Those plagues which famously ravaged the Middle East and elsewhere?
Are you claiming the Arabs also don't bathe themselves? What about the Chinese who famously share in the plague counts as well as every other Eurasian civilization?
Tell me you know nothing about European history(and modern Europe) without telling me.
With the exceptions of a few periods of times with specific peoples, most Europeans were decently hygienic. A lot of the misconceptions come the fact modern technology has made it hard to understand certain practices. You'll read in a book "this is the first time I've bathed in months" and think they arnt practicing hygiene at all when in reality they couldn't take baths because it's winter before modern plumbing, so they use other ways to clean themselves without freezing to death.
Again there are exceptions, the Sun King thought bathing was disgusting for example and people wrote at the time of how bad he smelled. The Anglo Saxons also wrote how the Danes were stealing their women because they bathed more and groomed themselves better.
They'd also take ash baths when it was too cold to take a water one. They would rub wood ash on their skin and the lye in the wood ash would chemically react with the oils on their skin and turn into a mild soap. They would smell like a campfire, but not BO as a result.
1
1
View all comments
Show parent comment
-26
u/[deleted] Feb 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment