Interesting reading, giving insight into what it’s like living on the International Space Station: Anousheh Ansari Space Blog

Anousheh Ansari Space Blog was made by friends at the X PRIZE Foundation to support Anousheh in her wish to inspire others with her historic spaceflight — the first woman to buy her own ticket to space.

Here’s a snippet of the post from 25Sep2006

Well my friends, I must admit keeping good hygiene in space is not easy! There is no shower or faucet with running water. Water does not “flow” here, it “floats” — which makes it a challenging act to clean yourself. So what do people do up here, specially the ones staying for six months at a time…? They improvise!

There are wet towels, wet wipes and dry towels that are used for cleaning yourself. Usually each person gets a wet towel a day and couple of dry ones. Each person has a personal hygiene kit where they keep their stuff like toothbrush, shaving kit, creams , etc. I got Dice-K’s kit so it had a razor and lots of shaving cream, but no makeup

Now brushing your teeth in space is another joy. You cannot rinse your mouth and spit after brushing, so you end up rinsing and swallowing. Astronauts call it the fresh mint effect

The most interesting experience — or I should call it experiment — is washing your hair. Now I know why people keep their hair short in space. You basically take a water bag and slowly make a huge water bubble over your head and then Very Very Gently, using a dry shampoo, you wash your hair. At the slightest sudden movement, little water bubbles start floating everywhere. I’ve made some video of my hair-washing experience that I will share when I return