Hygiene for the Typical Guy

Hygiene is a typical sore spot between a woman and her guy. For example, a woman's daily hygiene regimen includes showering with soap, application of various hair products, shaving her entire body, deodorant and antiperspirant, make-up, and putting on freshly laundered clothes. For a guy, a daily hygiene regimen is sniffing yesterday's undershirt to see if it smells bad enough to require a coating of Speed Stick to wear again. If he's feeling particularly hygienic, he might glance at soap ads while reading his bathroom magazines.

As you can see, hygiene standards are vastly different for a guy and a woman. That's assuming he has hygiene standards at all. A typical guy only goes through the motions of hygiene after his woman schools him in what hygiene actually is. Before that, he's only vaguely aware such standards even exist, in much the same way fish are vaguely aware of Einstein's theory of relativity.

So to help guys in our hygiene, I decided to answer some typical questions from my own experience. Since I'm a guy of the male gender, you should know that I feel your pain. Following are some typical issues I've had to deal with; along with other questions I've either heard from my guy friends or otherwise totally made up.

Typical Guy Hygiene Issue 1: Sweat

Sweat is a typical phenomenon of any guy. Usually it occurs when you're doing something strenuous, such as watching TV. Sometimes the odor that sweat produces is so strong you can see fumes, like heat mirages rising from a desert road.

Obviously this is a serious hygiene problem. The best way a typical guy can deal with sweat is to wear Dr. Scholl's Odor Eaters in his armpits. It may look like you're wearing feminine products under your arms, but your woman will be more wiling to enter the same room as you without wearing a government issued gas mask.

Typical Guy Hygiene Issue 2: Foot Problems

Contrary to what a typical guy may think, women don't like having their legs gouged by your toenails when in bed with you. It's a safe assumption that, if your toenails are good tools for digging in the yard, they're too long.

A typical guy attitude about toenails is, out of sight out of mind. If he can't see them, they're not a problem. Everyone else can see them as they're poking through the ends of his shoes. But he can't because his pasty gut is blocking the line of sight to his feet.

A good way for a typical guy to improve foot hygiene is, as my wife lovingly says, trim those bird claws. I've found the best tools for this are bolt cutters and power sanders. First, attempt to clip your toenails with the bolt cutters and, after they shatter, grind them down with a power sander. Ignore the smoke, it's normal.

Other foot hygiene problems for a typical guy include, sock lint building up between his toes, along with unidentified fungi, dirt under his toenails deep enough to grow vegetables from and, once again, odor. All of these hygiene problems can be solved simply by washing your feet. I recommend at least once a year, on your wedding anniversary. That way, you won't forget the anniversary and you've taken care of all foot hygiene maintenance...that's two birds with one stone.

Typical Guy Hygiene Issue 3: Errant Hair Growth

It's no secret. Hair grows everywhere a typical guy doesn't want it. It's unsightly and a woman has to ignore this in order to not feel she's sleeping with a bald gorilla. And it's not just a hygiene problem of location and quantity, but also appearance of the hair itself. Errant ear hair is spindly and long, useful only as fishing line. Back hair, on the other hand, is poofy and curly. On any typical guy, back hair is neither thin enough to comb nor thick enough to use as a pillow. It's just sort of there, keeping a guy's shirt from getting all the way on.

Hygiene for ear hair is rather simple. Just let it grow, and in about twenty years or so it will be long enough to (a) cut and sell in a Wal-Mart sporting goods aisle for a clean three bucks, or (b) comb over your growing bald spot. Back hair, on the other hand, has some cool possibilities. A typical guy loves to support a favorite sports team, so have a barber carve your team's logo in your back hair. Braiding is another option. With some thought and imagination, I'm sure a typical guy could even use back hair to create fun activities for the whole family.

So if you're a typical guy, or wasting lots of time teaching hygiene to one, you can see that with these pointers taken directly from real, typical guy experiences, some of which are genuinely made up, good hygiene for the typical guy is hopeless.