Clean Freaks – How The Pandemic Has Made (Most Of) Us Cleaner
Remote working. Pub curfews. LIMITED BABYSITTER ACCESS.
The global coronavirus pandemic has presented challenges aplenty for people around the world, and forced many to adjust their lifestyle in accordance with evolving guidelines, rules and regulations.
Plenty of positive changes have resulted, and our research into hygiene habits suggests that cleanliness is a somewhat ironic big winner across the UK lockdown landscape.
In this article, we’ve cobbled together a collection of interesting statistics that lend weight to the notion that the pandemic has turned us into a nation of clean freaks!
How have our washing habits changed during lockdown?
Firstly, the mental perception of cleanliness, even sub-consciously, is bound to have been heightened in such unprecedented instances. And the answers given of the 1000-strong audience we surveyed suggests as much.
What is especially curious too, is the contrasting attitudes indicated by different aged groups, especially so those who might be deemed as higher risk were they to contract the virus.
So, who is taking greater caution for cleanliness? And how are they going about doing so?
We asked the broadest of personal hygiene posers as well as some more intuitive questions to find out just that…
Are we showering more since lockdown?
Overall, the answer is a resounding yes.
A fifth of the people we asked disclosed that they were showering more often than previously since entering into lockdown. So from a wide perspective, that’s quite an upturn.
Of course, some external factors might be at play. For instance, if working from home, you might need to take a shower to have yourself refreshed and ready to attack the day ahead, and opt to jump in again as soon as you clock off. And still opting to take your daily shower before heading to bed as usual, for instance.
Or, like me, you might have found yourself exercising a lot more since lockdown began when there seemed literally nothing else to occupy your time with!* You might have taken a shower after a midday exercise session as well as your usual morning or evening shower, or again squeezed in all three.
Whatever the reasoning, our research suggests people are making more use of their shower systems in the midst of the pandemic.
*The exercise regime lasted three weeks. My weekly takeaway count once again trumps the weekly exercise tally comfortably.
Who’s showering more since lockdown?
Whilst the research we conducted suggests that UK residents on the whole are showering more since lockdown, the overall rise of a fifth could obviously be significantly higher.
One contributory aspect to the limited increase can be explained in another facet of our questioning, which saw one in 20 of the people surveyed admitting to actually showering less in lockdown, as they don’t feel the need to.
The attached logic would seem to stem from the fact that there’s no real necessity to leave the house provided you can work from home and are stocked up on your essentials. Still, the stats evoked memories of a classic Bart Simpson scene for me when I first gazed upon them.
And further to this, two-thirds of the 65+ crowd we spoke to (remotely, of course!), suggested that their cleaning habits had not altered whatsoever in light of the global pandemic.
Indeed, our data sample points to the younger audience driving the increase in shower sessions higher – almost one third of the 18-24 year olds asked (29%) said that they have showered more frequently than they used to since the start of lockdown.
Have our bathroom cleaning habits changed during lockdown?
Showering routines aren’t the only thing the UK public have sought to adjust during lockdown in pursuit of enhanced cleanliness, though.
Our geographical data showed that a whopping 39% of Northern Ireland are cleaning their bathrooms more frequently than previously with the pandemic in full swing.
In addition, 32% of South East England are donning the yellow rubber gloves more often. If Mr Muscle already thought he was God’s gift, that stat is sure to arm the bleach equivalent of Dwayne Johnson with an even smugger sense of invincibility.
So, has lockdown turned us into a nation of clean freaks?
In the main, the global coronavirus pandemic has seen UK residents attaching an increased level of self-awareness to their hygiene habits and we probably know a bit more about which cleaning products to use too.
But our research suggests that clean freaks is probably too strong a term. Clean novices, maybe, on our way to earning the ‘freak’ tag.
Hopefully, we can continue our new-found drive for cleanliness when things are a bit more ‘normal’, and make our dream luxury bathrooms a reality.
John has a background in sports journalism, and lists content writing amongst his primary passions. He provides expert bathroom trends commentary and analysis, as well as offering meticulously researched answers to the most frequently asked bathroom posers.