11 Hygiene Rules Mexican Mothers Enforce That Americans Break (And Everyone Around You Notices)

Get The Old Mexican Way, every rule written down: https://oldmexicanway.com You stepped into the elevator this morning, and the woman already inside took one small step back. You showered. Clean shirt, the 72-hour deodorant, a little perfume. And you have no idea what just happened. You cannot smell yourself. Nobody can. A nose goes deaf to its own house in about ten minutes. That is not a flaw and it is not dirtiness. Nobody in this country hands down rules for a body anymore. They hand you a product for every smell and tell you to put it on top. My mother raised nine of us with one bathroom and never once put a smell on top of a smell. Her word was QUITAR: to remove. THE ONE IDEA: a smell is a message that something is wet that should be dry, or closed up that needed the air. You never perfume a smell, you find the source. THE ELEVEN RULES (in my mother's house you did not...): 1️⃣ The towel dries in the sun, not folded on the hook. LA TOALLA. A damp folded towel grows the sour smell, and a warm wash does not kill it. You are putting yesterday back on. 2️⃣ You do not get into the bed with the day on you. EL BAÑO DE LA NOCHE. "No te acuestas sin bañarte." Deodorant goes on after the night bath, on dry skin. Honest: the limón under the arm plus sun leaves a burn, so that one we retire. 3️⃣ El zacate, never the plastic flower. The estropajo dries stiff, and dry things grow nothing. The plastic pouf never dries and never rots. 4️⃣ The street clothes stop at the bedroom door. "Quítate la ropa de la calle." LA ROPA DE CASA. Your bed should never know where you have been. 5️⃣ Clothes dry on the line, inside out, and a worn shirt never goes back in the closet. EL TENDEDERO. The shirt did not fail in the meeting. It failed in the closet a week ago. 6️⃣ Cotton touches the skin. EL ALGODÓN. The gym shirt that smells when it warms is a plastic that soaked you up. And the coat collar has never been washed. 7️⃣ The feet get washed by hand, between every toe, and the shoes get a day off. LOS PIES. Two pairs, cotton socks, chanclas in the house. 8️⃣ The tongue gets cleaned, and the mouth rinsed after every meal. LA LENGUA TAMBIÉN. Somebody who loves you already knows. Breath that does not change is for the dentist. 9️⃣ Hair goes up before the stove goes on, and the window goes up too. EL PELO RECOGIDO. A kitchen should smell like dinner. You should not. 🔟 The pillow goes out in the sun. LA ALMOHADA. Sheets once a week, pillowcases twice. Make sure the bed took a bath too. 1️⃣1️⃣ Behind the ears and the back of the neck. "¿Te lavaste detrás de las orejas?" The four places your own nose can never reach. She was washing what you could not check yourself. Who profits: the body spray, the 3-day deodorant you still put on every morning, the $15 scent beads that perfume a shirt that is not clean, the pillow mist. Fifty dollars a month of smell on top of smell, and every one has a refill. Nobody can sell you a clothesline twice. The reveal: one bar of soap, a zacate on a nail, a clothesline, and eleven rules, in a house of eleven people with one bathroom. Dry, open, scrubbed, sunned. That is the whole secret of a clean person. Tonight, do one: move the bath to tonight. Something rough, behind the ears and down the back of the neck, a towel that has been hanging open, and get into that bed clean. Tomorrow, notice the sheets. Tell me which rule your mother shouted through the bathroom door that I did not name, and your county or state. I read every one. I am not a doctor or a dentist. These are household habits, not medical advice.