Purpose: Bathing habits are said to be affected by the country of residence. We investigated and compared bathing habits between Japanese living in Kyoto and Japanese Americans living in Los Angeles.

Methods: 488 subjects living in Kyoto (Japanese) and 539 subjects living in Los Angeles (Japanese Americans) were enrolled. The survey items for bathing habits were as follows: frequency (times per week) and time (morning, afternoon, evening) of taking baths and showers, other styles of bathing, and bathing duration (both baths and showers). We performed a simple tabulation and cross tabulation, calculated 95% confidential intervals by simple tabulation, and compared the results using chi-square analysis. The survey was conducted in Los Angeles in October 2010 and in Kyoto in December 2013.

Results: The percentage of subjects who took baths was 92.8% for Japanese and 56.0% for Japanese Americans. The frequency of taking a bath was 36.8 points higher for Japanese compared with Japanese Americans. The percentage of subjects who took showers was 71.7% for Japanese and 82.6% for Japanese Americans. The frequency of taking a shower was 10.9 points higher for Japanese Americans compared with Japanese. The most common response for frequency of bathing was “every day”, followed by “every other day” in both groups. The most common response for the time of taking a bath was “evening” in both groups. Among Japanese Americans, 21.8% took baths in the “morning”. Most Japanese indicated they took a shower “less than once a week” (48.0%), whereas most Japanese Americans took a shower “every day” (78%). The timing of taking a shower was in the “evening” for most Japanese, but in the “morning” or “evening” for most Japanese Americans. The most common response for bathing duration (both baths and showers) was “26-30 min” among Japanese and “6-10 min” among Japanese Americans.

Discussion: For Japanese Americans, the purpose of bathing was suggested to be cleaning the body since their main style of bathing was taking showers of a short duration in the morning or evening. On the other hand, for Japanese, the purpose of bathing was thought to be cleaning and healing the body, but also maintaining health since their main style of bathing was taking baths of a long duration in the evening. We speculate that the country of residence affects bathing habits and that there are differences among people of the same race living in different countries.

Conclusion: Bathing habits such as bathing style, the time of bathing and bathing duration were different between Japanese and Japanese Americans.