Keeping clean in Ancient Greece
In ancient Greece, people cleaned themselves by rubbing a mixture of oil and sand into their skin before scraping it off with a strigil - a long, slightly curved, blunt 'blade' of bronze, copper or bone. Expensive strigils made from gold or silver were sometimes given as gifts. The practice of using a strigil is known as 'strigilating'. The philosopher Socrates was infamous for using the discarded scrapings of sand and oil outside gymnasiums to clean himself.
Ancient Egyptian Hygiene
Egyptians bathed in water before anointing themselves with oils or fats. Lotions and creams existed, usually manufactured from wax or fat. Wealthy people anointed themselves with perfumes. Perfumes were costly and were usually derived from plants like henna, cinnamon, iris, lilies, roses, and turpentine.
Malachite (copper ore) was ground into powder and mixed with other ingredients to produce the green eye make-up so commonly depicted in Egyptian art. Wearing eye make-up served several functions: it had aesthetic value, and also served to protect the eyes from both glare and eye diseases like opthalmia, which is still common in Egypt today.
Many Egyptians shaved their heads and shaved or plucked body hair. Wigs were fashioned from human hair and were popular because lice will not breed in dead hair.
Ancient Egyptian's often wore little cones of mixed fat and beeswax on their heads. Exposed to the fierce african sun, these gradually melted, the mixture trickling down over the head, shoulders and body. Beeswax is one of the finest natural ingredients for nourishing the skin - a beeswax salve provides instant relief for sunburn and can even prevent the skin from peeling.
The Baths of Ancient Rome
The romans elevated bathing to a national pastime. Wealthy romans spent much of their day at the public baths. These were usually housed in large buildings, with different rooms and pools for different purposes.
Bathing was a lengthy affair, and might involve sweating in a sauna, lounging in a pool of heated water, and finishing with a dip in cold water. Like the greeks, romans also made use of the strigil.
Bathhouses had their own masseurs and barbers. Shaving was a tricky affair: ancient razors were massive, semi-circular blades of bronze or iron, and extremely blunt by modern standards. Shaving involved much oiling and painful scraping. Some romans used pumice stones (hardened volcanic ash) to remove body hair.
The romans viewed their bathhouses as a very civilized accomplishment, a place to meet friends, conduct business, and socialise in general.
