When I stayed at my grandmother’s house as a child, showering was a speedy affair. Her shower had an opening above it that was accessible via the attic, and the constant fear that a sneaky sibling would at any moment throw a cold bucket of water over your head was a sure way to get you in and out pretty fast. As a result, I’ve never lingered long in any shower.
I hope that doesn’t sound too self-righteous; as it happens, I love soaking in the tub, but having learnt that a bath uses up to 80 litres of water I’ve been trying to limit my ration to one per week.
Six eco-minded shower products for a clean conscience
By Rosanna Dodds
Nécessaire The Body Wash Multi-Enzyme, $28
Davines Love Smoothing anti-frizz duo, £45.25
Estrid The Body Razor starter kit, £11.95
Neighbourhood Botanicals Face Off Oil To Milk cleanser, £33
Kinfill Tonka Bean shampoo bar, £18
AKT The Body Wash Concentrate, £26
For years, the shower has been touted as the greener alternative. But there is increasing evidence to suggest that showering isn’t always better for the planet. According to research carried out last year by UK-based price comparison service Uswitch, Brits spend an average of eight minutes in the shower – equivalent to more than 100 litres depending on the shower type. A study by The Harris Poll found that Americans spend almost double that.
The two-minute shower movement is a global effort to reduce consumption at a time when water preservation has never seemed so pressing. The initiative emerged from Cape Town’s water crisis in 2017, when the government urged residents to limit their showers to two minutes. The challenge has since been accepted across the globe. “With a predicted shortfall of five billion litres of water per day in England by 2050, any initiative that reduces our water footprint is always valuable,” says Dr Pablo Pereira-Doel, Water Innovation and Sustainability programme co-director at the Institute for Sustainability at the University of Surrey. Areas across England, particularly in the south and south-east, are already classified by the Environment Agency as seriously water-stressed. Elsewhere, populations continue to swell, temperatures keep rising and global AI is predicted to guzzle 6.6bn cubic metres of water by 2027.
Taking a shorter shower suddenly seems like a reasonable request. Keeping your shower to a tidy 120 seconds is often referred to as a “Navy shower”; a supremely efficient method used by the forces to help conserve the limited supply of freshwater onboard ships. The basic idea is to wet your body and hair, turn off the water to soap up, then quickly rinse. Turning off the shower in order to shampoo saves water (although it can be a little chilly), and while one doubts that the Navy is much concerned about conditioner and hair masks, using leave-in products such as Olaplex’s No 5 conditioner post shower will also shave off some time. Such efficiency could also save you money: Uswitch’s energy expert Elise Melville has calculated that power showers use up to 16 litres of water per minute, meaning that being a two-minute showerer could save you more than £100 a year.
Karlee Ozener, co-founder of haircare brand Hello Klean, usually takes six minutes to shower, but has picked up a few time-saving techniques. “I detangle my hair beforehand and apply the Hello Klean Scalp Soak before getting in the shower so I can skip time used for shampooing,” she says. “Once in the shower, I rinse that off, apply conditioner, and use that time to quickly wash my body.”
Having trouble monitoring the minutes? Try syncing your shower with a song. Spotify’s “2-minute Shower Songs” features songs recorded by South African musicians as part of the 2017 campaign. With its four-minute playlist you can lather up to Madonna’s “Material Girl” or – a personal favourite – “That Don’t Impress Me Much” by Shania Twain.
“Efficiency isn’t just about duration,” says Pereira-Doel, whose research has found that “increasing water pressure can reduce overall water use, as people tend to spend less time under a more forceful spray”. He also notes that higher pressure can rinse off soap more quickly. The Hello Klean shower head not only filters out chlorine and heavy metals found in hard water but also helps to boost water pressure by up to two times, saving up to 25 per cent of water use.
“A two-minute shower might work for some,” concludes Pereira-Doel, “but the key is to encourage lasting behavioural changes that fit within people’s routines.” I’ve discovered I’m happy hopping out of the shower after a few minutes, although cutting off Shania mid-song is a shame.
