Keeping it Clean - Georgian and Regency Bathing Customs

Joanna here, talking about Georgian and Regency bathtubs and the joys of getting clean. 
 
There is a general view that historical people were rather dirty, there being a dearth of historical folks getting up at six and grabbing a bar of soap and popping in to warble un bel dì vedremo in the shower.  I'm afraid we all feel rather smug about our acres of colored tile with the running hot and cold.

How clean were they?  The townsfolks as they merrily hung aristos from the lamposts, Ninon de l'Enclos, Voltaire, (Did you know Ninon left money in her will for the 9-year-old Voltaire to buy books?) Napoleon, Jane Austen, the kitchenmaid grinding coffee in the morning? How clean were they?

This is a case where the written historical record tends to desert us, somewhat, as folks do not record in their diary, "I got up and Mary-the-perky-maid brought me six liters of water and I washed my face, hands, underarms and, last off, various parts south of the waistband." any more than we text to our BFFs to say we've had a morning shower.

So we end up making some 'best guesses' about this whole business.

You had your everyday getting clean.  You had your getting wet for recreational purposes. And you had your washing the body to treat diseases.

This last one gets written about a lot in a 'I went to the baths to see if I could get rid of this nasty skin condition' or 'the physician prescribed a course of cold baths with sulfur powder in them and I feel much better now that I have stopped' sorta way.  Marat, you will recall, was in exactly such a medicinal bath when Charlotte Corday brought it, and him, to an abrupt end with a knife.

Medicinal Baths and Thermal Spas.  The mineral baths at Bath and other spa towns provided an immersion intended to improve the health, not so much wash the body, though it did that too.  Some places there were separate baths for men and women.  Some places, everybody bathed together.
They went into the water dressed. Wearing their periwigs and bonnets.  I should think the fumes did neither periwigs nor bonnets much good, frankly.

Up at four o’clock, being by appointment called up to the Cross Bath . . .  very fine ladies; and the manner pretty enough, only methinks it cannot be clean to go so many bodies together in the same water. Good conversation among them that are acquainted here, and stay together. Strange to see how hot the water is; and in some places, though this is the most temperate bath, the springs so hot as the feet not able to endure. . . . Carried away, wrapped in a sheet, and in a chair, home; and there one after another thus carried, I staying above two hours in the water, home to bed, sweating for an hour.
         Pepys' Diary

Let us leave the whole subject of medicinal baths very quickly, as it is generally unpleasant, even if you're not getting stabbed.

Though I should point out that folks still do this medicinal bath bit, in the way of putting baking soda in a bath for some poor sufferer from poison ivy, and modern herb baths hold anything from lavender to chamomile and thyme.  The 'it's good for you' bath is not going to disappear anytime soon.

Out in the Fresh Air.  The opposite of taking a bath because it was good for you was getting wet just for the fun of it.  Any warm day would probably see the local youths sporting in the local river.  There are a good many references to folks doing exactly this -- including a Paris ordinance forbidding nude bathing in the Seine, but only near the bridges -- to avoid the scandalizing the public.

Pepys, in his diary, notes the sad death of a young boy bathing in the Thames.
and at Somerset-stairs do understand that a boy is newly drowned, washing himself there, and they cannot find his body.

Or this Englishman travelling in America.
Early the next morning, my kind, attentive host entered into my bedroom and inquired if I should like to take a bath. I replied in the affirmative, and immediately rising, was conducted to one in an adjoining field which is filled by a small brook and is therefore always fresh.
          A summary view of America, Isaac Candler  1824


Period pictures are not an entirely reliable guide to actual practice.  Showing folks bathing in pools and rivers is a great excuse to paint nekkid people, after all.  But from an extensive personal survey,it looks like bathing -- where folks actually got wet all over as opposed to wading in the water -- tended to be young people and they were segregated into women and men.  

Bathing in the sea, for fun and medical benefit, became fashionable in the Eighteenth Century, with 'bathing machines' on offer from mid century. 

The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
Which it constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes-
A sentiment open to doubt.
          Lewis Carroll

Bathing machines were high-wheeled wagons, with a canvas or wood structure on top, towed from the shore into the sea. 

Image to yourself a small, snug, wooden chamber, fixed upon a wheel-carriage, having a door at each  end, and on each side a little window above, a bench below – The bather, ascending into this apartment by wooden steps, shuts himself in, and begins to undress, while the attendant yokes a horse to the end next the sea, and draws the carriage forwards, till the surface of the water is on a level with the floor of the dressing-room, then he  moves and fixes the horse to the other end – The person within being stripped, opens the door to the sea-ward, where he finds the guide ready, and plunges headlong into the water – After having bathed, he re-ascends into the apartment, by the steps which had been shifted for that purpose, and puts on his clothes at his leisure, while the carriage is drawn back again upon the dry land; so that he has nothing further to do, but to open the door, and come down as he went up.
                                   Tobias Smollett  1771

Men plunged into the waves starkers.  Small children, of course, went into the water naked, as they do in European countries today.  Women wore a long flannel shift, sometimes with lead weights sewn into the hem to keep the skirts from floating up.

In all this bathing, women took to one end of the beach and men the other, so modesty was maintained, in any case.  Hefty and agile attendants supervised so folks didn't drown, a real possibility when wrapped in several yards of soaking flannel, I should imagine.  

But how did people wash? I hear you asking.  How did they keep clean?

Public Baths.  In France, the custom of public bath houses, cheap, respectable and widely available, never died out.  This was an amazement and joy to travelling Englishmen and women who have left us detailed records of the process since this was something they did not have at home. 

Paris baths had private rooms with hot and cold running water, big tubs, fireplaces, nicely heated robes and towels, waitresses offering coffee and drinks, and a selection of bath oils and bath herbs.  There were also bathin g pools for both men and women and, in one bath on the Seine, swimming lessons for both.
I'm surprised English folks every went home again.

Meanwhile . . . at home. In England, in this period, folks did their actual getting clean by sponging off with a pitcher of water and a little basin on their dresser, or by immersing themselves in a tub not too different from a modern bath tub, or by standing in a smallish tub on the floor and washing with a pitcher of water.

The habit of washing the body and the introduction of wash basins and portable bath tubs began to spread among wealthy households in the late 18th century.
     The Family, Sex & Marriage in England 1500-1800  Laurence Stone

You had yer bath tubs.

I think and feel that, after a day's bard riding, there is no luxury comparable with a 'warm bath—it is so grateful and refreshing, and disputes the title of "tired nature's sweet restorer" with sleep
The Inspector, literary magazine and review, Volume 2

These were not necessarily in a 'bathroom'. 

The idea of having a room devoted to washing in a tub goes right back to the Seventeenth Century.  Pepys mentions such a bath in a private home.

Thence with Mr. Povy home to dinner; where extraordinary cheer. And after dinner up and down to see his house. . . .  his grotto and vault, with his bottles of wine, and a well therein to keep them cool; his furniture of all sorts; his bath at the top of his house, good pictures, and his manner of eating and drinking; do surpass all that ever I did see of one man in all my life.

But this would have been rare.  Rooms devoted to bathing were for palaces and the grandest mansions.

Moveable tub baths were more common.
What folks of middling means did when they wanted to take a bath was fire up the hearth in their bedroom, pull a screen round to close off the drafts, and send for a tub. 

And water.  They had 'running water' of a sort.  They sent a footman to run and get it.  It came up in biggish cans, generally one hot and one cold.  A housemaid might linger nearby and keep a kettle on the fire and add more hot water from time to time as the bath cooled.
This process was what you might call, labor intensive.  Water and bath hauling was done by footmen.

Warning:  Author anecdote time.  My father grew up in a house with exactly this kind of 'running water'.  His job was to go to the well and carry in all the water used for cooking, cleaning, bathing and washing for a household of ten people.  It will come as no surprise that he ran away to sea.

How common were these tub baths?

Every house of every nobleman or gentleman, in every nation under the sun, excepting Britain, possesses one of these genial friends to cleanliness and comfort (bath tubs).
           The Mirror of Graces (1811) 

So the British may have been well behind their continental counterparts in the matter of home bath tubs, just as they were in matter of public baths.

And when there was a tub in the house, it's worth noting that its use involved a whole production.  Boiling water, carting it upstairs, and then carting it down again after use.  I wonder how many of the ordinary gentry folk would have seen this as a daily necessity when you could get just as clean with . . .

Basin and Pitcher.  This was the standard wash equipment all through the period.  

Washing with a pitcher of water would be part of the morning routine, or undertaken again after a long day of work or play.  This was what you'd expect to find waiting for you in a decent inn.  This was the normal way folks got clean. 

Pitchers held about the largest amount of water one person could easily manage to pour.  Call it one to two gallons.  (Four to eight liters.)  You wet a towel or flannel and washed yourself, using the basin to catch the used water. Or you might pour the water in and splash it on yourself. 

The towels, by the way, weren't the fluffy terry cloth we think of today when we say towel.  That's mid-nineteenth century fabric.  Our Georgian and Regency folks used woven linen to dry off. 

The soap would most likely have been spherical, about the size to fit in the palm of the hand, because that's how it would have been form -- piece by piece between the palms of the hand.  Your character might have called this a 'wash ball'.  

It would be kept in a soap ball holder on the washstand. After the 1790's the soap might have been 'Pear's Soap', which was transparent and flower scented. And . . . There might be sponges. 

Your basin and pitcher might sit on a sideboard or a dresser, or you might have a fancy, purpose-built washstand in the corner.  It was typically a maid who brought the pitcher of hot water up to you. The amount of water was limited by the amount you could lift and pour yourself.  That meant a maid could easily carry it. 

How clean did you get, washing this way? 

I don't see any reason to believe you couldn't keep yourself just as clean as bathing in a tub.  Even today, this is 'how it's done' for most of the world's population. 

Whether our Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century folks felt the need to wash as often as we do today or righteously refrained from washing on the grounds that it 'opened the pores' and let sickness in . . . I don't think anybody will really know.

It's not a British reference, but:

Having completed it, [my work]  I went to the stream to wash myself thoroughly, and then to the sailor's chest to change my coat, that I might make a decent appearance at breakfast, and give my sons an example of that cleanliness which their mother was at all times eager to inculcate.
                   Swiss Family Robinson 1812

And Beau Brummel advocated frequent washing. 
On the other hand, he felt he had to advocate frequent washing.

Rub a dub dub.  A couple final questions remain in my mind.

Why the devil did women sometimes wear their shifts in the bathtub?  And what is with putting a sheet along the bottom of the tub?

I have cogitated upon this from time to time when I am not concerned with other great issues of the day like, 'Why does the car always break down when I have to be somewhere in twenty minutes?' and 'Why are taxes so complicated?' and 'Why would anyone name his kid Cedric? Isn't it obvious he's going to be a supporting character and come to a sticky end in a graveyard?'

I won't call this the final word on sheets in bathtubs . . . But this is what I think:
There is cloth on the bottom of the tub because these tubs were either (a) wood and full of splinters or (b) metal and cold.

  So why are women wearing a shift in the water?

I think bathing in a tub was seen not so much as washing to get clean, as it was an enjoyable interlude. 

Think of modern habit of spending an hour reading in the bathtub.  If it took a couple man-hours to prepare and clear out that tub, it seems to me you wouldn't put your household to that much trouble and then not take full advantage of it. 

Washing with a basin and pitcher was solitary, but tub bathing, by its nature, was a group effort.  It seems to have been something of a social occasion for some folks.

Marie Antoinette wrote:  I dictate from my bath, into which I have just thrown myself, to support, at least, my physical strength. I can say nothing of the state of my mind;"

If Marat had not been of the opinion that receiving visitors in the bathtub was an unexceptional practice he might have lived a while longer.

So maybe -- a shift was worn for modesty when the bedroom was apt to be crisscrossed by servants running errands and you planned to be in the tub a while? 

washstand from the Victoria and Albert. Ewer and basin, soap ball, and the Degas statue of Woman Washing Her Leg are from the Metropolitan Museum. 

 

What do you think?  Were they clean and sweet in Regency times, or deplorably . . . uncleanly. 
(Not Mr. Darcy.  Say it ain't so.)

Comments

[Isobel Carr]

It's my understanding that they had public baths in London as well (many were Indian, and advertised "shampoo" [massage] as well). They were a well-known haunt for prostitutes and from what I've read, once a week they had a lady's day.

[misskallie2000]

Pouring water over your head and calling that a bath doesn't work for me. Bathing calls for soap so as long as soap is used along with the water to bath I think they were fairly clean. With our showers today everyone wants a shower as it is faster but still you are clean. Baths in tubs take more time and so relaxing but you need soap not just hot bath water. lol
Dousing yourself with cologne or perfume is not a bath and the smell of body order mixed with the cologne or perfume is horrid. lol

misskallie2000

[Susan/DC]

IIRC (and it's been a very long time since I read it) one of the Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little" books describes the process by which the family took a weekly bath. It was extremely labor intensive to bring the water in from the well and heat it, and they bathed sequentially in the same water -- which meant it was not nearly as pleasant for the last person as it was for the first person. Her books are set in mid-19th C American, and as a child in the 20th C I found the whole process fascinating. There is much I love about the past, but I give thanks every day for modern plumbing.

[Sue McCormick]

I agree with you that the "sponge bath" (basin and ewer) keeps people clean enough. You wash, rinse, dry (use talcum powder) on one part of the body and then go on to the next. (Modern folk would use deodorant, but that is a modern way of getting money from people.) Then go on to the next part. Surely part of the ritual of all the upper and middle class people for everyday use. I'm afraid the water wasn't always warm, but that too is a modern invention. I am less sure of the poor, but they were clean if they could afford the time to be and had access to water. All the servants would have had this water available.
Just my impression (and a second-hand knowledge of the equipment in the last quarter of the 19th century in the American mid-west.

[Anne Gracie]

Fascinating post, Joanna. I've been in places where there wasn't a bath or shower, and I used soap and water and a washcloth and even after a week, I didn't pong. (I checked )

My thought about women bathing in their shifts was that it's a modesty thing. I know in some convent schools, even not so long ago, girl were required to bathe covered up so they wouldn't see their own nakedness.

Mind you, a wet shift is much like a wet t-shirt, though possibly not as see-through if it was good solid cotton or linen.

[LouisaCornell]

Fascinating and enlightening as always, Joanna.

I tend to think people in the Regency were as varied in their degrees of cleanliness as people are today. I work in the public and every day I am forced to deal with people who smell as if they have just stepped from a nice hot shower and other people who avoid any form of soap and water like a big-busted blond avoids common sense in a horror movie. And the entire line of Axe products is the bane of my existence as many young people seem to think a generous dose of these products precludes the need to shower on a daily basis.

Some people were probably more sensitive to smell in the Regency, more sensitive to their own bodies and probably bathed as often as they could. Others were probably immune to smells, their own most of all, and therefore didn't bother. And I have a feeling this had little to do with social status or financial level.

My theory is "One's scent should not enter a room fifteen minutes before they do, nor linger fifteen minutes after they leave!"

One can only hope Mr. Darcy felt the same way!

[joanna bourne]

Hi Isobel --

Leigh's New Picture of London, 1827, lists a dozen or so. And I think Pepys, in his various peregrinations, visits one.

There's also this, in re the Jewish ritual bath --

"With respect to the laws concerning purification, we understand that there are persons in London who get their livelihood by keeping the mikveh, --- or bath, in which the appointed ablutions are performed."

[joanna bourne]

Hi misskallie --

Y'know, one of the most interesting and puzzling bits of history for me is the way the Greeks and Romans slapped on olive oil and scraped it off with a strigil.

I mean -- it must have worked. I just have trouble imagining it.
Aside from smelling like a salad . . .

[joanna bourne]

Hi Susan --

We forget how incredibly labor intensive all the work of keeping things clean used to be.

I am SO glad I'm not washing clothes in a mangle or whatever and hauling water to scrub the floor. Leaving aside the likelihood I'd also be doing various chores with the hogs and chickens on the side.

[joanna bourne]

Hi Sue --

In terms of class differences in cleanliness . . .

The much later -- 1862 -- 'Waterbabies' by Charles Kingsley uses physical cleanliness to illustrate themes of redemption and renewal.

The Victorian class stereotype here is that the lower classes' were not only less clean, but that they didn't 'want' to be clean.

Thus:

****

Without a word, he [Grimes] got off his donkey, and clambered over the low road wall, and knelt down, and began dipping his ugly head into the spring — and very dirty he made it.

Tom was picking the flowers . . . But when he saw Grimes actually wash, he stopped, quite astonished; and when Grimes had finished, and began shaking his ears to dry them, he said:

“Why, master, I never saw you do that before.”

“Nor will again, most likely. ‘Twasn’t for cleanliness I did it, but for coolness. I’d be ashamed to want washing every week or so, like any smutty collier lad.”

“I wish I might go and dip my head in,” said poor little Tom. “It must be as good as putting it under the town-pump; and there is no beadle here to drive a chap away.”

“Thou come along,” said Grimes; “what dost want with washing thyself? Thou did not drink half a gallon of beer last night, like me.”
****

and later on:

****
The next thing he [Tom] saw, and that too puzzled him, was a washing-stand, with ewers and basins, and soap and brushes, and towels, and a large bath full of clean water — what a heap of things all for washing!

“She must be a very dirty lady,” thought Tom, “by my master’s rule, to want as much scrubbing as all that. But she must be very cunning to put the dirt out of the way so well afterwards, for I don’t see a speck about the room, not even on the very towels.”

And then, looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty lady, and held his breath with astonishment.

Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow-white pillow, lay the most beautiful little girl that Tom had ever seen. Her cheeks were almost as white as the pillow, and her hair was like threads of gold spread all about over the bed.

She might have been as old as Tom, or maybe a year or two older; but Tom did not think of that. He thought only of her delicate skin and golden hair, and wondered whether she was a real live person, or one of the wax dolls he had seen in the shops. But when he saw her breathe, he made up his mind that she was alive, and stood staring at her, as if she had been an angel out of heaven.

No. She cannot be dirty. She never could have been dirty, thought Tom to himself. And then he thought, “And are all people like that when they are washed?” And he looked at his own wrist, and tried to rub the soot off, and wondered whether it ever would come off. “Certainly I should look much prettier then, if I grew at all like her.”

And looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close to him, a little ugly, black, ragged figure, with bleared eyes and grinning white teeth. He turned on it angrily. What did such a little black ape want in that sweet young lady’s room? And behold, it was himself, reflected in a great mirror, the like of which Tom had never seen before.

And Tom, for the first time in his life, found out that he was dirty; and burst into tears with shame and anger;
*******

[joanna bourne]

Hi Anne --

Moving into the Victorians -- I'd say yes. Modesty and prudery.

In the Georgian period and right into the Regency . . . my impression is they were a pretty forthright and earthy bunch.

The whole question of when public perceptions of modesty and shame changed is coolly interesting.

Go back to C17 and you got nude mixed bathing in respectable public baths all across Europe. C19, folks blushed when an ankle showed. Go figger.

[joanna bourne]

Hi Louisa --

I am convinced beyond argument that Mr. Darcy had his own bathing chamber at Pemberley and repaired there every evening with a good book and a snifter of brandy.

(Did they have brandy snifters in 1800? I must look that up.)

[Ashlyn Macnamara]

Mr Darcy was clean. He had that convenient lake to jump into at Pemberley whenever he wanted to. I refuse to consider any other possibility.

[joanna bourne]

Hi Ashlyn --

Durned straight. Lake. Lake. Lake.

Swim, Mr. Darcy, swim.
(And you don't need that shirt on btw. It's not even historical.)

I have swum in lakes in Maine. One curious fact --
the water is warm for the top two feet where the sun hits it. Then, under that, it gets noticeably colder.

I don't know whether this is true in the UK or not.

[Peggyo]

Bathing in a shift would also save on laundry?

[Linda Banche]

From what I understand, from the 14th until the early 19th century people were afraid to immerse themselves in water because disease entered the body through water-softened skin, an idea that took root during the Black Death.

A good and funny book on the history of bathing in the western world from Roman times is THE DIRT ON CLEAN, AN UNSANITIZED HISTORY by Katherine Ashenburg.

For a short blog post on the subject, here's one I wrote--

http://historicalhussies.blogspot.com/2010/05/regency-hygiene-or-lack-thereof-part-i.html

And Mr. Darcy didn't need to bathe--he was born clean, just as he was born rich, handsome, kind, generous and whatever other superlative you'd like to add. *g*

[joanna bourne]

Hi Peggyo --

Oh, giggle. I was trying to imagine how you would 'wash' this way. it really doesn't seem practical.

I have a cotton nightgown and I am going to experiment.

[joanna bourne]

Hi Linda --

I have found references to exactly this 'watch out for your pores' bit all through the C18.

Fr'instance -- here a man gives direction on how to undertake this chancy business of immersing yourself in water:

****
Now, reader, we will tell you how to take a bath. . . . Tranquility of mind is all important in rendering the warm bath beneficial. Walk leisurely to the house of ablution, and disrobe yourself with moderate haste. You may have the water hot enough to parboil you if you choose; that is left to yourosvn taste. In with you; and' to beguile the time, read a newspaper or smoke a cigar. In about half an hour the water will cool to nearly the temperature of the air, and you will have gone gradually and safely through half a dozen climates. You will have left the torrid for the temperate zone. Then let in the cold water, very slowly, almost drop by drop; and in the course of twenty minutes you will find yourself in a cold bath. Your pores will have closed gradually and moderately, your sensations will be exquisite during the process, and you will feel strength and elasticity in every limb. You emerge from the cold water into the warm air, dry your body thoroughly with a coarse towel, and feel like a new man. It is an impossibility for you to take cold: if you do, you are at liberty to come and box our ears for giving you bad advice.

*********

Makes the whole business sound downright dangerous, doesn't it?

Now I do think the middling and upper classes were reasonably clean in C18 . . . because I don't think cleaning the body depended on climbing into a bathtub or shower. I think they did a fairly good daily job of washing in those pitchers and basins and so on.

If I were pointing at the great change in personal cleanliness, I'd move beyond the whole plumbing and baths business and look at the rise of cheap cotton cloth. And that was happening in our Regency period.

What an increase in comfort that must have been for the average person, being able to afford an extra change or two of underclothes.

[Patricia Rice]

Love your quotations and images, Joanna!

Isn't it amazing how England managed to lose all those lovely Roman habits of bathing and forget about plumbing? Obviously, bathing wasn't of great importance in a cool climate.

And I think that's probably clue to the changes in bathing habits over time. At first, there was no social or cultural pressure to bathe, so one did what one felt like. Women with servants and not enough to fill their time might decide to bathe in scented waters. (or look longingly at the hot wash water on a cold day) They might eventually insist their husbands and/or children do the same. But it would take centuries before this practice became common and worked its way down to a class with neither leisure, servants, or need to smell pretty. Human nature is always fascinating!

[Kat]

I like to think my historical H/h always were clean and smelled only of horse, leather and lavender when appropriate. Ii ignorance is bliss tis a folly… and I prefer my Mr. Darcy WET!

[joanna bourne]

Hi Pat --

Terrible to think that washing isn't something inborn. We're more like dogs and monkeys, in this way, than cats.

Sad fact.

[joanna bourne]

Hi kat --

That's the nice thing about reading Historical Romance instead of Historical Fiction. Romance doesn't have to be quite so strictly realistic. *g*

[theo]

My father was born in Ishpeming, MI which is in the upper peninsula, in 1907. They had running water. He too was the 'runner'. Every morning, he would run to the stream and bring a bucket of water for each ewer. My very, very British grandmother insisted her children sponge bathe to start the day, as did she. My poor grandfather was forced to do the same at the end of the day with the same water, but I suppose since he was washing the coal off himself before she'd let him in the door, used water sufficed. ;o)

I too sponge bathed for years off and on when our well ran dry for a couple days. I still do when we're out of power (thank heaven for gas ranges!) and I'm just as clean when I'm done as I would be had I showered. (I must admit though, there was never any talc involved when my mother and dad washed. Just wash, dry, wash, dry and leave the unmentionables for last. Rather like a hospital bath.)

We're a spoiled, pampered lot these days with our running hot and cold and our multi-shower heads and our four person jacuzzis. And frankly, I wouldn't change it at all! I love a good soak.

But a sponge bath in a pinch does nicely, thank you.

[joanna bourne]

Hi Theo --

Oh my, yes. There is nothing I like better than a good tub bath. I'm very grateful to live in times that make this possible.

I do not see the lack of running water and a tub as necessarily saying people do not keep clean.

Now . . . I think it very likely the C18 had lower standards of what constituted 'clean' and some very odd notions of not washing the protective films off the natural surface of the body . . .

[Christine]

One thing I think about ever since watching "The 1900 House" on PBS (where an English family spent a certain amount of time in a 1900 era house wearing only period clothes and eating and using only what would have been available at the time- and seasonally- then) is how much everything is "perfumed" nowadays. The family really came to notice how strong all the scents nowadays are and how heavily perfumed everything from cleansers to personal grooming items are. I prefer scent free laundry detergent and really notice when someone uses a strong scented one or fabric softener. With only natural perfumes then (no artificial scents I am assuming) the 19th century person who could afford good milled soap and regular bathing probably smelled quite nice. At least until the lack of deodorant became apparant in the hot months.

[joanna bourne]

Hi Christine --

This is so true. The artificial scent in everything is very noticeable if, like me, you buy the unscented version.

There would have pungent smells outside -- horse droppings, outhouses, pigs, the rivers which were not precisely pristine as C18 moved into C19, coal smoke.

BUT, the place wouldn't have smelled like gasoline fumes, which just about everywhere currently does.

I find the whole, 'I want to smell like flowers', thing somewhat odd. (Can you imagine a cat or dog saying -- I want to smell like flowers? When I wash the dog with scented shampoo, it very definitely does NOT want to smell like . . . raspberries.)

But I think the urge to scent oneself is wide-spread across cultures. I don't it's wanting to cover up the faint natural body smell or the stink of sweat and non-bathing. If anything, perfume is part of the washing ritual and used at the moment the body is cleanest.

Scenting, if I were going to guess, falls under the universal human urge to decorate oneself.

[Artemisia]

I live with a very old bathtub that is very uncomfortable to sit in and I have never been able to keep the water warm enough to soak. Believe me, I was tempted to put a sheet in it! I gave up on tub baths and now only shower, and usually put an old washcloth on the bottom to avoid slipping. As for bathing in the shift, it was to preserve modesty, but they still had to get it off soaking wet.

[joanna bourne]

Yeah. Those old cast iron tubs are just the devil to warm up. My parents had one. And yes -- they are hard and cold.

I never thought of putting a sheet in one.

Sometimes the C18 folks talk of getting out of the bath, wrapping up in a blanket or sheet, and lying down on the bed to get over the shock of all this bathing.