The Everything Shower: A Realistic Routine (and What You Can Skip)

The everything shower got popular as a ninety-minute production with a phone propped against the shampoo. That version is fine occasionally and completely unrealistic weekly. Here is the same idea done in about twenty-five minutes, in an order that stops you undoing your own work.

Order matters more than product count

Most of the frustration with a long shower comes from doing things in the wrong sequence: exfoliating after you have conditioned, or rinsing a mask off with the same blast that was meant to be your final cool rinse. A workable order:

• Rinse and let the steam do something. Two minutes. Warm water softens everything that comes next.
• Hair first, shampoo only. A scalp brush helps shampoo actually spread and lather rather than sitting on top of the hair. The two-minute scalp ritual walks through it.
• Mask or conditioner in, then leave it. This is the waiting step, so fill it with the body steps rather than standing there.
• Body: exfoliate now, while the mask works. Either the mitt for speed or the turmeric and sea salt scrub if you want the slower version.
• Rinse everything, coolest at the end. A cooler final rinse leaves hair looking smoother.
• Wrap, do not rub. A microfibre wrap gets hair to damp with far less friction than a bath towel.

What you can skip

Plenty of it, honestly. Exfoliating every single time is more than most skin wants, twice a week is plenty. A deep mask is a weekly thing, not a daily one. Double-cleansing your body is not a thing. If you keep only three steps, keep the shampoo-and-scalp step, one weekly mask, and the towel wrap, because that last one costs no extra shower time at all.

Where the water itself comes in

Every step above happens in whatever comes out of your shower. On New Zealand town supply that water is chlorinated by law, which is a good thing for drinking and a neutral-to-annoying one for how skin and hair feel afterwards. Filtering the rinse reduces the chlorine taste and odour and fine sediment. It does not soften hard water, it is not a drinking-water filter, and it is not a treatment for any skin or scalp condition. More on that in does NZ tap water have chlorine.

A sensible kit

You do not need everything at once. If you are assembling it, the Everything Shower Kit pairs the mitt, the scrub and the scalp brush, which covers the body half and the scalp step. Add a weekly mask when you want the hair half, and stop there. A routine you actually repeat beats a longer one you abandon in a fortnight.

The mitt, the scrub and the kit are all on the body scrubs and exfoliators page.

From the range

Turmeric & Sea Salt Body Scrub

A turmeric and sea salt body scrub, blended with jojoba oil and vitamin E, that gently exfoliates for smoother, softer, polished-feeling skin.Massage a small amount over...

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