Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis say they don't wash their children every day: 'If you can see the dirt on them, clean them'
- Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis said they didn't wash their children every day.
- The couple also said they didn't wash their own bodies with soap every day.
- Kutcher said he'd rinse his face after a workout "just to get all the salts and the whatever out."
Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis told Dax Shepard's "Armchair Expert" podcast this month that they didn't wash their children every day and suggested parents wash their children only when they see dirt on them.
"I didn't have hot water growing up as a child, so I didn't shower much anyway," Kunis said. "But when I had children, I also didn't wash them every day. Like, I wasn't the parent that bathed my newborns - ever."
Soon after, Kutcher added: "Now, here's the thing: If you can see the dirt on them, clean them. Otherwise, there's no point."
Kutcher and Kunis, castmates on the sitcom "That '70s Show" who married in 2015, share two children: Wyatt Isabelle, 6, and Dimitri Portwood, 4.
Shepard had introduced the topic of personal hygiene, telling Kutcher and Kunis that he had been trying to convince his cohost, Monica Padman, that there is no need for a person to wash their body with soap every day.
Shepard said that you "should not be getting rid of the natural oil on your skin with a bar of soap every day," and Kunis agreed.
"I don't wash my body with soap every day," Kunis said. "But I wash pits and tits and holes and soles."
Padman replied: "I can't believe I'm in the minority here of washing my whole body in the shower. Like, who taught you to not wash?"
Kutcher said he washed only his "armpits and crotch daily and nothing else ever."
"I have a tendency to throw some water on my face after a workout just to get all the salts and the whatever out," he said, adding: "I got a bar of Lever 2000 that just delivers every time. Nothing else."
Shepard said he and his wife, the actor Kristen Bell, used to wash their children every day as part of their nighttime routine but stopped when their children got older.
"We haven't washed them since," he said. "It's been, like, six years."
"That's how we feel about our children," Kunis said.
The American Academy of Dermatology's guidelines say children ages 6 to 11 should bathe at least once or twice a week. Some geneticists have said young children require some exposure to dirt and small doses of viruses and infections to develop their immune systems.
The academy's guidelines say that teens, however, should shower or bathe daily.