I was thinking that a decent implementation of hygiene could be adding in various things like taking showers and what not. Taking a hot shower would have a high morale boost along with giving a bonus to resistance against general disease. (IE common cold and what not) Another random thought brought to you by Miloch.
Not only for your mental sanity and health but hygiene should condition future encounters with NPC like the pretty/ugly trait. So taking a bath from time to time would be advisable, here and in real life.
While showers/baths might go in as a positive boost (reduce scent, morale bonus) they will not go in as a “take a shower or suffer” type thing, thus effects on NPC conversations from not taking a shower almost certainly won’t happen. (In general for things like this we are fine with accepting positive rewards for doing a task, but not punishments for not doing a task).
Washing up to (temporarily) reduce your scent cloud is a possibility. Soap item gives you a “smell supressant” boost or something.
There are actually quite a few illnesses that are spread/caused/exacerbated by lack of proper personal hygiene.
I can see where you’re coming from on the not making it a requirement part, but forgoing basic personal hygiene can be a major problem in terms of illnesses and infections. And yes, this does apply to men as well as women.
Yeast infection, ringworm, body lice, Staphylococcus aureus, trachoma - these are just a few of the nasty things that happen when you decide to stop washing.
Some sort of internal dirtiness, which increases chance of wound infection?
Edit: Or just decreasing chance for some time after washing one self, to avoid the Do-it-or-suffer thing.
In the real world, filth on the outside of your skin vastly increases the likelihood of your wounds becoming infected.
This is not the real world, though, and as of now hygiene can’t be a factor in any of those things, and I’d want a good gameplay reason why it should before we made any progress on that front.
Don’t we already get a morale boost from being naked in the rain? Thats enough simulation for me. I think disease-tracking onto hands and stuff is better for like, multiplayer games where other people actually care. If hygiene is purely cosmetic, there is no point, so without a detailed and interesting disease system, I am not interested.
I like my original suggestion in this thread. Having it as a morale boost and a boost (like vitamins) for resisting ambient diseases.
I dunno, if I’ve been doing outdoor work I get pretty bitchy if I don’t get a shower that day XD
Shower-in-a-bag
Required: Fabrication 1
Tools: Sewing kit OR Bone Needle OR any tool with CUT-1
Materials: Plastic Bag, small string
Description:
This is a plastic bag with some holes in it, you hang the bag on a tree or something, pour water into it, and take a shower very quickly.
In real life I have used a similar, but less improvised and crude, shower while car camping or canoeing (but not while backpacking. Showers are nice but lets be real here, I am not going to carry a fucking showerhead around in my bag all day so I can use it for 5 minutes, I just go swimming or wait till I get to a town/home to wash up) 
Exactly.
…and then you forgot about rain, rivers and river banks. I see you all dream of a nymph in a waterfall, so I won’t mess with you any further. 
Hmm… true. Just dipping in the water (not shallow water) for a bit could count as taking a bath too.
just a mere though, but if eventually implemented, a negative trait to be included could be the obsessive- compulsive, with a periodical urge to wash the hands or the body even relying on your drinking water.
We’re pretty solidly against having penalties accumulate if you don’t wash, but a temporary buff to various things after washing would be great.
Ok, this suggestion is about the positives as I already knew they would be against the negative buffs from not washing. Yes, it’d be realistic, no, it wouldn’t be fun. If you want that go play the Sims.
Dirtiness easy mode: after 2 days of not washing just enable “dirty” regime which very slowly drain hidden health parameter and increase chances to get infected/start vomiting.
Dirtiness mode: each item, including each part of the body, gets dirty parameter. You can make items dirty by putting them in pools of blood and dirty toilet/sewage water, wearing them, vomiting at them, getting splattered in blood or plant juice from killing enemies; make them cleaner by washing them or using things made of cloth and paper like towels to split dirt in half (if you had left hand with 6 dirtiness and clean towel - you get left hand with 3 dirtiness and towel with 3 dirtiness). High dirty values make weapons fail, fail cooking crafts, make bandages and first aid useless, produce smell (making it possible to trick ants and other smell reliant mobs by throwing items you have just vomited at far away so that they will pursue their smell and not yours); eating with dirty hands decreases health and may make you vomit. Liquids and wet things (if they will ever exist) can take all the dirt on themselves. There will be finally real application for bleach apart from crafting, also soapmaking would be neat.
Items have maximum dirtiness, for example rag can have only 1 dirtiness max while towel 5 and raincoat 50, 0.25l water 10 and so on.
Also there will be no need in having things like ‘water’ and ‘clean water’, it will be just water with some dirtiness, there will be no need to waste charcoal in charcoal purifiers, instead charcoal just gets dirtier (and it can then be burned).
Dirtiness on non-liquids can be seen easily while in liquids only approximately (0-5 transparent water, 6-8 muddy water, 9-10 opaque water or so), to measure it accurately you’d need a chemistry set and 0.25l of said water.
Burger pro if you read the above they clearly state “We dont want bad effects for not cleaning.”