17 old horrible hygiene measures that really were the norm

Are you grossed out by the idea of taking the bath in the same water as your partner after them? Well, brace yourself, because, in the past, bath water was often shared within the same family. Even worse, at one time, it was even shared between different families or worst of all, an entire city! Sure, it’s great for saving water, but it’s undoubtedly really bad for public health. When you think of it, maybe that’s why health care wasn’t really a thing…

For a long time, it was a popular belief that chicken urine was a miracle cure for baldness. Would you go as far as to douse yourself with urine every day to avoid the fall of your hair? Apparently it was common to do so in ancient times. We’ll pass. We’d rather invest in medical treatments than in this for sure.

When you’re a King, you always have to be clean everywhere, right? That is why, in the 1500s, a man had the task of cleaning the King’s behind. Come to think of it, it may not be the worst hygienic thing of this list, but it certainly is gross for the person whose job it is to clean the King’s ass…

If you thought your job’s insurance not covering your birth control pill was the worst thing, think again. In the Middle Ages, to prevent pregnancy, women used crocodile excrement inserted into a pessary in their vagina. We don’t even want to think about it. Nope.

There was a time when people used lead for makeup. Indeed, having a pale complexion was the fashion. On the other hand, lead was poisonous and literally destroyed your face’s skin. Queen Elizabeth the first is even said to have died from lead poisoning from her makeup. We’re so glad people made this mistake in the past and have learned from it. Now that proper research has been invested to figure out what was bad for our skin, we know for sure that our foundation cream or powder is not going to cause cancer in a few years. Whew!

In the 17th century, hairstyles tended to focus on height, and as the ballrooms were lit by candlesticks, you can easily imagine the rest… This fashion was responsible for many unfortunate accidents. Luckily times have changed, and now you can claim to have a certain safety when it comes to your hairstyle and fire hazards.

At the beginning of the 20th century, nitrobenzene was one of the most popular ingredients in shoe wax because it made shoes very glossy. The problem is that if you wore your shoes too soon after applying the wax, it would make you pass out. Added to a little too much alcohol at a party, for example, nitrobenzene poisoning could be fatal.

In the 1800s, several combs were made from turtle shells, but some were made from extremely unstable and highly combustible celluloid compounds. As soon as one of these combs was near a heat source, it would explode! People certainly didn’t have any life insurance back then, but even if they did, we doubt one would have covered this type of incidents.

To be more beautiful, in the 18th and 19th centuries, women ate coal to give themselves a paler complexion. Coal made them look pale and feel sick because coal is actually toxic in important quantities. But eh, women were in fashion according to the trends of the time…

In the 16th and 17th centuries, in order to make their pupils more dilated, women used a poisonous and hallucinogenic liquid plant that they put in their eyes. They also used the leaves of the plant to rub them on their cheeks to make them more pink.

At the beginning of the 20th century, people used X-rays to remove hair. Sometimes they had to be exposed to these rays for up to 20 hours in order for this treatment to be effective. Needless to say, cancer was common. At a time when you had little to no treatment for cancer, let alone modern technology in hospitals, you were for sure signing up for a slow and painful death if you wanted your hair removed that bad.

During the Elizabethan period, wealthier people tended to let their teeth deteriorate. Indeed, since sugar is bad for the teeth and was only accessible to the richest, bad teeth were a sign of wealth and success. We’re so glad modern dentistry is a thing, and we are so ready to promise our dentists that we’ll take good care of our teeth now that we know this.

For centuries, until the late 1870s, Japanese and Vietnamese tended to dye their teeth black because that was the fashion. Did you say weird? Yep.

To eliminate grey hair, it was once customary to use treatments containing radium. However, since it is a radioactive element, people then tended to lose their hair instead. But then, we’re back to the chicken urine thing. Makes perfect sense… right?

Washing your hair has not always been part of a basic hygienic routine, so much so that in the 18th century, with dizzying hairstyles sometimes produced with animal fat, it was not uncommon to find a complete ecosystem, sometimes even vermin, in your hair… We don’t know about you but this really makes us want to purchase a crazy quantity of hair care products. Yikes!

There was a time when dentures were formed from the teeth of deceased soldiers. Probably not the most disgusting thing on this list, but still a bit uncomfortable. Let’s say we’re glad other dental options are offered nowadays.

In ancient Egypt, it was not uncommon for servants to be covered with honey to prevent insects from approaching the pharaoh. Pretty cool if you’re the sovereign, but that would really suck if you were the one attracting all the insects, in addition to doing the exhausting job of serving the pharaoh.

Source: offbeat