Thanks to fiction, when we
think of the Victorian era, we tend to think of lavish
homes, beautiful gowns, and passionate romances. But as we all know,
the truth is often stranger than
fiction, smellier too. Victorians may have had
a lot of nice things, but when it came to
hygiene they were, for lack of a better
term, [BLEEP] gross. Beneath the fancy
garments of lace and silk were people who had
no indoor plumbing and didn't regularly bathe. Diseases were common, and
the hygienic practices meant to cure them were
often as bad, if not worse, than the illnesses themselves. Today, we're going to take
a look at what hygiene was like in the Victorian era. But before we get started, be
sure to subscribe to the Weird History channel, and let us
know in the comments below what other hygiene-related topics
you would like to hear about. OK, plug your nose. We're going to
Victorian England. Victorians had to do laundry
just like everyone else, but they often used
more than mere soap to get their clothing
clean and fresh. For example, oil
and grease stains would be combated by rubbing
chalk into the fabric. Grass and bloodstains,
on the other hand, would be removed with kerosene
while other miscellaneous odors would be dealt with using milk. So far, these all
sound like life hacks you might find in
a modern YouTube video. But when it came to
bleaching their clothes, the Victorians used a
method modern folks probably wouldn't be too keen on-- they soaked their clothes
in their own urine. Mmm, mmm. Asparagus. It sounds disgusting,
but as it turns out, urine contains ammonia, which
is a very effective cleaning agent, except windows, not
very effective on windows. Trust me when I tell you that. [MUSIC PLAYING] Toothbrushes and toothpaste
existed at the time and were available to the
Victorians, but typically only the middle and upper classes. Most working-class folks had to
get a little bit more creative. Toothpaste, for example,
could be made at home using common ingredients
that include things like chalk, soot, or
even powdered cuttlefish. Toothbrushes of
the era typically had wooden handles,
harsh bristles, and weren't terribly
comfortable to use. Despite this, they were
relatively expensive. And those who couldn't afford
them had to find alternate ways to clean their teeth. One common method was
the use of celery, which was believed to be
abrasive enough to clean one's teeth while being chewed. It was better than nothing,
but as you probably guessed, it wasn't a medically
ideal way to keep one's chompers looking good. Nonetheless, you'd
want to do your best to protect your teeth,
because the dental care available at the time was, to
be kind, utterly terrifying. Many areas didn't
even have dentists, which meant if you
needed oral care, you would probably have
to go to your local barber or blacksmith. [MUSIC PLAYING] The earliest indoor toilets,
also known as water closets, were both convenient
and popular. But because they predated the
invention of indoor plumbing, they had some
undesirable drawbacks. With no pipes to
carry away the waste, it often just dropped
into a large cesspool that was located in the
building's basement. While this arrangement was more
accessible than an outhouse and less exposed
than a chamber pot, the cesspool would
eventually fill up. Once that happened, it
didn't take too long for the whole house to
start smelling, well, like a cesspool. To combat the stink, a cottage
industry of night soil men sprung up. These laborers would
empty the cesspool and then sell the
waste to farmers, who needed it to use as fertilizer. They were known as night soil
men because the laws of the era restricted the emptying of
cesspools to night time, as the task was considered too
disturbing to be undertaken in broad daylight. [MUSIC PLAYING] You would think something
as simple as how to take a bath would be pretty
intuitive to most people. You sit in water
and wash yourself. But in Victorian times that
wasn't common knowledge. In fact, as regular or at
least semi-regular bathing came into fashion,
Victorians were besieged by publishers
selling books that taught the uninitiated
what to expect from a bath. Much of this guidance,
though, was non-scientific. For example, one such
book advised the curious and unwashed among
Victorian society to avoid bathing within four
hours of eating a large meal. This rule still exists
today, though it's usually applied to swimming after
meals, rather than bathing. Another tip one might
find in these books was to avoid washing their
face when they traveled, unless they had the
means to first purify the water with
ammonia or alcohol. So-called Russian
baths, which consisted of washing the face with
extremely hot and then extremely cold
water, were advised for those who were worried
about preventing wrinkles. [MUSIC PLAYING] Today, pretty much everyone
is obsessed with their hair. Victorian times
were much the same, except that modern shampoos
were still a ways off. So how did one clean
their hair back then? Well, women of the era
would typically use eggs. One would crack an
egg over their head, and then work the
yolks into their hair like with a modern shampoo. The egg would then be washed
out with a pitcher of water. Another popular option was
vinegar diluted with water. Mmm, that's got to
smell morning fresh. Eggs in vinegar weren't the
only cooking-related items that made for a popular
pre-shampoo hair cleaner. Rum, black tea, and
rosemary were all considered normal and
effective for hair washing. [MUSIC PLAYING] Cleaning one's
hair is important, but maintaining a
youthful and vital look is, to many, equally important. The Victorians
were no different. To that end, Hall's Vegetable
Sicilian Hair Renewer, first introduced in
the 1860s, became a staple of the era's
hair care regimens. The product's main
benefit was to darken hair in such a way that allowed
people to hide their gray. Unfortunately for the
people who used it, Hall's Hair Renewer used
lead as a bonding agent. Its function was to
aid other chemicals in darkening the hair, but
it had the slight side effect of causing lead poisoning. Eventually, the company
that manufactured Hall's managed to get the lead
out, or at least most of it, in the formula, and the product
managed to stay on the market well into the 1930s. [MUSIC PLAYING] Most people don't like a bad
smell, but in Victorian times bad smells were considered
more than just unpleasant. They were believed to
be downright dangerous. The idea that various
conditions, including cholera and chlamydia, were
spread through pollutants in the unclean air was called
the miasma theory, or night air, and it dated
back to antiquity. Victorians put a lot of
stock in the miasma theory and blamed the
poor health endemic in London's
impoverished districts on wicked smells that
floated through the streets. Even Florence Nightingale,
one of the most famous nurses in history, believed
it and thought that clean air would restore
health to sick patients. While there was a connection
between the bad smells and poor health, it wasn't
the causative one Victorians believed. Turns out the poor
sanitation that was normal in industrial
areas of the time was independently causing
both the bad smells and many of the diseases. [MUSIC PLAYING] Victorian hygiene obviously
had a lot of shortcomings, but it was also one of
the first times in history that mainstream
society took the time to address the concerns
of feminine hygiene. Indeed, both the disposable
pad and the earliest versions of the tampon were invented
in the late 19th century. These new technologies
took some time to become normal and widespread,
and in the interim women of the era got creative. It was discovered
that the wood pulp base used to make the
bandages typically used to treat the wounds
of soldiers at war were also used for
menstruation care. [MUSIC PLAYING] Ask anyone who lives in New
York, London, or Hong Kong, and they'll tell you that
in the heat of the summer big cities, even modern ones,
can develop a noxious smell. But the stench that
emanated from London in 1858 was something else entirely. It was so unbearably heinous
that the whole city practically shut down. During the Victorian
era, the River Thames used to be the hub of the
entire London sewage system. In practice, this meant
that most citizens disposed of their waste
by simply dumping it into the river. Londoners were not happy,
and they raised quite a stink over the foul odors that
came from the water. Doctors, in accordance with the
aforementioned miasma theory, blamed the stench for
causing rampant disease throughout the entire city. It was so horrible
that the summer of 1858 would forever be known
as the Great Stink. That's a T-shirt
waiting to happen. [MUSIC PLAYING] From bad smells to evil
spirits, many strange things were blamed for causing
diseases in the past. Among the strangest, though, had
to be the Victorian era theory that tuberculosis and its spread
was attributable to women's clothing. Doctors of the era theorized
that long skirts dragging along the street were picking
up the disease and women who wore them were unwittingly
bringing sickness into their home and spreading
it to their families. The theory didn't stop
at dresses though. Doctors of the time also
believed that the tight corsets women wore were also
responsible for tuberculosis on account of the fact that
they constricted the lungs. As such, doctors trying to
stop the spread of the disease were prone to prescribing looser
corsets and shorter skirts-- very fashionable. [MUSIC PLAYING] Despite being
socially unacceptable during the Victorian
era, escort work was a very common
way for the women who lived in London's most
impoverished neighborhoods to make a living. Sexually transmitted diseases
were extremely common at the time. And without regular
access to contraceptives, sex workers often transmitted
those STDs to their clients. The clients, in turn,
would then transmit them to their wives and anyone else
they might be involved with. Things got so bad that
the spread of sexually transmitted diseases
was eventually declared a public health hazard. Laws were passed
that allowed escorts to be detained by police and
forcibly treated for STDs. [MUSIC PLAYING] Though it wouldn't
be widely marketed until 1914, the
mouthwash we know as Listerine was
invented by Dr. Jordan Lawrence and
chemist-turned-entrepreneur Jordan Wheat Lambert in 1879. Victorians were slowly
beginning to accept notions of modern hygiene,
so Lambert first tried marketing his concoction
as a medical antiseptic. For whatever reason, the product
was overlooked and failed to turn a profit
for its creators. Not one to give
up easily, Lambert began to suggest additional,
and often unusual, uses for Listerine. Before he finally hit on
selling it as a mouthwash, he tried marketing it as
everything from a floor cleaner to a cure for dandruff
and gonorrhea. So what do you think? Would you have enjoyed
living in the Victorian era? Let us know in the comments
below, and while you're at it, check out some of these other
videos from our Weird History.
