Women go through a lot of hygiene routines to feel beautiful and keep their dates and partners happy, but not all of them are necessary. There are certainly personal hygiene tips for women that guys appreciate you adopting more than others.
Sure, men care about how you look and smell, but they also care about what’s best for you. It's important for both men and women to be educated about what’s safe and necessary.
These 12 tips break down the pros and cons of various hygiene rituals (some winners, some not so much) especially from the perspective of your man.
Follow this guide for the best practices to keep your guy on the hook and ditch the rest:
1. Take Daily Showers
Daily showers are the best way to keep your “womanly scent” the best it can be.
You don’t need to use a body wash every time, in fact, you shouldn’t because it can remove healthy skin bacteria, but at least rinse off.
Your man will thank you because even though women would like to believe they always smell like roses and rainbows, the truth is… you smell too, sometimes!
Pay special attention to the places that tend to sweat a bit more — feet and armpits — but know your body and what it needs. Hair carries odor more than anything.
Lotion, moisturizer, and perfume can make you smell just as good as a body wash without the risks of overdoing it.
You should exfoliate every day (see product below) even when it’s just with water. If you shower more than once a day, only use warm water for one of them. Too much warm water dries out your skin, even with moisturizer.
2. Washing Your Hair Every Day
Washing your hair every day, especially for women, is a myth that actually ends up damaging your hair — turning it dry and course. Your partner won’t want that…
Wash it every 2-3 days, but consult a professional aesthetician for the personal needs of your hair.
Some women may need to wash their hair every day, while others may only need once a week to avoid it getting greasy and gross.
If you color your hair (something that is definitely fine), you’ll probably want to wash it less often so that your color stays longer.
3. Douching Is Iffy
Real talk — you have to keep your feminine parts clean. Men like it clean down there during sex as you expect the same from them.
But douching is not the way to do it! That increases the risks of STD’s, can irritate or swell the area (that rules out the sex), and can even increase the possibility of cervical cancer…
There are much better ways to keep your pubic area clean that don’t cause health problems.
Instead, during your daily shower, use a feminine wash or wipe. There are also oils and fragrances that you can apply to keep them healthy and still smelling “appealing.”
Don’t forget, a faint smell down there actually means everything is healthy.
This is one of those personal hygiene tips for women that are key to men.
4. Take Care Of Your Skin
Daily skincare is one of the best things you can do for how you look and feel.
Did you know every night you go to bed with makeup on your skin ages an extra 7 days?
Even if you don’t wear makeup, protecting your skin from the sun and cleaning it can keep you looking young. Cleansing, toning, and moisturizing are key.
Get a foundation that blocks SPF.
Good skincare can keep you looking 20-30 years younger without plastic surgery. Some can even reverse wrinkles!
Eye cream is also very important in keeping your face as young as possible.
While wrinkles are natural and can even be attractive, both you and the man in your life will appreciate your youthful glow for as long as possible.
You can even make your man do skincare with you. Make it a daily routine.
5. Manicures Are Good
Nice nails are a bonus, but not essential for a healthy relationship like basic hygiene might be.
Some men might even prefer natural nails, or simple nail polish might be enough.
Still, this a good practice to make a good first impression, feel good about how you look and add a little glam when your man looks at you.
While a true manicure involves more than just painting your nails, the primary goal here is to both pamper yourself and keep your nails healthy and looking great.
If you really want to commit to it, however, you’ll probably need to do it at least once a month.
That can get expensive, so if you can’t afford a monthly manicure, try investing in a home setting.
6. Pedicures Are Better
Feet have the weird characteristic of being both disgusting and sexy depending on who you ask.
Normal toenails border on disgusting, while doing something as little as painting them can really increase your sexiness factor.
While still not a necessity, “done up” toenails are more important than fingernails. At the very least, paint them!
But why wouldn’t you want to go get yourself pampered every month or so?
Also, make sure you’re getting rid of those calluses, toe hairs, and other things that reduce the smoothness of your feet.
Yeah, it seems superficial (it kind of is), but imagine the reward when your partner is more willing to give you a foot rub.
7. Shaving Is Preferred
Maintaining well-kept body hair — eyebrows, armpits, and pubic area in particular — is a common beauty standard for women, but can go to extremes.
While most men agree that everything that is normally visible should be shaven or well-trimmed, there are mixed feelings about pubic hair.
Some men whose standards are influenced by what they see in porn prefer a completely shaved pubic region.
Even so, many men like at least some hair down there, and keeping it has become a popular feminist statement.
Shaving or waxing down there especially too often can be painful and irritating, which makes sex or other intimacy problematic.
What’s the best answer, then? Trim your pubic hair, maybe in a sexy “style,” but don’t remove it completely.
This is one of those more preference-type personal hygiene tips for women men really appreciate their women adopting.
8. Waxing Is Whatever
Waxing, in general, is a mixed bag.
While waxing things like your eyebrows can cut down on the need to shave, your bikini area and armpits can become painfully or dangerously irritated if not done by a professional.
Different women have different pain tolerances, and the pain might be worth it to you if it means you’ll have to shave less often.
There’s also the fact that waxing gets a much smoother feeling than shaving does.
While you can make your own decision, waxing seems to be a non-essential aspect of hygiene that is more based on convenience and inflated beauty standards than most other of these practices.
Your man shouldn’t care if you don’t wax, so best keep it to shaving if you can, at least in the more sensitive areas.
But if you are really set on waxing yourself, there’s plenty of home waxing kits to choose from…
9. Brush Your Teeth Daily
Honestly, this one should really be a given!
Failing to brush your teeth is not only bad for your social life as a whole, but it’s also bad for your health.
Brushing your teeth once or twice a day is the absolute minimum for oral hygiene.
Flossing and mouthwash are also relatively easy routines you can do to ensure no icky germs are breeding in your mouth.
Kissing someone that doesn’t take care of their mouth is disgusting — you don’t want to be physically intimate with that!
If you smoke, you have extra work to do for oral health. Eating lots of fresh fruits and drinking cranberry juice can erase or reduce the smoker’s breath.
Smoking is one of the worst things you can do for your oral health though, so consider stopping.
10. Style Your Hair
While the tousled look is a legitimate style, only men can pull it off without putting work into it.
One of the double standards in beauty is that men can get away without much hairstyling while women can’t.
Many men will consider your hair to be one of your most attractive features. Whether it’s long or short is a matter of personal preference, but either way, it can still be styled.
Take some time in the morning to detangle and fashion it. This will make it even sexier when your man runs his fingers through your hair.
Coloring your hair can be fine, even very attractive, as long as you’re taking care of it.
Don’t color it yourself unless you can make it look professional, and make sure you’re getting it touched up often enough to avoid your roots showing.
While hairspray can be important, it can also damage your hair if used too often, try mousse instead.
This will avoid long term damage to your hair as well as make your hair feel silky and smooth to the touch rather than straw-like.
11. Have A Post Sex Care Plan
Depending on the man, they may like you to stick around and snuggle right after sex, or they may fall right asleep once the act is done.
Either way, doing a few crucial things right after intercourse can improve your overall bodily health.
First, urinating right afterward helps avoid urinary tract infections and flushes out any bacteria that naturally comes from sex.
Drink a quick glass of water too so you stay hydrated!
Brush your teeth so you can continue the post-sex make out. This is especially important if you engaged in any oral sex or foreplay.
Finally, wash around your pubic area with warm water and wash any other body parts, like your hands, that may need it.
You can do this all in 5 minutes and then continue the intimacy, but if you’re really in the mood, jump in the shower together to rinse off.
This has become a go-to personal hygiene tip for women that men have also utilized lately with their own “dude towels.”
12. Go Light On The Perfume
While not essential, spritzing perfume before you go on a date can really improve your game and wrap the man around your little finger.
The eyes may be the primary sense of attraction for a man. However, there’s something primal about the smell that really turns us on.
One of the reasons is that it boosts your pheromones.
These are chemicals in your body, an almost unconscious scent, that are specific to each person.
When our body smells pheromones they like, it peaks our sexual attraction.
Also, if you happen to go without a shower for the day, it can also hide that fact.
Try to get a perfume or scent that works with your particular body chemistry. It may take a few tries, but we tend to enjoy smells that enhance our own pheromones.
Final Word: Finding The Right Balance
There’s a lot of myths about women’s hygiene, as well as a lot of socially-constructed mandates that, while not necessarily fair, are pretty standard for what men find attractive.
While many of these are mandatory for your health, things like perfume, nail care, and waxing should be entirely your choice.
The men in your life should want what’s best for you and want you to feel good about yourself.
While some of these are suggestions based on the most universally attractive practices, find routines and methods that work for you, and find a guy that supports you in that!