When I was twelve I wore one pair of jeans for about 2/3rds of the school year. They were pretty vile by the time I took them off, and they smelled horrible, but I was twelve. When I washed them they disintegrated. RIP stinky-ass 501s. I have a few pairs of Eddie Bauer jeans that have been around since 2004 or so. They get washed every week. More than that, one particular pair was in not one, but two layovers and are doing fine. I'm not sure who these magical people are that can wear a pair of jeans for a year and not have them smell like bait? But I'm definitely not one of them and neither is my wife, who is an android devoid of sweat and scent glands. Unless you're wearing long underwear your jeans are the direct repository of half the skin cells your body sloughs off every day. And I mean, just walking around wearing a mixer all day is enough for me to sweat out a pair of jeans. I wash my clothes when they stink, which is one wearing or 4-5 for jeans. I wash my hair when it feels gross and smells bad, which is every other day. I wash my face once or twice a day which is the carefully-calculated minimum to keep myself from breaking out (at 44). When I'm in LA that becomes 2-3 times a day because of all the schmutz. I know there's this vast movement to let it mellow but I, for one, am fucking vile if I don't keep clean. I suspect I'm not alone.Once a year, or so, is all they actually need. No, seriously.
We wash EVERYTHING - clothes, hair, faces - far too often for our good, and 99% of those resources are wasted... the material, the clothing item, the detergents, the water, processing the detergents back OUT of the water at the wastewater treatment plant, etc.
Well, obviously, once things stink you wash them. Or hang them outside to air out. The sales of moisturizer and conditioner would plummet and whole countries would fail tomorrow, if people actually took care of their skin and hair properly. Stripping away the body's natural functions and replacing them with chemical ones is not a route to happiness or success. But helping your stinky self out a bit with a few carefully selected products is always a wise choice.
NASA actually tested this. How funky do you get if you don't bathe or change your clothes? What they discovered is that we hit "peak funk" at about four weeks after which point we don't get any funkier (they actually weighed clothes - which quit gaining "funk" weight after four weeks). The problem is, "peak funk" is "haven't bathed or changed clothes in a month" and that's one of two steady states, the other being "squeaky clean out of the shower." We used to feel about lice and ringworm about what we feel about dandruff now - awkward, something to be avoided, but not the end of the world. Attitudes change and as our cleanliness has gone up, so has public health... and "the body's natural functions" are a whole lot more offensive than they used to be. Maybe it'll swing the other way. For work I watched some dudes under 30 and some dudes over 30 interact about body hair in about 2012. The dudes under 30 were smooth-shaven everywhere, from toes to nose. The dudes over 30 were aghast. the dudes under 30 were all "yeah, this is our life now, you're old" but within about four years body hair was back. But I went for a run yesterday and took a shower. Then I had a day, went to bed, woke up and went to yoga. It's now been about 26 hours since I had a shower and I'm gross.* I'm not leaving this house without a shower and a shave. 50 years ago I'd be a damn obsessive compulsive deviant for having that attitude but 50 years ago I'd be a deviant for going for a run and then to yoga so you know what? I'ma keep changing my underwear every day.