the powers that be, in all their wisdom (not), did not consider
tampons as being ingested, and therefore wasn't illegal or considered dangerous.

WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES? Using feminine hygiene products that aren't
bleached (which causes the dioxin) and that are all cotton (the rayon
will leave fibers and "breeding grounds" in the vagina). Other
feminine hygiene products (pads/napkins) contain dioxin as well, but
they are not nearly as dangerous since they are not in direct contact
with the vagina. The pads/napkins need to stop being bleached, but
obviously tampons are the most dangerous. So, what can you do if you
can't give up using tampons?

Use tampons that are made from 100% cotton, and that are unbleached.
Unfortunately, there are very, very few companies that make these safe
tampons. They are usually only found in health food stores.
Countries all over the world (Sweden, Germany, British Columbia, etc.)
have demanded a switch to this safer tampon, while the U.S. has
decided to keep us in the dark about it. In 1989, activists in England
mounted a campaign against chlorine bleaching. Six weeks and 50,000
letters later, the makers of sanitary products switched to oxygen
bleaching (one of the green methods available) (Ms. magazine,May/June 1995).

Personally I think it's time that the U.S. switches, and we need to
make our voices heard.

WHAT TO DO NOW: Tell people. Everyone. Inform them. We are being
manipulated by this industry and the government, let's do something
about it! Tell everyone to write to the companies - Tampax(Tambrands),
Playtex, O.B., Kotex. Call the 1-800 numbers on the boxes.
LET THEM KNOW THAT WE DEMAND A SAFE PRODUCT - ALL-COTTON, UNBLEACHEDTAMPONS.

This month's Essence magazine has a small article about this and they
mention two manufacturers of a cotton tampon alternative. The
companies are Organic Essentials @ (800) 765-6491 and the Black-owned
terra femme @ (800) 755-0212.

Natracare is another brand that carries organic, non-chlorine bleached products.

 
OB Tampons, all cotton, make awesome tinder for spark-based firestarting! Personal experience, here.
smile.gif


[This message has been edited by Tadpole (edited 05-17-2001).]
 
Haven't tried tampons, but I like baby wipes and small bottles of antibacterial soap. I get the stuff made by Lysol, cause it's cheap (like me), but there are lot's of fragrances available, and places like Bath and Body Works probably have more scents (flavors?) than we care to think about.
 
root of a yucca plant and a jump into the lake ought to do it.'sides,part of being out in the woods is getting dirty.
(i think its yucca,i might be mistaken)
 
Well, probably as everyone is rubbing themselves with rocks and yucca plants I don't have to say this, but it is important when thinking of hygine that you use a bio-degradable soap. Most soaps are made from lye and a lot of bad nasties, and can mess up a stream, or at least discomfit a lake.

I like Dr. Broners magic soap (sounds vaguely dirty, but it isn't - perfectly respectable) If you can put up with the strange religious sayings on the lable, it is great, and doesn't screw up the environment.

Todd (edgedance)
 
Slightly related to hygiene...

There are a few people in the tramping club I belong to who feel the whole idea of getting ourdoors includes getting stinky and smelly.

Jeez, I wish they'd modify their beliefs to include toothpaste! Stinky armpits and feet are one thing, but stinky breath is horrible! Can't be good for dental hygiene either, given that a lot of tramping food contains a lot of sugar.

I had a professional hunter on my course last week (I'm an IT trainer) who was telling me you can smell a tramping trip from a couple of valleys away. Shampoo, cologne, etc. Then again, he said the same about guided American hunters... He said it normally takes a couple of days to get rid of the stink of civilisation.

Cheers
Craig
 
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