Alcohol instead of a shower, lemon instead of deodorant: How people kept clean when there were no hygiene products in stores

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Still, by historical standards, recently people did not have a daily shower, no deodorant, or many other things important for hygiene. Knowing this, many residents of the twenty-first century are sure that all people in the old days smelled strongly and badly, clothes looked untidy close by, and it’s scary to think about underwear. In fact, of course, man has always - like any healthy animal - tried to take care of his cleanliness. It was just that it was much more difficult to maintain it before.

Ablutions

Far from always and not everywhere, people avoided ablutions even in the darkest, by modern standards, times. The dirtiest, except for the beggars, were the poor in those days when firewood was expensive and it was impossible to cut wood without permission. The collected deadwood was enough only for cooking. So in the winter the poor did not wash - they could not heat the water, but in the summer they calmly splashed in the rivers and streams.

Dirtier than the poor man in winter were only all sorts of ascetics who did not wash and did not change their clothes in order to earn their way to paradise with deprivation and torment - after all, life's torments atone for sins and replace good deeds. There were also some sluts who did not like water so much that they gladly took ascetic vows.

Although, of course, almost no one could wash as often as in our days until the twentieth century, nevertheless, ablution was common. Moreover, they were often part of a love game (which caused outrage among the priesthood). The famous beauty Diane de Poitiers surprised everyone by swimming every day - not by the fact itself, but by the fact that she did it in cold water.

I must say that at some point, doctors rebelled against bathing much more furiously than priests. Magnifying glasses of good power were invented and pores on human skin were opened. Doctors decided that washing out the fat from these holes makes them an open door for various infections and strictly recommended refraining from baths. Few followed these recommendations: a white body was in fashion, and after washing it looked much whiter than without it. But those who refused to take a bath rubbed themselves with lotions and colognes based on alcohol (which, by the way, was perfectly absorbed through the skin, so lovers of a healthy lifestyle were a little tipsy all the time).

Sweat smell

Although the smell of a freshly heated body seemed to many to be piquant and attractive (at least if the body is young and healthy), still no one liked the sweat. First of all, because the sweat corroded the fabric, and changing outfits was not as easy as it is now. In addition, it was not always possible to remove sweat before it "aged" on the skin and turns into a stench, so they looked for a way to reduce perspiration.

Among the means that were used at different times were attempts to wipe the armpits, the space under the female breast, feet with a solution of vinegar, lemon juice, boric acid and even formalin. As a result of the latter measure, the armpits lost the ability to sweat, and sweat appeared in large drops in the most unexpected places. In women, usually in the neckline. Men even liked it - beads of sweat on a woman's chest were compared to dew and pearls.

To protect clothes from sweat, even the richest ladies and gentlemen preferred thin linen, which absorbs moisture well, to silk underwear (at least, when there was no question about linen lice - silk saved them better from them). The shirts seemed to have soaked the skin all day. If the day was hot, then they tried to change them several times. In general, whether a person smelled strongly then depended, first of all, on how many changes of underwear he could afford. But over the centuries, the wealthy bourgeois and noblemen did not seem to fully understand how important a person's condition is for maintaining his purity, and many sincerely believed that peasants and other hard workers were naturally smelly. In the nineteenth century, manual workers were even singled out as a separate race!

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, another trick was used to protect clothes under the armpits from sweaty circles: special absorbent liners. They were sewn on before dressing and coupled to replace and wash.

One hundred and one ways not to drown in the mud

Until the second half of the twentieth century, it was impossible to wash clothes as often as now. To keep it more or less clean and fresh, they resorted to various tricks. We tried to ventilate every night. Individual spots were cleverly eliminated. It was necessary to iron the freshly washed - then the fabric seemed to become denser and did not so readily absorb dirt. They washed the edges of the cuffs and collars, and if the fashion allowed, then generally made them sewn on and easily stripped off, so that they could be changed more often and washed separately.

The shoes were regularly treated from the inside so that they did not retain the old foot odor. Dried tea or herbs like mint, lemon balm, sage were poured in asleep. They were wiped from the inside with alcohol, vinegar solution, potassium permanganate, hydrogen peroxide - depending on the era. And, of course, they ventilated and freezed them whenever possible.

The women had very long hair. Washing your hair was still a hassle, and then drying it by the fire was both difficult and dangerous, so this procedure was performed once a month, or even less often. Instead, they tried to protect their hair from dust and dirt with hats, fortunately, Christianity also set such a norm - to cover the head. In the evenings, they combed their hair, distributing fat from the roots to the full length, and "ventilated" them by shaking them.

Of course, there were also eras when women walked with dirty hair for a long time. For example, when the hairstyles of noble ladies were too complicated and expensive to be destroyed often, or when the church branded women “too busy with red hair” as potential harlots and possessed by pride. In addition, the fashion for styling with wax, special lipstick, grease or vegetable oil, which overtook people in different countries in different eras, did not contribute to keeping men's or women's hair clean. And yet you shouldn't imagine any beauty and any beauty of the past with greasy patches.

Until relatively recently - the early twentieth century - lice were a constant headache for humanity. In order to get rid of them at least partially, the hair and scalp were rubbed with various drugs, starting with a banal vinegar solution. The same drugs at the same time reduced the amount of sebum on the hair.

People were worried about the purity of breathing. Humanity has learned to clean its teeth since prehistoric times - using toothpicks, loose fibrous twigs, chewing gum, and so on. In addition, for fresh breath, they rinsed their mouths, chewed fragrant plants and citrus peels, and absorbed refreshing lozenges - depending on the era. The main issue with oral hygiene was how much time, effort and money a person had to take care of their teeth.

True, it was normal to have off-white teeth - darkened by tea, coffee, tobacco - until the second third of the twentieth century. Before that, teeth were only whitened when they wanted to look younger. For cleaning and bleaching, crushed charcoal, chalk and even crushed porcelain were used. They did remove plaque, but they seriously damaged the gums and over time erased the tooth enamel.

In general, in the struggle for purity, a person very rarely gave up, and our ancestors did everything that was possible with the means available to them, so as not to scare each other away either by sight or smell.

Read also: How socks changed, who was the first to wear sunglasses and other entertaining facts from the history of fashion.