A ref-f-freshing f-f-face wash (Day 306)…
Sometimes, I’m a little sneaky when it comes to this green challenge. I’ve already pledged to wash my clothes in cold water, turn down the temperature on my water heater and take lukewarm showers. But all this time, I’ve been quite content with the hypocrisy of then using warm or hot water to wash my hands before meals or my face before bed.
Finally, though, I’ve decided to take the cold plunge and start restricting myself to only the most frigid water when it comes to these ablutions — I won’t even go near the left-hand tap, I promise!
Because my hands are permanently cold, even in the summer, they shouldn’t mind too much. But there’s something icky about splashing icy water in my face at night. It’ll probably feel refreshing, but also wake me up, which is not what I want when I’m about to crawl in bed.
Oh, and to make up for my sneakiness, I’ll even throw in another cold water commitment: when it comes to washing dishes — you guessed it — I’ll be using 100% f-f-f-freezing H2O.
Photo courtesy of image monkey on Flickr (because a Google Image search for ‘cold water’ turned up a bunch of lousy clip-art and this bizarre photo)
December 31, 2007 at 10:23 am
For a while I had an apartment where my friends would constantly yell that the hot tap in the bathroom always spewed out bright rusty water for a few seconds. I always used cold, so I was missing out on a twice-daily toothbrushing iron supplement.
You should totally knit yourself up some fingerless mitts. Nothing says “It’s too damn cold in this office” quite like bum chic.
December 31, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Oh, you are such a better man that I. I, too, suffer from permanently freezing extremities, and there is no way that I could do cold-only. Gah! Of course, I’m a wimp, and not a Canadienne used to cold. You can doo eet!
December 31, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Thius gives a whole new meaning to taking a cold shower. Maybe just try had sanitizers? I have a 4yr old and we have that stuff all over the house.
Happy New Year.
December 31, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think she’s sworn off hand sanitizers as well (as have I, there’s something creepy about them to me!)
A while back, I had a really bad case of hives from an allergic reaction to medication, and lemme tell you, the cold shower felt SOOOOOO GOOOOOOD! That’s probably the only time, other than really hot summer days, when it has felt good though.
You’re turning out to be one tough thistle! Keep it up!!
December 31, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Wow. You are a better woman than me. For the record, I don’t think it’s hypocritical to wash your hands with warm after swearing off hot showers. I think it’s a pretty teeny tiny luxury that you are totally justified in allowing yourself if you decide that during the winter months it’s too much to not wash your hands in warm.
And if you turn off the water while you rub your hands against each other, then the water really won’t have time to get that warm anyway.
December 31, 2007 at 7:03 pm
The cold water face wash can become very adictive - promise. I have a toilet lid sinkso I have switched to the cold hand wash. I find that heating a couple cups of water in the microwave for the dishwashing really cheers me up.
December 31, 2007 at 7:53 pm
I get most of this but something tells me you need hot (or warm) water when washing hands to kill those germs we don’t want to use gel sanitizers for.
December 31, 2007 at 8:02 pm
If you’re washing your hands in water hot enough to kill germs, you’re in serious danger of scalding yourself — it takes temperatures of at least 140F to kill most microbes. Soap and water should be enough to wash germs off.
If you have really grimy dishes, you might want to consider an exception to the cold-water-only policy. Hot water does a wonderful job of disolving stuck-on gunk, so that you use much less water total than if you used cold. It really depends on whether you’re prioritizing saving water or saving heating energy, I suppose.
January 1, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Isn’t the point of washing your face with warm water is so that it opens your pores?
January 1, 2008 at 11:37 pm
What you could do if you are planning on sticking to your freezing cold goal is by putting a red rubber band (or anything red) on the HOT faucet so you’ll know to avoid using the HOT water. Its just there as a reminder to avoid using….
January 2, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Washing dishes in cold water may be counter productive because warm water makes the soap work better. By using cold water you may wind up using more dish-soap.
I haven’t read your whole blog yet, (but I’ve read your NP articles whenever I could) but you might want to look into a tankless water heater, or a solar powered one.
January 25, 2008 at 3:54 pm
[...] still g[r]o[w]ing and moving towards a complete calendar year of increasing greenness. This recent post announced her willingness to give up hot tap water and use only the first cold water from the tap [...]