If you are looking good, it means you can feel your best. This involves wearing clean clothes and looking after your personal hygiene.
This section will give you some ideas on how to look your best. You do not need to be wearing the latest designer clothing to look good. There are other things you can do which are much more important.
Personal Hygiene:
It is important to have good personal hygiene as it is one of the best ways to protect yourself and others from any illnesses. This means taking care of every part of your body, from keeping it clean to looking your best.
To have good personal hygiene, you should:
Wash your body regularly
Showering, washing or bathing keeps you clean and fresh smelling. You should wash your body in the shower or bath daily and your hair at least 3 or 4 times per week. However, this advice may be different if you are taking part in activities that make you sweat, for example sports. Then you should wash afterwards even if you have already washed that day, as sweat will make you smell bad. Start from your head and wash down to your toes, remembering to wash your feet well and armpits.
When washing your body and hair you should remember to use shampoo, shower gel/soap and use a sponge/cloth. If you do not use these, your body will not be clean, and you will still smell.
To help prevent body odour you should use an anti-perspirant :
- every morning,
- after every shower,
- before and after playing sports.
Wash your hands
This is a very important part of looking after your personal hygiene, as washing your hands properly, removes dirt and bacteria. This can stop bacteria or germs from spreading to other people and objects. If you do not wash your hands it can spread illnesses such as food poisoning and flu.
Remember to use soap and water or if this is not available, use a hand sanitiser.
You should wash your hands:
- When you handle food
- Before you eat
- When you go to the toilet
- If you handle the bin
- When you sneeze
- Anytime you touch an animal
Washing your hands properly should take about as long as singing “Happy Birthday” twice – around 20 seconds.
Brush your teeth
You should brush your teeth with toothpaste twice a day- once in the morning and once in the evening before you go to bed for about 2 minutes to help keep your teeth and mouth healthy.
Brushing your teeth everyday will mean you are removing any plaque or left-over food in your mouth and will give you fresh breath. However, not brushing your teeth, can lead to a build-up of plaque which can develop into gum disease and tooth decay and can also lead to bad breath.
You should visit the dentist every 6 months for a check- up. This will allow the dentist to see if your teeth are healthy or if you have any problems with your teeth that they can fix. If you have any problems with your teeth in between your appointments you should ring up the dentist and make an emergency appointment, as it is important to look after your teeth.
Trim you nails
It is important to keep your finger and toenails trimmed and in good shape as this will prevent problems such as rag nails, in growing toe nails and infected nail beds. It is also important to keep your nails clean, as this can spread germs.
To have good personal hygiene, you should have a good routine every day, to keep it up to date. If you keep on top of this,, you will look good and feel good.
Every day you should remember to:
- Wash your face
- Use deodorant
- Brush your hair
- Wash your hands
- Brush your teeth
Having bad personal hygiene is when you do not wash your hands after you go to the toilet or when you smell bad, but you do not care.
This can tell a lot about a person who has bad personal hygiene, as it can show laziness, self-neglect, poor mental health or a lack of information about personal hygiene.
If you do not have good personal hygiene, it can:
- Mean you have Body odour
- Affect your social life
- Affect your health- prone to cold’s and Flu’s
- Mean you have Bad breath
Clean Clothes
There is no point in having a clean body if you dress in dirty clothes. It is very important to always wear clean clothes as if you are exercising, your clothes get stained, dirty or are generally grubby they can smell and can make you look less presentable.
Remember to wear clean underwear and socks every day.
If your clothes are dirty or smell you should put them in a washing basket and wash them in a washing machine. Before washing your clothes you can separate them into piles of white clothes, coloured clothes and delicates to be washed. This will help look after your clothes in the washing machine as mixing white and coloured clothes can make the colours run. Your white t-shirt can turn pink!!
When washing your clothes, you should follow the symbols on each of your clothes labels, this will tell you how they should be washed.
Remember when washing your clothes use washing powder and you can add fabric softener if you would like to make your clothes smell extra nice.
Once your clothes have been washed, you then need to dry them. You can either do this, through using a tumble dryer or if you do not have a tumble dryer you can dry them naturally on a clothesline outside or on the radiator.
Remember to check the labels on the clothes to make sure you can use a tumble dryer. Some clothes you are not able too, and if you tumble dry them, they can shrink.
When your clothes have dried, you then will have to iron them to take out any wrinkles in your clothes. When ironing your clothes, you will need an ironing board and an iron. Remember to be careful when using the iron as it can be very hot and check the labels to make sure it can be ironed.
Never leave the iron sitting face down on the clothes, as it can burn through the material and ruin it.