The Disappointment of Regency Towels

Joanna here, talking about one of my historical disappointments.

As you're climbing out of the bathtub or stepping out of a shower, how often have you asked yourself – "What did my Regency heroine used to dry her lithe and adventurous body at a similar moment?"

It was not a length of fluffy cotton like I have here. No. Nothing like this here in my hand.

The English and French gentry did a reasonably good job of major bathing, considering they were probably plunging into lukewarm water that had been carted up from the stove in the basement kitchen to their second-floor bedroom. But no Countess or Ladyship dried off with a towel one tenth as lovely and soft as mine.

The mundane washing of hands and face in a basin was practiced all up and down the social scale first thing in the morning and before and after a meal. But that didn’t call forth the soft and fuzzy either.

Even the masters of the bath in that era — the Turks — didn’t fare as well as I do.

There's a bath towel ready over the edge of the tub

Here she is tucked up in her hammam towel

The Turks knew bathing luxury. Not for them the English noble’s portable tub in the bedroom or the common man’s rapid splash in front of the kitchen fire. For them the hammam, a communal bath house of gleaming tile and heated pools. And for them the pleasure of rising from the water to be enfolded in the latest technology of towels.

The Children's Bath 1495, with towel and very patient woman

The Turkish bath towel of the period was huge — three by five feet — big enough to surround the whole body in such bath towel luxury as was available. It would have been made of linen or cotton. In the Eighteenth Century in both the Ottoman Empire and across Europe, cotton was displacing linen as the affordable luxury fabric of choice, so if we want, we can grant our characters towels of the softest, silkiest cotton.

But the towels were flat woven. Smooth cloth. No loops sucking up the excess water. No fluffiness. Even the best of Turkish bath towels of 1810 would be the texture of the tea towels you may have hanging in the kitchen

No soft, thick terrycloth for my Regency heroine.
Quel disappointment.

The towels were maybe plain white in the English bedroom. Time out of mind the Turks had decorated their bath towels with splendid embroidered designs. 

Wiping his hands on a white towel

The British, on the other hand, seem to have kept embroidery for bed linens and chair cushions. British hand towels were sometimes embroidered, but the larger bath towels seem to have been plain.

You’re asking yourself, "Why didn’t the English have lovely fluffy towels? What were they thinking?"
It’s the terrycloth technology problem.

Bath towels before terrycloth

Bath towels after terrycloth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Terrycloth has loops that stand up from the surface of the weave. This requires special loom techniques. (They're called Dobby looms, which strikes me as appropriate somehow.) The word terrycloth may be derived from French terre, meaning high, from the elevation of the loop above the warp and weft.

The Turks started making this looped terrycloth on hand looms sometime in the Eighteenth Century. Henry Christy observed this on a visit there in 1833 and brought the technology back to Europe. Terrycloth of silk was made in France in 1841 and the first cotton terrycloth in England soon followed. It went into mass production in 1850 and soon became cheap enough to revolutionize the comfort of washing.

Queen Victoria approved. As do I.

What do you like best about the bath? Is it towels, like me? (Mine are primary RED.) Or those bath salts that foam up? Or just very hot water.

Or are you more of a shower person?

A book of your choice from me goes to some lucky commenter.

Comments

[Kareni]

I definitely favor the shower ... ahhh, a nice hot lengthy shower with, yes, a plush towel for the finish.

Thanks for the history lesson, Joanna!

[Larisa]

Long hot steamy shower with fluffy white towel is daily staple. The tub is for enjoyment or soaking aches away. The idea of finishing a Turkish bath with thin towel is disappointing...even if a glorious big size.
Fabulous history lesson! Thank you!

[Ute]

Fluffy red towels are superb but...the best towels we have in Australia are soft Turkish towels woven in some magic way which means they dry quickly, especially in winter. No more damp cold towels in winter, after that delicious warm bath. Towels have come full circle.

[Jenny Wilcox]

I have two sets of towel, hand washer, two hand towels and a bathmat. One is pale green and the other burgundy. Love my big fluffy towel! :) Unfortunately I don't have a bath, just a shower, as the room is way too small to have a tub. Some days (during Winter), I would love to have a leisurely soak in bubbles, with a good book and a glass of wine. Oh, the bliss!!!

[Mel]

I agree, I love my Turkish towels. They get softer with time, don’t shed fluff, dry fast, take up less space and can double as a sarong or a light shawl etc for traveling.

[Mary T]

I don't actually have a preference of tub or shower. To me, bathing has always just been a means of cleaning my body. What I like most is how I feel after I have bathed - fresh as a daisy. I have tried reading in the tub. And well, lets just say...it didn't end well (smile). However, I do remember as a child back in the 50s, sitting in a tub full of cold water just to cool off because we didn't have air conditioning.

[Lora Lynn]

A hot bath with my favorite bath bomb: Her Royal Highness. It has gold dust in it and smells like my imaginary kingdom should.

[Karin]

I love the "idea" of soaking in a bubble bath, but in reality I rarely do it. Perhaps if I had a servant to clean the tub afterwards.....
As for towels, the ultimate luxury is one of those heated towel rods.

[Anne]

Showers for me also. The best part of the bath is a nice WARM bathroom. Water temperature is held to just above tepid, because of my dry skin [hot water removes natural skin oils needed to moisturize], so warm room and barely warm water.

[Faith Freewoman]

Oh, the horror of plain, flat, thin towels. And cold bathrooms! And lukewarm or chilly bath or shower water!!!

I had good, shivery fun with this one, Joanna, while I'm warm and cozy as it's snowing and blowing outside my window.

Cheers, Faith

[StephanieL]

I dislike baths with a purple passion. LOL Even as a child I hated them. Now, very hot showers...sign a sister up. I know I know, hot water is not optimum for skin...but I'm not giving them up. :-) I love big fluffy bath sheets that I can wrap around me when I'm done. I would have missed that part. Although wrapping myself in a 3x5 Turkish towel would have been okay, though I would have hated the dripping part because of the reduced absorption. LOL Great post and food for thought!

[Barbara Monajem (@BarbaraMonajem)]

I love a hot bath and a book. I don't fill it full, though -- just enough to stay warm, with a towel (the modern, fluffy kind, not too big, and although red is my favorite color in general, I like the variety of many colored towels) wrapped around my top half. I just drizzle a bit more hot water as needed...

I'm not saying I don't like showers. They're much better for washing hair, etc. But I will postpone a shower until I absolutely *have* to have one, whereas I sit in the bath for at least a few minutes almost every night.

[Margaret]

Ever since my first child was born back in the last century, bathing has been something to be gotten through quickly as there's always something needing to be done. But I agree with Anne's earlier comment, a warm bathroom is essential! And I am ever so grateful to have a thick, absorbent towel to use when I jump out of the shower. As with so many details concerning the Regency period, sometimes it's better not to think about the truths behind the illusions. But thanks for enlightening us, Joanna!

[Barbara Monajem (@BarbaraMonajem)]

Actually, I do ask myself that question about my heroine. Or hero. In the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice, the valet puts a bathrobe/banyan/dressing gown/whatever around Darcy as he steps out of the bath. Is this because this was usual? Or because they wanted to be historically accurate, but a Regency-era towel would look more like a tablecloth, whereas a robe of some sort was at least reasonable...sort of??

[Kathy K]

I'm a fan of showers. Very rarely, if I have some backache,do I soak in a tub. But the towels are essential! I get the "bath sheet" which is a plus size towel large enough to wrap around a corpulent middle. The regular size bath towel doesn't quite stay tucked these days. I like the towels made of microfiber because they dry quickly, though the terrycloth is softer.

[Joanne Bourne]

Hi Kareni --

They didn't so much have Regency showers, it being difficult to do this where there was about no pumped and pressurized water. There are the odd theoretical possibilities pictured which I suspect never worked very well.

You do see helpful sisters or friends or lady's maids pouring buckets of water over the head of somebody washing her hair.

Yep. If I wandered back into the Regency by accident, I'd miss showers.

[Joanne Bourne]

Hi Larisa --

I feel the same way about the thin towel.

I can just hear the excited cries breaking out all over 1850 London. "Did you hear what they've come up with?!"

[Joanne Bourne]

Hi Ute --

That's interesting. Do they have a fuzzy nap but not loops? Sorta like felt?

And I think the quality of the cotton is key.

[Joanne Bourne]

Hi Mel --

When I was researching I came across references to these, but was not quite sure what they meant.

It might have to do with the humidity in the air. Thin, not-so-fluffy towels might dry instantly in a desert climate and feel just grand on the skin.

[Joanne Bourne]

I have only the Big bath towels and a little bitty dainty hand towel that I mostly use for drying off the toothbrush before I stick it upright in the cup.

So. Both of them towels useful but very different uses.

One of my major goals on this misty mountaintop of mine is to keep the place as dehumidified as I can.

[Joanne Bourne]

Oh. So right. I remember cool baths in the summertime in the days before air conditioning. Baths with things like mint leaves and baking soda.

A lot of those baths were outside in the front yard in a big ... I mean a BIG ... iron pot that my mother picked up surplus after WWII. The Cannibal Pot we called it and it could hold all three of us youngest ones with a little crowding.

[Joanne Bourne]

I could never use any of the bath salts or bubble baths. My skin is too sensitive and I'd get rashes. I always envied those who could.

Royal Highness sounds perfectly lovely. Just the name alone.

[Joanne Bourne]

That's what I need. Heated towel rods.

When I was young we lived in a house with hot water radiators. We'd throw our towels over the radiator and when we were ready to get out it was all toasty warm. Heavenly.

Why can the not run the hot water pipes along the wall and into a bathroom and give us towel rods that heat?

[Joanne Bourne]

Hi Anne --

My heart goes out to you with those tepid showers. I like showers and baths just as hot as I can stand them. I mean, I want to turn pink.

But then, I'm not plagued by dry skin. Except my hands and that's because I use them for hard work and they take their revenge upon me.

I use the hot bath to warm up the bathroom which has sometimes been shivery cold. Not one of my favorite experiences.

[Joanne Bourne]

It's getting to be the time of year where folks are facing snow and ice and sometimes cold inside the houses too.

Stay warm, folks.

[Joanne Bourne]

There are passionate shower enthusiasts. I think of the vast sweet of human history and all the millions and billions who would have enjoyed showers ...
who never had one or heard of one.

It's like chocolate. All those generations without chocolate.

[Joanne Bourne]

I have this picture of me sitting in a tub and reading a book. Oddly, though, I mostly don't.

I'll pick up a book and read a page or two and then put it aside on the floor mat and lean back and think.

I do a lot of thinking and plotting and book imagining in the bath. The water gets cold around me and there I am trying to plot my way around some stupid corner I've thought myself into ...

[Joanne Bourne]

The Regency bathing thing wasn't actually all that bad.

There have been times in my life when I washed with a Bucket of water (two for shampooing hair) and a basin. You get just as clean.

The main difference is, you're likely to get cold. That kind of bath in the summer or that kind of bath in a warm, draft-free nook by the fire is not precisely luxury ... but it's not horrible.

Now, you hear stories of folks who got up and had to break a layer of ice on their water pitcher before they could pour it out and wash. Brrrr. No thank you.

[Joanne Bourne]

They sure 'nuff did have a variety of bed robes and banyans.

It researching this I had a hard time finding paintings of bathtowels in the vicinity of actual bathtubs. Towels are not, apparently, sexy ... which most pictures of folks in bathtubs are.

Sometimes one get the feeling period folks got out of the tub and directly into their shift or shirt. That sounds clammy.

But moving from bathtub into a cotton or linen robe might make sense if the room was cold. You'd have your arms covered, for instance, and no drafty bits.

I do remember, as a child, all of us climbing out of the swimming pool and my mother wrapping us in robes as we headed for the car, rather than drying us with towels.

[Joanne Bourne]

Hi Kathy -

I think my towels are bath sheet size, though I wouldn't swear to it. When I get out of the tub I change into clothing pretty fast.

I have not yet made my peace with microfiber. I sort of poke at it suspiciously in the store and then go bak to my safe, familiar pure cotton.

(jo, Luddite)

[Celia Lewis]

Lovely huge cotton bath sheet [outsized one], warm showers taken as quickly as possible because I have (a) sensitive skin, and (b) eczema - both mean it's necessary to keep my skin moisturized and away from soaps. I used to love long baths, with head and arms/hands totally out of the water... but these days, a fast shower does the trick. I had heard that linen was more absorbant than plain [non-terry] cotton, but maybe not-? Cheers. Isn't it fun to do research!

[LindaB]

I'm a shower person. When I was a kid, all we had was a bathtub. Now I have both a bathtub with a shower head and a shower stall, and I use the shower stall. I haven't taken a bath in years.

As for towels, my favorite color is hot pink. Lately, I've branched out. I now have orange towels, red, purple, yellow, and black towels, and ones with patterns, mostly of flowers and birds. Right now, I'm using my brand new towels embroidered with a Christmas tree for the season.

All my towels are cotton. The only linen I ever had was a set of sheets, and I hated them. Although I washed them in cold water as directed, they shrank, and they never softened up. Always felt scratchy to me. I feel for those Regency people and their linen towels. :)

[Amy J]

Ahh, heated towel racks - the most delightful little discovery of my first trip to London. Have yet to find a way to work them into my home though.

[Cat Kimbriel]

We knew about linen tea towels and sheets, but we forgot what that could mean about towels. (The advantage of writing about an alternative fantasy Regency is bringing Turkish towels in a few decades earlier.) Thank you for reminding us once again how lucky we are!

[Molly R. Moody]

I'm a shower person as I remember my mother asking me once if I enjoyed sitting on a tub full of dirty water. When I looked down at my water bath I realized how nasty it looked, immediately drained the tub, and then took a shower. I couldn't take a bath now no matter how bad I might want one because my arthritis makes it almost impossible to get up and out of the tub.

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

Elizabeth Grant's "Memoirs of a Highland Lady" mentions the shower-bath. (page 30)

It had a string to release the water, do I assume it was unplumbed, and filled like a camping shower.

[Melissa T.]

Hot, steamy shower followed by fluffy Egyptian cotton towels! Steel gray color (my favorite neutral) because I'm too lazy to bleach the pretty white ones. Recently had our bathroom remodeled to include a Victorian clawfoot tub, but I'm still partial to a long shower!

[Patricia Franzino]

Showers are quicker and easier than having to keep the tub clean every day for a bath.

Terrycloth feels lovely wrapping myself in it before I step out of the shower. There isn't much heat in my bathroom, but the building is so old, there is a pipe in the corner with some degree of heat.

I dry myself as quickly as possible to dress warmly before exiting the bathroom in the 27 degrees here in NYC. There is not a lot of heat in the studio apartment in which I live.

I'm going to be on the lookout for Turkish or Egyptian towels. They both sound wonderful.

[Denise Metcalf]

I prefer hot showers and have a large variety of scented shower gels and toiletries that I enjoy. Not much for baths but when I do I like bath bombs or bubble bath with a long soak. Love my oversized black towels to wrap up in afterward.

[Sue McCormick]

Old-lady showers* three days a week (if I'm well enough) and sponge baths the rest fo the time. Because of arthritis I can't soak in a tub andy longer.

*Old-lady shower: shit on a stool, use a hand-held shower spray. Use grab-bars to get into and out of the tub. In order to keep warm, put the stopper on for the tub, so that part of you stays in warm water. Stand up as little as possible.

When washed (and shampooed on certain days), rinse off completely, and use grab bars to haul yourself out of the tub.

The towels are modern terry cloth. And I am SO glad I live in "terry-cloth times."!

[Kareni]

Sue, you made a rather amusing typo above. Thanks for the chuckle!

I too am glad to live in "terry-cloth times"!

[Joanne Bourne]

I cannot tell you how much I love grab bars. I would have grab bars on every possible surface around the tub .. maybe ceilings too .. if I could get away with it.

And it's not just for Old Ladies. Sooo many times I'd be slip sliding around on a wet floor with a squirmy, soapy kid in my arms ...

[Joanne Bourne]

There is something so sophisticated about black towels.

I might even have them right now except my bathroom is grey walls and grey flagstone floor and I might feel a wee bit as if I were doing time in a dungeon if I had black towels.

[Joanne Bourne]

I hear you folks are really cold in NYC, though -- to be honest -- we're 27 degrees here in my mountains, too.

The difference is, I EXPECT it here. I'm up in the part of the mountain where folks look up and say, "Oh, the mountain tops have snow on them. How beautiful.

My kid lives in NYC and has one of those apartments where they get ALL the heat and the folks a couple floors up are shivering. She's bought insulated pipe wrapping to send that heat upstairs.

[Joanne Bourne]

Ooooh. Clawfoot tub.

My sister had one of those and it looked perfectly delightful.

Though, really, the thought of having operational feet on a bathtub is a little disconcerting. What if it took a notion in its head to go walking about?

I remember she had to dust under the tub with a long duster. The world is truly a wonderful place.

[Joanne Bourne]

Looking at comments it appears showers are beating out bathtubs in popularity by two-to-one, if not more.

I wonder if it's that we don't have tons of time any more.

I do think the height of my own bathtubbing was when I had toddlers. I could grab a book and go read it without anybody interrupting.

All it took was a "Honey, could you see what all that screaming is about? I'm in the tub?"

[Joanne Bourne]

It's the little things that make a difference.

I like ice in my drinks, for instance. I love how it slowly dilutes the juice or the coke as it melts. Every sip is a little different. I like the cold inside me.

Ice in a drink is a small thing. Not like air conditioning, which is kinda essential to life.

I will have air conditioning next summer for the first time in six years and I am so delighted.

[Joanne Bourne]

Surely somebody sells such things.

Hospital emergency rooms have, or used to have, a cabinet with heated blankets in it. If somebody came in sick and shivering they'd send the orderly off to bring heated blankets.

They heat plates.

How can they not have a gadget for heating towels? It seems ... cruel.

[Joanne Bourne]

I don't know much about linen sheets. If I have lain between them, I've forgotten about it.

There are people who talk about the lovely experience so either they have very tough hide or linen does eventually become all silky smooth.

I should go check linen out, just from the curiosity standpoint or for research or something.

I love expensive pure cotton sheets. Always simple white. That's my idea of a great bed ... though as a Romance writer I would have to concede the company is more important.

[Joanne Bourne]

In my wanderings about the web I came across folks who preferred soft, flat-woven linen towels to terrycloth.

Some of it apparently has to do with how fast they dried. Linen towels do not hang about the bathroom damp and cold
or something.

But, me, I do not commonly spend much time in the bathroom surrounded by damp towels so I don't know how quickly mine dry.
Or don't dry.
Once a towel has done its job and parted company with my body I hang it up and we do not renew our acquaintance till the next day.

I don't walk around wrapped in my bath towel about at all. I have a lovely big hotel-type cotton robe for that. Or I get dressed. Or, if I'm alone, I just stroll about starkers.

Hmmm ... I think that is tmi.
But the dog and cat are totally non-judgemental about this.

[Judith Ashley]

Growing up we had a smaller linen towel to wrap around our hair and a regular bath towel to dry off with. I still have some hand-woven linen towels that have designs in the weave - made in the early 1900's so nowhere near Regency. Interesting post, Joanne.

[Jenny]

I *love* my heated towel rails, they're pretty standard on this side of the pond - I'm in the throes of redesigning bathrooms and can't imagine not having them.

I love a long soak in a hot bath, with secnted oils, candles, a good book and hopefully a glass of wine. There's nothing quite like getting out of the bath/shower and wrapping yourself in a warm, and ideally fluffy, towel - or two, because I need one for my hair as well.

I do have a couple of Turkish Peshtemal towels, but mainly use them as sarongs or for the beach.

[Jenny]

Someone does, but blimey - they're expensive! http://usa.hudsonreed.com/heating/hydronic-towel-warmers/hydronic-towel-warmers-the-full-collection.html

You can pick one up for about £50 in the UK.

[Joanne Bourne]

I think the British towels of the Regency had designs in the weave also. There are some examples on the V&A site.

Interesting to think this tradition continued for a century or more.

The whole linen weaving thing is fascinating.

We have a historical site nearby with re-enacting docents. Different historical buildings were picked up and brought there. There's an Irish cottage with a linen loom.

It's harder than it looks. Getting that smooth even cloth and then embellishing it with a woven pattern would have taken great craft.

[Joanne Bourne]

I haven't really investigated Regency showers.

I think installed showers did exist in 1800, but there were only a few of them. The illustrations I see seemed to be part of spas or bath houses by the sea. They were a way for the modest to get the health advantages of plunging in "the waters" without appearing in public.

The pictures I've seen had a high tank that was filled by buckets hauled from elsewhere.

Elizabeth Grant's Memoir was from 1898 and presumably benefited by engineering advancement. I'm guessing there was a pump involved in this and water going into a cistern in the attic someplace.

In my own system, water from the well is pumped into a ground cistern and from there into a small pressurized tank inside. That one has an alarming pressure gauge on it with a red part and I leave the thing entirely alone.

I don't know when the technology for doing that became available to the ordinary householder.

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

The memoir was published in 1898, but Elizabeth Grant was born in 1797 and was writing about her childhood.

[Joanne Bourne]

Ah, excellent. How interesting.
Then I do wonder about the showers she was taking 1810-ish. Could they have been cold showers?

I haven't done much research on water supply in English or Scottish country houses because I don't think I've ever had a character visit one.

The impression I get from very cursory research, though, is that showers in the Regency were drawn from a filled cistern above. And it was not a heated cistern.

One typical historical report goes

... innovations made piped cold water available throughout the house, but it was only in the second half of the nineteenth century that heat exchangers or calorifiers were developed to allow hot water to be distributed as well.

(Nineteenth-century technical innovations in British country houses and their estate

https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/archaeology/research/centre-for-historical-archaeology/research-1/country-house-technology/cht-documents/ICE%20final%20offprint.pdf )

I feel rather sorry for a -- let's say, ten-year-old -- standing in a tiled shower room in an English or Scottish November under a cold shower.

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

I think this shower had a container at the top that was filled by the footmen or maids with hot water before each use, because there was surprise that it had any water in it.

You would not be surprised if water came out of a pipe.

[Regina]

I find it quite funny, that after several years of collecting your books and not reading them (TBR MOUNTAIN IS REALLY HIGH), I am mostly through The Spymaster’s Lady. I happen to be at the bathtub scene and I decided to look and see if you had a website.

Of course, you do and I read a post about towels. I found it quite amusing since our hero is currently in a bathtub with his lady. (At least here he is!)

In any case, the best part of the bath (more like the shower) is washing my hair. It is entirely frustrating when it is dirty, and I thank the heavens for good smelling soap just for hair!

[Joanne Bourne]

I am so much in favor of lovely scents in the hair. Rosemary soaking in the final rinse.

Or combing the hair out with one of those wooden combs folks used thousands of years back. When they weren't made of naturally scented wood, I see combs as maybe being stored away with sweet herbs between uses.

http://thehistoryofthehairsworld.com/100dc_peine_qumran2_madera_israel.jpg