Hygiene: Critical Now & If The SHTF

Hygiene

One of the keys to good health is simple cleanliness.  In our modern world hygiene is taken for granted, though I consider it one of my basic supply categories.  We all bathe and care for our teeth, or at least most of us do.  However, this is a fairly modern development.  As recently as the 1800s, the difficulty of obtaining clean water, and being warm enough to bathe without freezing, made cleanliness a seasonal luxury.

With industrialization came improved access to clean water and well heated homes.  During the same period, medicine made huge advances in our understanding of disease and the role of hygiene in preventing the spread of disease.  The results of these advances include huge increases in life expectancy and population worldwide.  We have become used to being routinely clean.

One of the threats of SHTF is that we will all take a huge step backward in hygiene, resulting in the easy spread of disease that today is controlled by modern hygiene.   In order to maintain cleanliness, you need plenty of water, a temperature-controlled environment, and basic cleaning supplies.  Each member of the Mutual Assistance Group (MAG) needs to take care of personal cleanliness and the group must keep their environs clean.

Personal Hygiene

The largest factor in personal hygiene is an ample supply of clean water, but water is a topic unto itself, so I am going to save it for another time and move on to the topic of other cleaning products.  Today we have all sorts of cleaning products for both personal hygiene and cleaning our surroundings, but in the not too distant past we had soap.  Soap has been around for centuries and is a really simple product.

There are a number of books on how to make soap available, and I would encourage placing one in your Prepper Library.  However, soap is also cheap, takes little space, and stores well.  In other words, it is an easy product to stock up on for a very long time.

If you have soap, you can forego many other products in a pinch.  For instance, what is shampoo?  If you want to stock shampoo, be my guest, but if you have soap you’ve taken a huge step toward being prepped in the Personal Hygiene category and you can wash your hair with soap instead of shampoo.

Oral Hygiene

Next, I would encourage stocking toothpaste, tooth brushes, and floss.  Oral health is important in its own right, but also impacts overall health.  It is an easy area to overlook when planning, but like soap, dental supplies are cheap, take little space, and store well.  From today’s perspective, few people realized that regularly cleaning your teeth first became common in the late 1800s.

My dentist always hands out a little bag with a new toothbrush, a container of floss and a travel size toothpaste.  Needless to say, the brands are whatever he received free from the folks marketing to him, so they are never my regular brands.  I’ve taken to using the handouts from the dentist in my Cheap BOBs.  Along with a bar of soap and a towel, I now have a minimal personal hygiene kit for a BOB.

For almost any personal hygiene product, storing a year’s supply takes up a minor amount of space, and even luxury brands cost very little in comparison to other Prepper items.  Also, taking a hint from “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, don’t forget towels!  😊

Keeping your surroundings clean

It will be much easier to keep yourself clean if you can keep your surroundings clean.  There are a few factors to consider.  The first is human waste.  How you accomplish disposal of human waste will vary depending on your local situation.  A non-functioning city sewer is not pleasant.  Make sure you have supplies for your toilet and plenty of TP.

Food waste is probably the next largest issue.  If you have a compost pile that is well away from your house, that will probably work, but in many areas, like the Peoples Republic of New Jersey, food waste will attract bears.  Get the waste far away from the house.

Trash in general is a problem, so an ample supply of large trash bags is a useful prep.  Again, try to dispose of trash well away from the house, so things are not just tracked back in as the bags degrade.  Speaking of tracking things in, leaving shoes at the door is a good practice to adopt when your environment is presenting you with cleanliness challenges.

Beyond the obvious need for trash bags, consider stocking up on your usual cleaning supplies, which are typically soaps and detergents prepared for specific uses.  Similar to your personal hygiene items, these store well, and do not take up an excessive amount of space.  Liquid dish soap is likely to be more useful than your present dishwasher detergent.  Don’t forget brooms, as your vacuum cleaner may not have power to operate.

How to Store Hygiene Supplies

Hygiene items will store relatively well just sitting on a shelf, particularly if you rotate your inventory.  They will ultimately deteriorate, particularly anything that comes in an aerosol form.  However, you can extend that shelf life a bit further by packaging your supplies for long term storage.

Airtight sealed containers in a reasonably temperature-controlled environment will extend storage life.  I am a fan of 5 gallon buckets with gamma lids, with an oxygen absorber tossed in, but any of the techniques you might use for long term food storage should work, e.g. vacuum sealing.

Since hygiene supplies are relatively inexpensive in our “normal” world of today, and can be stored easily, you might want to overstock with the idea of using these items for trade if a barter economy develops.  If not then you will still use these supplies eventually.

Summary

Being clean and having clean surroundings is something we take for granted in the modern world and something we don’t want to give up if SHTF.  There are plenty of challenges to prepping, but good hygiene can be managed post-apocalypse with a bit of forethought.  Consider the problem now and stock up your favorite cleaning supplies.