@ambyrb i think it depends? we are def expected to clean ourselves more than is necessary, but people in the past died a lot from having shitty hygiene.

i read a maybe-biased study which found that scalp problems are more likely the less you wash your hair, and traditional bar soap is significantly more alkaline than human skin is. skin is like pH ~5, soap is like 9. my dry skin went away when i started using low pH skin stuff.

there's probably good middle ground somewhere!