Text | Xiaofeng talks about history
Edit | Xiaofeng talks about history
With modern development, the public also has more cleaning options. From the original stove bathing collective bath, to now there is a steady stream of hot water without leaving home.
Everyone can carry out daily body cleansing according to their own Xi. While ensuring your own hygiene, you can also make a good impression on others.
But you know, people thousands of years ago didn't have such good treatment. Not to mention electricity, even using firewood to boil water for cleaning is a very luxurious existence.
But it's okay in winter, but if you don't wash it for a long time in summer, it tastes very sour.
This not only makes people ask: "Did the ancestors really like to be so clean, and how did they get rid of the smell on their bodies when they didn't have a water heater and bathroom?"
1. Local customs
It's not that the ancients didn't like to take a bath, but the conditions didn't allow it.
After all, in the ancient northwest and the far sea region, the scarcity of water resources made people cherish every drop of water. Drinking water every day is a problem, let alone bathing.
The ancients, who had almost no modern water supply system, had to dig their own wells or go to rivers to get water, and to heat the water with firewood or cow dung.
This process is time-consuming and labor-intensive, which is why most people in the Northwest choose to wash in the river when the weather is warm, even when it is bathing.
On the other hand, coastal cities have an abundance of water and easy access to water for bathing.
In these areas, people bathe relatively frequently. Especially for some wealthy ladies, they usually pay more attention to personal hygiene and may bathe more frequently to keep their bodies clean.
In addition to the difference in water resources due to geographical location, the frequency of bathing in ancient times was also affected by other factors, and climate was a very important factor.
It is important to know that there was no modern heating system in ancient times, and people had to rely on other ways to keep their bodies warm if they wanted to maintain their body temperature. But if you are not careful, you may get sick from the cold due to the drop in body temperature.
However, in the era of relatively poor medical conditions and short life expectancy, it is difficult to recover from cold and cold after bathing, and it can be life-threatening in severe cases.
In such a situation, it seems that not taking a bath has become a normal thing.
But not washing often does not mean not washing, the ancients were really not as "dirty" as you think. And the way they cleaned up the dirt on their bodies was ingenious and full of wisdom even compared to what it is now.
Second, the wisdom of the ancestors
Although the frequency of bathing in ancient times is indeed lower than that of modern people, the ancients had many ways to clean up the dirt on their bodies.
In the absence of shampoo and shower gel, the wise ancients would use honey locust to wash away odors.
The seeds of honey locust are common trees that produce a liquid rich in surfactants, which help to remove grease stains.
In addition to using the characteristics of the plant for cleaning, in some places water is also used to boil rice or wheat grains and then filter them.
They call it "bran soup" or "flour soup" to provide a gentle cleansing effect on the skin. Even today, thousands of years later, there are still people who continue the wisdom of the ancients and carry out this kind of traditional purging.
In the long course of history, people's requirements for personal hygiene have also been increasing. In order to better meet the needs of the people, some market culture in the Song Dynasty also became popular.
Just like a balsamic vinegar vendor will prepare a small package of soaphorn water for customers to give away for free, so that customers can cleanse their faces at any time.
It's like the sample packs that supermarkets offer today, but they serve different people from different perspectives.
But this is only used for surface ash stains, in the face of various greasy problems, the ancients will also choose a mixture of plant ash and soaphorn.
What's even more incredible is that this behavior also has a "scientific basis".
It is important to know that plant ash is composed of residues after crop burning, and a large number of carbonate particles can be formed after condensation, and its particularity does have a good adsorption effect on various stubborn stains.
Rich in unique organic acids, soaphorn can also help soften hardened hair and old stratum corneum, leaving skin soft and smooth.
It's just that we don't know why our ancestors learned all this thousands of years ago.
But compared to the grass ash that everyone has heard more or less, soaphorn and other things. There are also two other relatively unknown detergents recorded in ancient documents, namely winter melon scoop and mulberry branch pump.
The former is derived from pumpkin plants that refer to certain regions, and the sap produced by them can act like soap to a certain extent.
As for the latter, it is due to the fact that some parts of the mulberry branches have a certain astringent effect, and at the same time stimulate blood circulation and thus promote metabolism. It may sound a little mysterious, but it also played a valuable role in those days when there was no soap.
So, don't underestimate the wisdom of the ancients. Even if you don't take a lot of showers, you can still have a lot of cleaning products.
In fact, even if the ancients did not take a bath and had various body odors, the odor would be masked by the "power" of incense. Perhaps this is why they are so keen on incense culture.
So the question is, the "smell" on the body can also be covered with incense, so how to solve the taste in the mouth?
3. The ancients paid attention to their oral cavity
In fact, since ancient times, people have always attached great importance to oral health.
After all, neat white teeth can indeed improve the image, and toothache and bad breath can also seriously disturb life. It is precisely because of this that our "ancestors" will care about the "safety" of the oral cavity.
It's just that because of technical problems, the oral cleaning at the beginning of the mainland was maintained by gargling at the beginning.
According to the Book of Rites, the ancients would rinse their mouths after the rooster crowed, using the sterilization and disinfection effect of salt water to remove the bacteria that fell on the teeth and excrete them from the mouth by rinsing the mouth.
However, simply rinsing your mouth with salt water will not completely remove the dirt attached to your teeth, and there are even many dead spots that are difficult to clean.
In this case, people began to use other objects such as fingers, bamboo chips, willow branches, and even chicken feathers as makeshift toothbrushes or toothpicks. Among these temporary substitutes, willow twigs were widely used as one of the earliest toothbrush materials.
As time went on, people began to be more innovative in the choice of dental cleaning tools. "Toothbrush" has gradually appeared in people's daily life.
According to archaeological discoveries, the earliest toothbrush unearthed in the mainland was produced in the Sui and Tang dynasties, hundreds of years earlier than the "toothbrush civilization" in the West. Most of the handles of these ancient toothbrushes were made of cow bone, ivory and bamboo, and the bristles were made of deer or horsehair.
However, before use, people often need to soak the toothbrush in the potion used for oral cleaning, and wait for the bristles to become soft before brushing their teeth in the mouth.
During the Ming Xiaozong period, this traditional toothbrush was re-"transformed" and the bristles were replaced with wild boar bristles. The softness of the hair also makes the cleaning effect better.
In addition to the change of toothbrush, there is also a new change in "toothpaste". By the Song Dynasty, people had learned to boil poria and other medicinal herbs into tooth powder.
It's just that although this kind of tooth powder has a better effect, it is more expensive to make, and it is usually only affordable for high-ranking officials and nobles.
In the changes again and again, it can also be seen that our "ancestors" not only pay attention to the development of physical hygiene, but also do not stop at the traditional way of gargling in terms of oral problems, but use creativity and wisdom to continuously improve oral cleaning methods.
Although some of the methods were crude or inefficient, they did keep the mouth awake at the time.
The author thinks
As we said, it's not that the ancients didn't like to take a bath. In fact, under the influence of various factors at that time, this thing that seemed normal to modern people was indeed an exclusive activity of "princes and nobles" at that time.
After all, it was a great luck to be alive in that era when imperial power was supreme and materials were scarce.
But despite this, whether it is incense or various decontamination products, the ancients are doing their best to maintain their own healthy life. This point is also worthy of our respect in the millennium.