Sunday, June 14, 2009

A shower without soap




There's this little magazine you might see floating around in the Maadi area. It's called the Expats' Guide. It's a self-published magazine that contains a handful of ads as well as interviews with Egyptian radio personalities. I'm not really sure how that qualifies it to be an expats' guide. Nevertheless, I usually grab a copy when I go to Villa 55 and skim through it while I'm waiting for my food.

The May-June 2009 edition featured an interview with Nile FM radio personality Safi. Nile FM is Cairo's number one English language radio station. You can listen online if you are not in Cairo.

Anyway, things were plugging along nicely with the interview until I got to the page on the right. Safi is a college graduate with a bachelor's degree in medicine and surgery who works in radio instead, most likely due to the low salaries of doctors working in Egyptian public hospitals. But I digress.

I'm not sure exactly what the question was - probably something like "what advice do you have to offer other Egyptians", but Safi's response was this:

"Safi says be confident, be proud, learn how to step on your pride when you
have to. Safi says Egypt needs less Body Odor! So please shower once
a day. At least once a day. You don't have to have soap or shampoo,
just water, it's very important"

Thanks Safi. Sounds like good advice. But I think I'll stick with using soap and shampoo.

Posted by at 11:24 AM
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4 comments:

  1. Well, I guess that advice would be better than nothing :) You can actually wash yourself with no soap sometimes (even your hair) but I think regarding hand washing that is not a good piece of advice. And the thing is, if you have used shampoo years and years it takes some time your hair to get used to it (using only water sometimes). I use natural stuff for hair and so on, mostly because shampoos (and other stuff) contain chemicals that pollute the water we are so dependant on.

    I guess Safi was being ecological - but not realising it himself ;)
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  2. I think there are lots of information on internet, just found this once in English
    http://www.naturalfamilyonline.com/go/index.php/389/why-you-should-go-no-poo/

    I have always had horrible hair no matter what fancy and expensive stuff I buy from hairdressers (obviously, they have chemicals too). But natural methods have helped my hair (plus that I stopped eating dairy products a while ago).
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  3. You can wash your hair with lemon juice or vinegar. Good for your hair...good for the environment. I understand Safi was probably referring to Egyptians that cannot afford soap. But like you said, this is not a good piece of advice to prevent spreading germs when washing your hands.
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  4. I went no poo 8 months ago (I live in Egypt). And my hair is so much healthier. I only do the poo after I dye it because water is not enough to remove the dye. I also managed to convince my husband, who is a doctor, to give up using soap on his hair (he didn't use shampoo becuase it is so short and wasn't necessary) and his hair is so much softer now. I also gave up soap for bathing and instead use baking soda since about 1-2 years. It's much better at removing dead skin. I do use the soap for handwashing though.
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