For many people, probably a camping holiday means much lower standards when it comes to hygiene. A holiday in a caravan probably smells like that for some people too. But don't be fooled! Our way of life is slightly different. Hygiene in a van doesn't suffer as much as it might seem! We can indulge in as many baths as we want! We just need to have enough water.

Now in Greece we encounter water every few kilometers. There's a tap in almost every village. They're either on the village square or somewhere by the church. Or on the beach! It's usually water piped from the mountains or probably from the local water network. Either way, we take it there and so far we haven't had any health problems. Sometimes we even meet someone local who assures us the water is really drinkable.

With us in the van we have two 70L barrels for water located in our "garage" and on top of that another 10L in the boiler. This amount of water lasts us about a week. It depends on how often we're showering and how much we're cooking. We do try to conserve, but when you wash dishes 3 times a day after longer cooking, it's not exactly little. Solution? Don't dirty so many dishes! One-pot meals are really practical food! :)

In this article (here) I wrote what it looks like at our place and that we actually even have a bathroom. Which is simply luxury. Not all mobile homes have it! So for those who missed this article, I recommend supplementing knowledge about I❤️ECO.

Heating Water in the Van

So we have water solved and what next? Most of the time we only use cold, we save hot for the shower. We have an electric boiler and usually we only turn it on while driving, when the most energy flows into the battery. But in recent days it's started shining here sufficiently enough that we can afford to turn on heating even just from solar panels! Spring on the Peloponnese is approaching!

Of course a 10L boiler wouldn't be enough for a family of 4, but for us, when we're trying to conserve water anyway, it's sufficient. Well, usually, sometimes it happens that only cold is left for Leo. Well, we wanted to learn to practice cold exposure anyway! Mainly me though. :D An extra economical shower head helps us save water. It mixes water with air so cleverly that we really need a minimum. Only for hair I have to let a proper stream run to wash out the shampoo.

Bio-cosmetics

Which brings us to cosmetics we use. At the beginning I wanted to have only bio products. I don't use makeup at all now, so I don't deal with that. But shampoo and soap yes. We have everything in solid form and mostly ecological products. Before departure we shopped on this site and this one. But now we managed to win one competition (we didn't even know we were competing :D) at this company - Almara Soap. So if their products work out for us, we'll probably shop with them next time! Just from appearance it looks really good. Although it reminds me more of desserts. :D

Otherwise besides biodegradable shampoo and soap we also have an eco dish detergent. At home Dawn was always the best because it simply degreased, so I was afraid something else wouldn't work, but this works too! For those interested, the purchase link is here.

Another question is toothpaste. We tried coconut oil, but it didn't quite work out for us, so we're back to classic toothpaste. If anyone has another ecological suggestion, feel free to write in the comments! We're very happy to be inspired. But at least we use bamboo brushes instead of plastic ones.

So from the above it follows that hygiene in the van doesn't suffer. It's true we don't bathe every day, but in my opinion it's not even necessary. It's a pleasure of modern times when there's plenty everywhere. But we live economically! So we want to consume less water too. And even hair is fine with less! Twice a week is plenty and when I don't feel like even that, salt water saves it! :D