Inside TikTok's 'hygiene Olympics' which includes 12-step 'everything showers' (2025)

Unlike most sporting events, the 'hygiene Olympics' sees women taking extreme measures to avoid sweat and other kinds of dirt. But it begs the question, how far is too far?

There’s a fierce competition happening on the Internet right now – and it’s about hygiene. If you’ve been scrolling on TikTok, you’ll probably have stumbled across self care terms like ‘everything shower’ and cleaning influencer accounts like Mrs Hinch. But critics are arguing that the cleaning phenomenon, dubbed the ‘hygiene Olympics’, is excessive and even dangerous.

“There is nothing that heals the soul more than a properly done everything shower,” one TikTok influencer declares in a viral vid. She proceeds to list every step in her intensive routine, which includes double shampooing (“there’s no point in doing anything if you walk out of the shower and your hair is still dirty”), using a body cleanser, a shower oil, an exfoliator, shaving cream, another glob of body wash, a nourishing oil and, finally, a body milk.

Exhausted? This is far from an anomaly. The concept of an ‘everything shower’ has taken over self care TikTok, with videos instructing viewers on how to achieve this heightened state of hygiene accumulating millions of views. What’s notable is the language that’s often used around these military-grade showers.

“Your ‘everything shower’ routine can make or break your hygiene,” one poster says. There is a clear dichotomy being expressed between being dirty and clean depending on how elaborate one’s routine is. One influencer, who went viral for her 12-step shower routine, clapped back at the critics, posting a video captioned: “am I doing too much or are you not doing enough?”

The argument has also extended to the nitty gritty details of showering, with some arguing that it’s “nasty” not to shower at night, while others have been publicly shaming those who don’t shower in the morning. Not to be outdone, people have been loudly proclaiming that the only correct answer is to shower at both times of day.

It may sound trivial, but the topic frequently sparks heated debates. In a recent TikTok garnering almost a million views, a girl asked if it was “normal” for people not to shower everyday – sporting a horrified facial expression. The comments were a battlefield. “So tired of the hygiene olympics,” the top-voted comment read. “How about we leave others alone,” another said.

However, it was also met with some who agreed with the sentiment. “For everyone, just because you can’t smell it, we can,” one user wrote.

It’s not just about physical appearances either. Women are also racing each other to have the cleanest bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens – and it’s becoming dangerous.

Some videos show TikTokkers pouring heinous concoctions of several different types of cleaning agents into their bathtubs, to the horror of some onlookers who point out that mixing the wrong ingredients can be harmful. For example, combining bleach and ammonia – commonly found in many window cleaners – can create chlorine gas, known to affect people’s breathing and cause extreme eye irritation.

Others show women engaging in arduous and unrealistic cleaning routines that have even sparked concern that it may be a sign of underlying mental illness. One British TikTokker has been going viral for her daily bedroom deep clean routine, which involves bleaching her bedframe and walls every evening, in between juggling two jobs.

Of course, most of us like to keep our personal spaces (and selves) clean. There’s an undeniable sense of peace that comes from tidying up a mess, which stems from a sense of control over our surroundings. Researchers have also found a link between women with self-described “chaotic or untidy houses” and higher cortisol levels, indicating that a deep clean can actually be good for our mental health.

However, when it's eating away at your free time and affecting your health, it may be going too far. Some are labelling these trends as “performative cleanliness”, which is a way that people emphasise their outer hygiene as a way to indicate inner wellness or attractiveness. This isn’t hinged on science, or any kind of evidence, other than feeling clean. After all, there’s a lot of evidence to support that showering too often can actually damage your skin.

Equally, it may be an aftereffect of Covid, in which many of us were seen scrubbing our shoes, washing down outside packaging and showering as soon as we were through the door in order to escape the virus. Hygiene became something that many viewed as imperative to survival. It also became a way to virtue signal: the more you were doing to negate the chance of contracting Covid, the more you were helping society at large.