Guest post: by Prepared ND – Bug Out Bag Hygiene – Staying Clean in the Middle of Nowhere
One of the most overlooked aspects in preparedness planning is personal hygiene. After all, how hard is it to take a bath every day, flush a toilet, wash your hands, and brush your teeth?
While taking care of these functions in a grid down environment isn’t necessarily rocket science, a little advance planning can ensure you are using your time and resources as efficiently as possible.
So I’d like to share with you how I plan to meet these needs. Much of it is common sense but hopefully there will be an idea or two that you can use or something you can add to make this system better.
As a naturopathic doctor, I tend to center my family’s preparedness plan on preventing injuries and illness. Clean water is a must, and the water issue has been addressed repeatedly here so I will not go into this.
I would like to describe the hygiene kit we use in our bug out bags, some dual uses for the items included, and some ideas of how to restock your supplies with items found in nature. Many of these items are entirely unnecessary with a little innovation but they do boost morale, make your excursion safer, and make life a little easier.
Hair care / Nail Care
Scissors:
The scissors can obviously be used for multiple purposes besides cutting hair. Most small sewing kits and multi-tools come with scissors attached. Alternatives are easy to come by: broken glass, pieces of sharpened metal, knives, sharpened rocks, and even teeth will cut hair if needed.
Comb:
I can’t think of many alternate uses for a comb. I bet MacGuyver would sharpen the tips and use them as blow gun darts. The tips might also double as a toothpick or sewing needle? Alternatively, you can whittle a comb out of wood or use fish vertebrae.
Hair Nets:
Hair nets really come in handy – even for men – nobody bothers a guy in a hair net. Aside from keeping junk out of your hair, they can be used as bags to allow things to air dry and depending on the size and strength of the mesh you could improvise some traps out of them.
They also can be used to store filter material in an improvised water filter. Unless you’re extremely bored and decide to do some heavy-duty weaving, you’re not going to find many replacements in nature.
Hair Ties:
Aside from tying your hair back, they can be used to hang items around your camp. Replacements are extremely easy to come by, just use a plant for cordage.
Toe Nail Clippers:
Safely cuts both fingernails and toenails, cuts small things like fishing line, can be used as tweezers with a steady hand. Natives kept their fingernails and toenails trimmed by abrading them on sand stone.
Shaving Supplies
Just bring a couple of safety razors with you. If you have to improvise use a knife. The reason I include this is because if you happen to injure yourself, you may have to shave the area to clean and dress the wound.
Dental Hygiene
Toothbrush:
I bring two. Two toothbrushes could last a really long time if you periodically boil them to sanitize. You could use one for dental care, and another as a brush to clean gear and stains with. This is outside my comfort zone, but if you run out of toilet paper, leaves and plants will only take cleanliness so far. A toothbrush could finish the job – just don’t confuse it with the one you use on your mouth.
For an improvised toothbrush, most primitive tooth brushes were simply sticks that were chewed to wipe away debris. You can also just use a piece of cloth to wipe over your teeth to keep them cleaned. Anything is better than nothing.
Dental Floss:
Even the smallest pack is several yards and can be sanitized and reused by boiling. There are many uses for dental floss: sewing, cooking, traps, cordage, it goes on and on. Replacements can be found as easily as any other cordage, just find a non poisonous plant and go for it.
Toothpaste:
Bring the largest size you can afford to bring with you. Not only will it clean your teeth, but it also does a good job at soothing bug bites and stings. Since toothpaste is abrasive, you can actually polish the bottom side of an aluminum can with it and make it shiny enough to reflect sunlight and start fires.
When searching for natural replacements, keep in mind you have three primary ingredients in toothpaste: an abrasive, fluoride, and usually an antibacterial. Replacing the abrasive is easy – if an improvised chewing stick isn’t enough to keep your teeth clean, clean and boil some sand and use that. You can also grind the shells of nuts to make abrasives.
If you need an antibacterial for any reason, White Oak Bark is the best. A quick Google search can yield you many more plants native to your area that have antibacterial properties.
Bathing
Wash cloth:
Just use the cloth diaper mentioned below. The only purpose of the wash cloth is to give you extra abrasion to remove dead skin cells and dirt etc. Use your imagination.
Mini ShamWows:
We have two of these in each of our packs. I normally don’t buy into the as seen on TV hype, but these really do work. Just one of the mini shamwows will dry me completely after a shower.
Also, they have a small footprint in your pack, weigh next to nothing, and air dry three times faster than your average towel. Your only other alternatives are to air dry in the sun or next to a campfire, or use your clothes to dry off. Both of these options will get you killed in cold weather.
Soap/Shampoo/deodorant:
At a minimum, include a bar of soap in your pack – it can be used as shampoo or deodorant in a pinch. Be sure to include a plastic soap holder along with the soap. It will cause the soap to last longer, and it will act as a mold if you make more soap.
If you run out of soap, remember the sand abrasive? That will work great, and it doesn’t require water. There are plenty of recipes for soap floating around on the internet that you should look into – the main components are lye (obtained from wood ashes) and animal fat.
Other Items
Heavy Duty Rubber Gloves:
A big part of basic hygiene is not getting dirty in the first place. I have two pairs of these gloves in my hygiene kit. These work great for latrine duty and field dressing animals. By using the heavier duty rubber gloves, they can be boiled and sanitized for reuse.
Toilet Paper:
It beats the heck out of the alternatives and it can also be used as fire starting tinder in a pinch.
Cloth Diapers:
If you have kids that are still in diapers, these are your only viable option. They can also be used as wash rags, toilet paper alternative, feminine hygiene pads, coarse water filters, and spare fabric for repairs.
Germ-X (The liquid kind):
This is pretty self-explanatory, I keep a bottle of this to sanitize with. This stuff also makes a fantastic fire starter:
This is the extent of the hygiene kit I use and is intended to give you a few ideas for your own bug out bags. This kit will fit in a gallon size ziplock bag with room to spare and can be compressed into a smaller space with a little creative positioning. Aside from the soap and toothpaste, this kit would support me for about a year. If you have any questions/qualms/improvements I’d love to hear them.
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Great article. Very thorough. Thank you. I will have to update my kit with some of these items.
At a minimum, I try to keep a bottle of hand sanitizer in any emergency kit that I have. I always have a bottle in my pocket when I go camping.
I agree with the shamwows. I got a generic towel made of the same material several years ago and it has served me well. It sure beats hauling a full-sized bath towel in your pack.
The travel section of your local Wal-Mart or equivalent is a gold mine when it comes to stocking BOB hygiene supplies. Most items are around $1 and just the right size to pack in a small kit.
I usually pack a small package of baby wipes with my hygiene supplies as well. They won’t last long in an extended emergency, but short term they are extremely convenient for washing up. Much better than getting water, heating it up, dealing with a wet wash cloth, soap, etc. They make great toilet paper, too.
Thanks for mentioning the Baby Wipes, I forgot to mention them. They are definetely worth the extra weight. You might be able to use them as a fire starter too, never tried it. They have a touch of alcohol and aloe in them.
Great post, thanks! Since I live on a desert, I’d like to see some tips on how to safely stretch water, as it is the biggest problem I foresee, outside of ‘zombies’. How do you safely wash dishes using minimal amounts of water? How do you clean yourself? How effectively can I recycle water? I’ve seen plans for a solar still to recycle gray water, and I see it as part of a long term solution, but each day, as I work in the kitchen, I see huge amounts of water going down the drain, water that I know I won’t have the luxury of using, should TSHTF here in Arizona.
Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.
I can give you a run down of our off grid system:
Water supplied by rain and a nearby 2 acre pond is our backup. Instead of buying rain barrels, we found a used 18′ above ground pool for like $150. That gives us 5400gal storage and something like 100+gal catchment for every inch of rain that falls. I could boost the catching capacity by rigging some tarps that flow into the pool. We keep the pool covered when not in use, that cuts down on evaporation. I looked into the NWS website for my area and used the average yearly rain for my norm, and found the worst drought on record to use as worst case scenario. To haul water from the pond, I would use two or three 5gal carriers on a wagon to minimize strain (it’s too far for plumbing).
I have 3 classes of stored water. Untreated water, Coarse filtered water, Water for consumption/cooking/medical
All untreated water first enters the pool storage and then proceeds to a 50gal aquarium that I made a sand/charcoal/rock/cotton coarse filter out of. The water from that goes into a sealed 33gal storage bin (the kind you get at Walmart).
Cooking/Medical/Consumption water is pulled from the 33gal system, boiled or chemically treated and then sent to the Berkey unit. Once filtered it stays in the berkey or is stored in polycarbonate bottles. We use this water for drinking/cooking/washing hands&face/brushing teeth.
The spill over water from cooking is used for washing dishes if it is fairly clean. We scrape the solid waste off for compost and then wash dishes in two 1L plastic shoeboxes we got at the dollar store. All cookware is stainless, so we plan to periodically boil or chemical treat to make sure it doesn’t get too overgrown to use safely. The grey water from the dishes is poured back into the coarse aquarium filter.
We fill a couple solar showers with Berkey water to use as hand/face washing stations. One indoors and one outdoors at the latrine. There is a small 1L shoebox at each station that catches run off. Toothbrushing/Face/Indoor hand washing water goes back into the 33gal unit. Outdoor latrine hand wash water is classified as black water and goes directly into compost.
We have no traditional black water, all liquid/solid waste goes directly into a 5gal bucket that we made into a composting toilet. That 5gal bucket gets dumped and then composted for at least a year. Once the material has been COMPLETELY COMPOSTED (smells like potting soil) it can actually be used on the garden with no ill effect.
For baths, we use yet another 33gal storage container. We stand inside and either use a 5gal hand pump sprayer filled with coarse filtered water from the aquarium or we take a sponge bath using coarse filtered or berkey water. You guessed it, all run off goes back to the outdoor aquarium filter.
For clothes washing we use three 5 gallon buckets (dirty water, not as dirty, rinse). We cut a hole in the lid and put a plunger through it and wash clothes kinda like churning butter. This water goes back into the aquarium filter.
We’ve field tested this twice. It requires quite a bit of effort and we’re still tweaking the system. We found that our square foot garden uses a little over 100g to get an inch of rain so we added 3 clean garbage cans as an additonal storage for filtered water for irrigation, we fill these using water obtained from the pool.
The coarse filtered aquarium water gets recycled like crazy, this is why you want to cover any wounds or wash with treated water if you need to. We also made an effort to keep this water out of mouth/ears/eyes to prevent infection. But for taking a general bath, the water is clear and has no odor, it’s much better than taking a bath in the pond or a creek.
Whoo…hoo! I love this one! Tiny bubbles, hmm hmm hmm :). Well, I’ve used lots of soaps over the years and I know of one that works well to clean the body and hair without oversudsing and making waste of a lot of water and, for those of us who don’t mind the smell which isn’t really all that bad it’s just not perfumey like we are accustomed to, it’s ideal because not only does it actually clean you and leave you and your skin clean and smelling clean it is pretty easy to rinse off the skin and a bar goes a long ways. I’ve noticed that it goes farther than an ordinary bar and I’d rather prefer to have something I can use for both hair and body like Grandpa’s Pine Tar Bar or Hair Soaps. Also, Pine is a good remedy for some skin ailments so having the soap and it’s benefits when there is no doctor is the best thing in the world. I get mine from http://www.lehmans.com. They are a good company and they have all sorts of stuff for sale like clothes washing tubs and wringers (non-electric, off-grid) to get the water out, lines for hanging them, toys, a unique and long-lasting nose shaver, laundry soap and lots of other unique items. For women, this is one soap that may be helpful (depending upon the individual of course) during that time of the month when it’s summer and so forth. Powdered Black Walnut hulls can be used to clean and polish the teeth. If you have some fine fishing line and you can get it between your teeth, you can use it to not only fish with but to floss your teeth (dual-purpose, never throw anything useful out). If there’s no toothbrush for whatever reason, a piece of terry cloth will suffice to clean food from your teeth with or without toothpaste. Just moisten the cloth and then rub your teeth and gums, checking in a mirror to make sure you have done a good job. Sometimes, it’s good to brush with the cloth, floss, rinse and then repeat especially after eating stickier foods like bread and such. I would make sure to either wash the cloth and/or boil it if possible and dry it using the sun or a good heat source but if there’s no way to dry it properly I would make sure that I don’t put it in a warm place until I use it again where germs can collect or grow and washi it if possible before the next use. It’s always a good idea to try to wash it when you’re going to do a double cleaning on your teeth and gums. Planning to add the shamwows to the pack–thanks and what a great idea! I’ve got two sharp pieces of flint which I know would work not only as a way to start fires but also to cut and shave in times of emergency and I like their dual purpose. Athlete’s foot is one thing I am always aware of because with warm feet, when they are wet, or perchance just coming into contact with someone could and sometimes does occur, I keep a bottle of white vinegar and tea tree oil. I wet a rag with white vinegar and wipe the feet. After they are dry I use a cotton swab and dab the tea tree oil on to disinfect the feet between and under the toes and thoroughly over the toenails and it doesn’t take too much of the oil so it goes a long way and it lasts a good long time. Then put on clean dry socks and that keeps the ‘foot baddies’ at bay. The toe nails are one place where the little buggers like to go and it’s important to have finger and toe nail treatments at hand. I have dealt with someone who had a bad case of burning, terribly red, itchy, miserable feet and I used a mildly bleachy and soapy water solution to as hot as they could stand it, having them soak their feet in the solution for about 1/2 an hour and then they washed, rinsed and dried their feet completely, letting the air really dry out their feet and after donning a new pair of socks every day inside of one new pair of shoes until the infection was gone (never letting the skin of their feet come into contact with the insides of their shoes) they were finally free of the fungus. They were lucky because their toe nails were not thickened as it generally will do and so they didn’t have to file the layers off every week or so to get rid of it. I wouldn’t have a pack without some sort of protection whether I live in or outdoors. No one is immune to it and it’s possible to get it even when in desert conditions…hot weather means warm, sweaty feet and lil’ buggers taking up residence in your shoes. Again, I wouldn’t be without those two cleaners/disinfectants because where there is no water, they will work anytime of the day any time of the year. I carry them in the dark tinctures bottles with glass droppers and they cap off very well so I don’t have to worry about losing anything through evaporation and keeps the light to a minimum staving off deterioration of the products. Vinegar is also a good item to use when you need to wash your hands. You just use enough to wet them and it kills germs. Currently, I sanitize my bathroom and other areas such as door knobs and such, I use some in my laundry and I use it to make saurkraut. Vinegar can be a little drying to the skin but a little oil or lotion can help to remedy that situation. I also carry a small bottle of rubbing alcohol in my pack just in case my pits or other body parts need a little clean lift in-between and I don’t want to waste my vinegar.
SrvivlSally,
Thanks for the great ideas! Vinegar is definetely one of the handiest substances you can add to your larder – gotta love that indefinite shelf life. The recipe you described to thwart foot fungus is pretty close to the one I use except I add a few drops of Thuja to give it a boost. Prevention is 99% of the cure, hygiene is a priority on my list.
Like you mentioned, it is best to put tinctures in amber glass bottles that have good rubber seals. I’ve yet to have one leak and they’re fairly hard to break if you get a good quality bottle. I usually pack my tinctures in Everclear but Vinegar works really well too.
I believe anyone interested in preparedness or saving money should seriously consider studying advanced woodcraft and natural medicine while times are good.
With the advances in naturopathic medicine and what we now know about diet, hygiene, and physiology it’s now easier than ever to be your own doctor.
Don’t forget the fly swatter! In Iraq, I got dysentery twice, because there were clouds of flys everywhere, and we didn’t get to bathe for two months. We made our own fly swatters out of cleaning rods, MRE boxes, and duct tape. They worked, but not great. We would stand around the hood of the Humvee and swat flies that landed on the hood to eat the sticky stains left by spilled drinks. The most flies I ever killed with a single swat was 13. When there are no sewage systems, refuse disposal, and when people rely on livestock as food and transport, the land gets filthy very quickly. You need a way to handle the increased vermin and pest population that is certain to emerge. Fly swatters and Fly paper are also a good way to deal with mosquitoes and No-see-ums in your tent.
Thanks for bringing that up. All I can think of in addition to the improvised fly swatter and improved camp sanitation is buying a sheet of no-see-um mesh to put in the bags to close up the ends of the tent.
There are several caves with a heavy bat population in my bug out location, maybe by setting up camp in the general area they will help me out a bit.
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