The routines nobody counts
A shower takes a few minutes and a haircut comes round every month or two, so neither feels like much. But they are some of the most repeated things we do. A daily shower since early childhood adds up to well over ten thousand showers by middle age, hundreds of hours under the water and enough of it to fill a good part of an Olympic swimming pool. Haircuts quietly remove metres of hair over a lifetime. The picture shows both: the pool filling with your shower water, and a ruler of all the hair that has been cut away.
Adjust the sliders to your own routine. Shorter showers and a water-saving showerhead make a big difference to the water total over the years.
How we calculate it
We count the weeks from the age you choose to today and multiply by your showers a week. Water uses a typical flow of 7.9 litres a minute, about 2.1 US gallons, which matches the EPA’s average of 15.8 gallons for an 8.2-minute shower. Haircuts are the weeks divided by your gap between cuts. Hair cut off assumes growth of 1.25 cm a month and that you keep about the same length, so everything that grows is eventually cut.
| Years of daily 8-minute showers | Showers | Hours | Litres |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 3,653 | 487 | 230,800 |
| 20 | 7,305 | 974 | 461,700 |
| 30 | 10,958 | 1,461 | 692,500 |
| 50 | 18,263 | 2,435 | 1,154,200 |
Worked example. Someone born on 12 April 1990 who has showered daily for 8 minutes since age three had taken about 12,250 showers by 30 October 2026: 1,633 hours, or 68 full days, under the water, using about 774,000 litres, 31% of an Olympic pool. With a haircut every six weeks they had had about 292 haircuts, removing roughly 5 metres of hair.
Saving water
Cutting a shower from eight minutes to five saves about 24 litres each time, which is almost 9,000 litres a year for a daily shower. A water-saving showerhead can cut that again by a fifth or more.
Questions people ask
How much water does a shower use?
The US Environmental Protection Agency puts the average American shower at about 8.2 minutes and 15.8 gallons, roughly 60 litres. Older showerheads can use much more, and water-saving heads rated at 2 gallons a minute or less use less.
How much hair have I had cut off?
Scalp hair grows about 1.25 cm (half an inch) a month, or 15 cm a year. If you keep roughly the same length, every haircut removes the growth since the last one, so over the years the total cut off is about 15 cm for every year.
Why count from a later age?
Small children usually have baths and occasional haircuts, so counting from age three or so gives a more realistic total. Change the age to suit you.
Is anything saved?
Only your birthday, on this device, so other pages can use it.
Sources. US EPA WaterSense (average shower 8.2 minutes, 15.8 gallons); American Academy of Dermatology (hair growth about half an inch a month). Calculations run in your browser; nothing you enter is sent anywhere.