Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis want to clear the air: Yes, they bathe their children.
The famous couple shared a snippet of their home life in the form of an Instagram video filmed from Ashton’s perspective, showing Mika from inside a bathroom while children’s voices are heard off-camera.
“What’s going on?” asks Ashton, before panning over to a water-coated shower door. “You’re putting water on the children? Are you trying to melt them?”
Through giggles, Mila then replies that they’re bathing their children, which prompts Ashton to jokingly exclaim that it’s the fourth time this week they’re getting bathed and “their body oils are going to be destroyed!”.
The post comes in the wake of the duo revealing on a July episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast that they only bathe their children, six-year-old Wyatt and four-year-old Dimitri, when they “see the dirt on them”.
Ashton and Mila’s comments sparked an ever-growing conversation among celebrities about bathing and how often one should do it.
Dax Shepard and his wife, Kristen Bell, appeared on The View earlier this month and shared that, when their children were smaller, the couple “bathed our children every single night prior to bed as their routine”.
“Then somehow they just started going to sleep on their own without their routine and we had to start saying [to each other], like, ‘Hey, when was the last time you bathed them?’” said Dax.
Then last week, Jake Gyllenhaal shared with Vanity Fair that “more and more I find bathing to be less necessary, at times”.
“I do also think that there’s a whole world of not bathing that is also really helpful for skin maintenance, and we naturally clean ourselves,” he shared.
In case you were wondering what doctors recommend, dermatologist Shilpi Khetarpal, MD, told the Cleveland Clinic that “there’s no magic formula for how often you should break out the body wash”.
“Someone who runs five miles every day probably needs to lather up more often than someone who rarely breaks a sweat. Some people have oilier skin and hair than others. Others are cursed with extra-stinky pits,” she said, adding that showering once a day can help rinse off the “thousands of allergens” we encounter daily.
She did emphasise, however, that overdoing it can be damaging.
“Some people shower in the morning, after the gym, then again before bed. That’s not necessary, and can be very drying and irritating for your skin,” she says.
At any rate, bathing is deeply personal so we’re ... uh ... grateful these celebs have opened up about it and can have some fun with their antics as well.