A new study has found 23 million days of learning are lost each year to children going through hygiene poverty (Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels)
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Almost three million school children in the UK have experienced hygiene poverty in the past year, with 23 million estimated days of school learning lost each year as a consequence.
Research released on Wednesday (20 August) found a 68% year-on-year increase in state school teachers reporting daily instances of pupils experiencing hygiene poverty, meaning they are unable to afford basic essentials like soap, toothpaste or the ability to wash their clothes.
The study, by charity The Hygiene Bank and laundry brand smol, found that hygiene poverty has knock-on effects, with children in hygiene poverty 85% more likely to experience bullying, and 75% more likely to experience academic underperformance in school.
Ruth Brock, CEO of The Hygiene Bank, told Big Issue that the numbers were “absolutely not OK” and that the charity’s own experience had found that when children have access to hygiene products, they perform far better at school.
“We had one case study from a key worker, of a teenager who was in college and had an 18% attendance rate, and through us, his key worker got him deodorant and shower gel, and his attendance went up to 100% and he went on to university,” she explained. “In his case, deodorant and some shower gel meant a place at university, and we all know what that then does to your social mobility and to your life chances.
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
“And it was for the lack of those simple, basic products that many of us are lucky enough to be able to take for granted, but millions of people can’t.”
Brock explained that The Hygiene Bank, which has been running for seven years, looks to give people access to products many people “take for granted in our day-to-day lives”, including nappies, deodorant, shampoo, face wash, menstrual products, laundry products and more. The charity supplies those products to places where “people are already accessing help”, like schools, food banks, homeless shelters, and domestic violence refuges.
“If you stack up that basket of goods, it really does come to quite a lot, and simply put, the cost of living crisis is such that people simply cannot put food on the table and pay their energy bills and pay their rent and afford the basics they need for themselves and their families,” she explained, adding that hygiene poverty isn’t just about affording the products themselves, but the water and energy bills that go towards showering and washing clothes.
She explained that the organisation is “working to alleviate the misery of hygiene poverty today, but we’re also crucially campaigning to end it, because hygiene poverty is solvable if we choose to act”, adding that 4.2 million adults and three million children are currently experiencing hygiene poverty.
“It is simply not a conversation we should be having; we have reinvented a Victorian problem,” she added.
‘Sobering’ research ahead of back-to-school time
The research is part of The Hygiene Bank and smol’s Marked Absent campaign to fund the Suds in Schools programme, which places mini-launderettes in schools across the UK, with smol also calling on the public to write to their MP to ask that hygiene poverty be addressed in the government’s upcoming child poverty strategy.
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
“It’s unbelievable to me that there are parents out there who are having to contemplate sending their child back to school with a dirty uniform because they simply cannot afford the laundry detergent and the associated energy costs to wash their child’s school uniform and their PE kit,” Brock said.
“It is unbelievable to me that that you would have to send your child to school on that first day and not have toothpaste and the toothbrush so that they have got clean teeth, that you weren’t able to give them a bath or a shower the night before to get them ready, but this we now know is what three million children and their parents are facing this September, and that’s something that is really, really sobering.”
She added that the reality of how hygiene poverty impacts children and their families means that children can avoid PE, or miss school altogether – with 23 million days of school missed last year – with 78% of teachers surveyed finding that hygiene poverty is stigmatised. Pupils facing it can experience bullying as a result, with 75% of children experiencing hygiene poverty noting that it affected their mental health.
Teachers on the frontline of the hygiene poverty crisis
Teachers surveyed explained that students have “come in with a filthy uniform after the summer holidays, indicating it had not been washed for six weeks”, with another explaining how “a student cried in a support meeting because they felt embarrassed to have to ask for soap”.
Victoria Archer, a deputy headteacher at a London school, described the change she sees: “We see pupils who were once confident and engaged in class become withdrawn and quiet. Their friendships fade, they stop putting themselves forward, and their progress in school begins to slip. It’s all linked to a drop in confidence – and it’s heartbreaking to watch.”
Brock stressed that the consequences go far beyond the classroom: “For any child to learn effectively, you need to meet the basic needs; they need to be fed, they need to be clean, they need to be comfortable, they need to feel safe, and three of those things are not true if you’re living in hygiene poverty. You’re not clean, you’re not comfortable, and you don’t feel safe because of the shame and the embarrassment and the stigma that people living in hygiene poverty tell us. That simply doesn’t seem right to me, and that’s something that I think collectively we really need to change.”
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
The Hygiene Bank has previously worked with other charities like Trussell and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and part of that work includes campaigning on issues like the two-child benefit cap, which is one of the most significant drivers of child poverty in the UK. Its current project, the Marked Absent campaign, will enable families experiencing hygiene poverty to “take that little step towards being more ready for their learning” ahead of school starting in September.
Brock added that for this campaign: “We want to put more laundrettes in schools, but we also want the government’s child poverty task force to take this on and recognise hygiene poverty explicitly.” She explained that while expenses like the cost of school uniforms are an issue, it’s important to tackle the root causes of poverty, as well as long-term issues like being able to afford to wash school uniforms.
Tampon tax
Brock also said that hygiene poverty and period poverty have big crossovers, and that the organisation was inspired by the campaign to lift VAT from period products, known as the “tampon tax”, in 2021. Following this, The Hygiene Bank aims to remove the VAT from soap, which could make hygiene products more affordable.
“That’s been the inspiration for Stop the Soap Tax, and that’s about taking VAT off soap,” she explained. “The whole theory that was accepted by Rishi Sunak and the then-Conservative government was that period products are a basic essential and therefore should not be subject to VAT. We think the same applies to soap.
“I don’t think anybody can seriously argue that we don’t all need soap to kind of wash our hands, and indeed, when you’re on your period, you absolutely do need soap to wash your hands. A campaign on Stop the Soap Tax is exactly that, this is a basic essential, unlike lobster, which is not subject to VAT, or helicopters or gold bars.”
She explained that removing VAT from soap could save the average family £20 to £40 per year, which could represent a children’s winter coat, or a family outing.
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
“That small amount is actually alleviating another part of the pressure; it then means that if you just make that essential good a little bit cheaper, it makes that easier for people.”
Brock pointed to research showing that 65% of parents in hygiene poverty have chosen between the product for themselves and their children, which is another area where period poverty comes in, adding: “If you are choosing between tampons for yourself or nappies for your child, we all know what choice most mums are going to make… that isn’t a choice that any mother should have to make in 2025.”
Who is most affected by hygiene poverty?
The demographics most impacted by hygiene poverty include those from the global majority, young people and disabled people, with one in five people with a disability or long-term health condition reportedly living with hygiene poverty.
“When you start to break down hygiene poverty, that’s when you start to be able to innovate and think about the specific solutions there,” Brock said. “So the Suds in Schools programme is an instance of that, if we can get those laundrettes into schools now, if we can get the laundry detergent and the deodorant and the shower gel and the soap and the toothpaste into schools, then those children can hopefully come to school feeling better about themselves, then they learn better, then they go on to a brighter future. It’s breaking the cycle.”
She stressed that The Hygiene Bank is open about “not wanting to exist” as a charity, and that hygiene poverty should instead be ended for good.
“We’re spending a lot of time thinking about the balance of the day-to-day work of alleviating hygiene poverty today, and finding solutions so that we’re not here in perpetuity. This is not a problem that you and I should be having to have a conversation about,” she said.
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
