Why is Brazil as a nation, so obsessed with personal hygiene?

I have no idea, but is that a bad thing?

Are they? I hadn’t ever noticed. On what do you base this question?

They aren’t. They just have different personal hygiene routines than you expect. You see this all the time when two countries have different norms. Some groups take more showers, some brush and floss more, some take better care of their hair, and some take better care of their feet. All of them are “obsessed” with personal hygiene compared to other groups when we only look at the one or two things they focus on. But the same people who call them obsessed might think they are downright filthy when it comes to some other aspect of hygiene.

Take Rio, for example. As beautiful as the city is, it’s a toilet bowl. But I have never heard that they are really obsessed about personal hygiene.
It could be because the Amazon River in some ways is like a huge septic pipe.

@kritiper If my geography serves me correctly, the Amazon doesn’t go near the more populated areas of Brazil on the southern east coast, where Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are.

I have heard that Brazilians will be brushing and flossing after every meal and snack (in restaurant bathrooms even) and showering twice a day. I’m sure it has something to do with the hot, humid climate and the ‘friendly’ culture. I understand that they are very ‘body proud’ folks who like to enjoy sex, so I think that has something to do with it. Beauty and cleanliness go together.

If they are obsessed with brushing and flossing their teeth (I didn’t know they were) maybe it’s because their water isn’t fluoridated. Just a guess for why that might have developed.

Actually 40 cities in Brazil fluoridate their water. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23559106

My assumption was wrong. Unless, maybe they only recently started doing it, and so the habits were already well formed.

I really have no idea, I was just guessing to begin with. Just saying sometimes there is a reasonable explanation for why cultures do what they do.

I remember once seeing a show where they went around the world (it might have been on Oprah) showing different customs, I think it centered on women, and the Brazilian woman had a ton of perfumes on her vanity, while the woman from Denmark (might have been Sweden) had everything put away and very minimalistic.

America has everything from people who live sparsely to people who have stuff everywhere, but I’d say we lean towards having more stuff than less. Too much is more common I’d say.

Anyway, I’m just really pointing out the Brazilian having all the perfumes. Which maybe has to do with how people smell and cleanliness.

When I was a manager and buyer of fragrances at a large department store the Latin Americans bought a lot, and most importantly the men bought fragrances, a lot of American men don’t use them. My FIL lives with me now and in the morning I can smell his Azzaro across the house. Lol.