During the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, I think it is safe to say that we have all lost our appetites once or twice. What is equally unappetizing is one’s lack of hygiene as a heavily contagious virus takes over the planet. I will not try to increase the panic of the pandemic, but it is my hope to better inform you of how to stay sexy by sanitizing in the wondrously terrifying reality that is 2020.
Similarly to many people, I am a firm believer in putting my best foot forward. In an article published in the London Review entitled “5 Reasons Why Personal Hygiene and Appearance Matters,” personal appearance is pointed out to be our best weapon. Personal hygiene is a big part of how approachable you are to the people that surround you. Most girls can definitely relate to when it comes to someone we find dateable; we want them to be clean. I do not mean excessively clean, but just clean to the extent that we know you shower at least once a day, put on a decent amount of deodorant, and wash your hands an appropriate amount of times per day. This is what I like to call common decency. Here is a message to all the men who probably will not be reading this article, and to all the cool people who will: cleanliness is sexy, people! Physical attraction is all well and good, but baby, if I know you brushed your teeth AND used mouthwash – you already score an eleven out of ten for me.
Now that we have established the simple common decency that is personal hygiene, let’s talk about what hygiene means amidst the ongoing pandemic. What you have probably been hearing in response to COVID-19 through news outlets and government urgings to continuously wear our masks and wash our hands, is that you should be washing your hands for at least twenty seconds to protect yourself from this virus. One example of this is the UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) information page on COVID-19 which points out this seemingly universal rule. What you probably did not know is that according to the World Health Organization, which runs free online training on how to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, you should be washing your hands from forty to sixty seconds NOT “at least twenty seconds.” In addition to this handwashing practice, the World Health Organization also encourages us to be using hand rub, otherwise referred to as hand-sanitizer, for the duration of twenty to thirty seconds peruse.
So considering the amount of misinformation you have probably consumed over the past eight to ten months and the amount of people you have come in contact with during this time who have not been practicing proper hand hygiene, I give you full permission to be thoroughly repulsed. I know I am. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know any fun COVID fling (preferably online because hello, social-distancing saves lives) I might engage in will be considerably hotter if I know my man washes his hands for forty to sixty seconds. As you read this, know my 11:11 wish is for you to find someone who finds sanitizing as sexy as I do.