> One week I measured how much water I needed to clean myself top to bottom: two glasses.
This measurement is meaningless without calibrating for how dirty you were to start with. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you were mostly clean and presentable, wearing freshly cleaned clothes daily, only needing to wash off some sweat and skin oils.
A person living rough on the streets will probably be wearing dirty clothes for days or weeks, and constantly be exposed to the elements. The grime accumulates, and unless you've reproduced these conditions in your experiment, your figures are unrealistic.
The context of the parent you were replying to was homeless people, and your reply appears to suggest that they could bathe with a couple glasses of water. It's absurd.
It's not absurd, it was to measure to minimum amount of daily water one needs to maintain hygiene. Some homeless people rely on public bath house which are disgusting and not always available, I know now that I only need two cup of water (and a shower mitt) to do so.
It's irrelevant to the requirements of a homeless person.
You're basically not dirty at all living a typical domestic western life spent mostly at a keyboard and indoors.
oh and btw, I didn't mean that as a burden to homeless people, but as a data point. It's worth knowing for everybody else, if you know how few they need, we can all give them a bit every day.
Two glasses of water is perhaps barely enough to wash my (fairly unimpressive) hair with shampoo, and the hand better be steady. Is there some special technique?
True I forgot hairs, maybe I had very short ones at the time. So my comment was for everything else, when I meant top to bottom, I meant scrubbing and washing everything damn clean, not just a quick job.
A bit related too, if you're homeless, cut your hairs. You won't look homeless and you'll need less water :)
Possibly spongebaths and a buzzcut could make that work. But it's quite a goal to work towards. Taking a shower with a closed drain (if you have tub/shower) suggests I'd need a lot more.
I eat low and don't feel hungry (although I don't suffer cold which drains energy fast)
I agree that it can be daunting but I think it's not the quantity it's the regularity of supplies.