For the first time in a week, I wear my hair down. It's clumpy with grease and smells like a moth-addled basement. On the way to work, I stop at the supermarket. It feels wrong to be handling fresh produce. I fully expect someone to mistake me for homeless and ask me to leave. I am befuddled when no one so much as gives me a second glance.

"Uh, that's because your hair looks wet," says my coworker, when I later explain what happened.

Jessica and I have serious dandruff, and our scalps itch like crazy. Flakes of dead skin dot our hairlines. No matter how many times we run a brush through our hair, we can't get it to budge -- the grease holds onto it like glue. When Jessica scratches her head, her nails are filled with soft, damp scalp.

Our managing editor feels her gag reflex kick in and has to leave the room.

Today, I'm wearing a billowy dress that lets me catch a whiff of myself whenever I move. It smells exactly like a sweaty, unshowered groin. I honestly can't tell if the smell is coming from my armpits or my lady parts, because at this moment, there is no perceptible difference.

Less than two weeks in, everyone is growing tired of our experiment -- and Jessica and I feel ostracized. The Total Beauty team has nicknamed me Pits and told Jessica she smells like "yesterday's food."

For the third day in a row, I ask my husband to smell my armpit and rate it 1 to 10, with 10 being putrefied corpse. "I don't want to play this game anymore," he says. "I want my wife back." Then, he rates me a 9.

During a run on the beach, I pass a homeless man sleeping in the sand. I wonder what his skin's microbes are like, and whether he smells. After all, he sleeps in dirt (where the good bacteria live), probably has no beauty products nor much opportunity to shower. After some intense Googling, I learn that, when it comes to B.O., wearing dirty clothes is way worse than not showering. So if you have the choice between bathing or doing laundry, take the latter.

When I get home, I spray myself liberally with the Mother Dirt mist (the microbes feast on sweat and work better when it's present, says Aganovic), then set about prepping food for a dinner party. It's liberating -- and a total time saver -- to not have to worry about getting myself ready. At the last minute, I change into a clean, long-sleeved shirt and hug our guests hello. "You must be doing so much laundry right now," says my friend. My cheek sticks to her face as we pull apart. "You don't smell, but your skin feels really tacky," she says.

Today, Jessica is literally gagging on her own odor. At the gym, her workout buddy Hannah confesses that when she walks by Jessica or works out on the equipment she just finished on, she can still smell Jessica's "lingering stink cloud."

According to those who have quit showering before us (who knew there's an active no-soap movement on Reddit?), it can take weeks for the body to adjust. I read accounts of people who claim they don't smell at all, and I'm convinced they're lying. Aganovic assures me this is actually the norm. In 60 percent of people, the good bacteria push the smelly microbes out, and they're able to quit deodorant completely. Either it's taking a long time for our good bacteria to colonize, or Jessica and I belong to the other 40 percent.

When Jessica returns from the gym, the editors who sit closest to her stand up and cover their noses in protest. "This is the worst day by far." They take their laptops and book a conference room on the other side of the building.

Since realizing the other day that my patch of scalp psoriasis is shedding in sheets, I can't keep my hands off of it. Usually, it's inflamed, irritated and angry -- and I can't stop scratching it. I assumed until yesterday that it had gone away (a Mother Dirt miracle?), because there's been no discomfort for a week. But now that I know it's lifting off my scalp, I want it gone and can't help but coax it along, so to speak.

The result is chunks that stick to my greasy hair. At lunch, our managing editor says she can see flakes all around my ear. Later in the day, as I glance in the mirror, I see it sprinkled all along my hairline. I almost don't go to the supermarket after work because I know people standing in line behind me will be staring at my scalp. I feel extremely self-conscious, don't look around at all and barely make eye contact with the cashier.