History classes often cover the Colonial era, with familiar mentions of tricorner hats, muskets, and iconic figures. But have you ever wondered about the hygiene habits of that time? Beneath the layers of uniforms and wigs, colonists had some truly peculiar practices. Journey through time into the strange and often astonishing world of colonial hygiene practices that you’ll be glad have been left in the past.
Rotting Teeth Were Seen as a Sign of Wealth
During the Colonial era, sugar was a hot commodity. It wasn’t something that the average Joe could buy, which meant that it was reserved for the higher, wealthier classes. And while we now know that rotten teeth as a result of too much sugar is a bad thing, they didn’t think the same back in the day. Rotting teeth were actually seen as a sign of wealth, as it proved to the rest of the world that you could afford it.
Even those who couldn’t afford sugar tried to fake that their teeth were rotting. They tried to stain them with natural colorings, and scrubbed them with lye to create the illusion that they were rich.
They Used Crocodile Excrement as a Contraceptive
During the Colonial era, contraceptives were scarce. Because of this, couples and unmarried women often welcomed children they had not been expecting or planning to conceive. But in an effort to prevent pregnancy, strange and bizarre makeshift contraceptives started to pop out of the woodwork. One of the most common during this time was crocodile excrement, which was rolled into a ball and then inserted into the woman before any physical acts.
As you can imagine, this caused a whole load of other problems and didn’t always prevent pregnancy. So, the concept became less and less popular as the time wore on.
Dishes Were Washed With Animal Fat and Ash
Back in the Colonial era, they didn’t have dish soap or laundry detergent on tap. Instead, the regular folk had to save up their hard-earned money for months to buy some laundry detergent. This was called lye soup, a strange concoction made from animal fat, ash from the fire, and lye. However, this lye soup was so expensive that the common folk didn’t want to use it on all of their dishes and all of their laundry.
So, while they used it to wash their dirtiest washing dishes and the dishes that needed a good cleaning, others just didn’t make the cut. In those instances, they were given a quick rinse in a bucket of water before being used again.
Only Men Were Allowed to Shave
Before the late 18th century, men tended to grow their beards and rarely focused their attention on shaving. If they did shave, they chose to do it at home. But that all changed when barbers started offering their services, and more and more men chose to attend these barbershops to shape up their beards and trim their mustaches. However, only men were allowed to shave in these barbershops, as the services weren’t offered to women.
Instead, women would try to shave their body hair in private, which often resulted in bloody incidents and accidents. And as hygiene during the Colonial era was poor, these open wounds often became infected.
Men Wore Wigs to Prevent Lice Infestations
When you look back at photos from the Colonial era, you’ll likely come across photos of well-to-do generals, presidents, and upper-class men wearing white wigs complete with ringlets and pigtails. And while these wigs were a sign of aristocracy, they also held a lot of secrets. That’s because lice infestations were so common during this era that many men either lost their hair or shaved it off to prevent lice from setting up shop on their heads.
But while these wigs certainly covered their bald heads, they didn’t stop the lice entirely. The critters were also attracted to the wigs due to the fact that they were often made from animal fur and hair.
Women Had to Pluck the Hair From Their Bodies
During the Colonial era, men shaved and women weren’t allowed. And while some women simply embraced the extra hair on their bodies, others wanted to get rid of it. However, doing so required a high pain threshold. That’s because colonial women had one of two options; they could either pluck each individual hair from their body, or they could make their own depilatory hair removal cream to help them out.
This cream wasn’t like the safe products we have on the market today, though. It was actually made from a mixture of arsenic and limestone, which was not only painful but also very dangerous.
Huge Families Had to Bathe in the Same Water
Many of us take baths for granted today, but bathing was a huge ordeal back in the Colonial era. They didn’t bathe regularly – perhaps once a month at most – as doing so was too difficult and time-consuming. After all, they had to pull their own water from the closest well, walk it back to their home, and then heat it up before pouring it into their wooden bathtubs. Because of this, they needed to savour every drop of the water.
As a result, huge families would share the same bath water when it was time to bathe. As soon as one person had their turn in the bath, they got out and another member of the family had their turn.
Colonials Covered Themselves in Snails to Cure Coughs
Coughs are all part and parcel of everyday life, and people still develop coughs every single day in the modern era. But while we have cough drops and even antibiotics, doctors relied on different medicines during the Colonial era. In fact, they swore by using a mixture of sugar and live snails, which the patient had to eat. Not only that, but they also had to cover themselves in snails to make the most of the slime.
Doctors believed that the snail slime would help to coat their throats and ease their cough, but they ultimately had no proof that it worked. So, it wasn’t long before that type of medicine was shelved.
Women Wore Specific Toilet Clothes to Use the Bathroom
During the Colonial era, upper-class women wore large gowns that hid underskirts, bustles, and hoops that formed many heavy layers. However, there was no way that they could take these off every time they wanted to use the bathroom – which is why they had to wear specific toilet clothes instead. In most cases, women wore underwear that had an opening in the crotch, which allowed them to use the bathroom without taking off their clothes.
These proved to be extremely challenging to use, though, and women still had to hoist up their heavy skirts and dresses to use the opening. Because of this, using the bathroom was very messy business.
Disease Spread Like Wildlife During the Colonial Era
There’s a reason why modern-day life is filled with so many health and safety rules and regulations – especially in regards to hygiene. The Colonial era is proof that poor hygiene can result in deadly diseases that can spread like wildlife, and that’s exactly what happened during this period of history. Hospitals were full of adults and children alike all suffering symptoms of typhoid, cholera, and dysentery, and a huge number of those people couldn’t survive the ordeal.
In fact, it’s widely known that almost two-thirds of the men in George Washington’s army were killed as a result of these deadly diseases. Once these diseases made their way into a home or army battalion, it was hard to get rid of.
Bed Linens Had to Be Kept to a Moral Standard
Although a small portion of those during the Colonial era bathed as much as they should have done, the Puritans believed cleanliness to be of huge importance during the 1600s. They did everything they could to clean their bodies and to clean their clothes, but that wasn’t all that they wanted to be clean. They also believed that their bed linens had to be kept to a high moral standard.
As well as cleaning their bed linen regularly, they refused to go to bed with clothes on. They didn’t want their clothes to contaminate the purity of their sheets, so they had to sleep in the nude.
Women Typically Washed Their Hair Once a Month
How many times a week do you wash your hair? Once? Twice? Three times? Whatever the case, there’s a high chance that you washed your hair more than women who lived during the Colonial era. That’s because women were encouraged to wash their hair as rarely as possible to abide by religious thought and to make their hair look and feel longer and healthier. Because of this, most women only washed their hair once a month.
The aim was to keep their hair free from any products or oils that would affect the health of their locks, and this makes sense considering their hair product of choice was lye – which we know now to be sodium hydroxide.
This Painful-Looking Tool Was a Tooth and Ear Cleaner
If you want to clean your teeth, you use a toothbrush. And if you want to clean your ears, you probably use Q-tips. During the Colonial era, however, they would use a special tool like this silver earpick. And while these tools were often forged with intricate patterns and designs, the reality is that these tools were used for the dirtiest of tasks. In fact, the spoon-like was used to quite literally scoop earwax out of the ear canal.
The other spiky end was used as a pick to scratch and clean the teeth and underneath the fingernails of colonials. So, let’s just hope that it was cleaned in between uses.
Native Americans Used Natural Methods to Clean Their Teeth
As Native Americans and Europeans attempted to live side-by-side during the Colonial era, it was clear to see that they were very different – especially in terms of their hygiene. While Europeans damaged their teeth beyond repair by drinking a huge amount of sugar in their tea, Native Americans took their oral hygiene very seriously. They even used various natural methods to regularly clean their teeth and keep on top of their oral hygiene.
From using a chewing stick to chewing fresh herbs, they found many ways to clean their teeth. They also rubbed charcoal onto their teeth – something that we have adopted in the modern era in the form of charcoal toothpaste.
Male Baldness Was Treated With Chicken Excrement
Baldness is something that affects countless men, and it has done over the course of history. But while men in today’s modern age can utilize hair transplants and even hair tattoos, this wasn’t the case back in the Colonial era. During this time, they made the most of different, more traditional methods to treat baldness. One of the most popular was to smear chicken excrement all over a man’s head in an effort to stimulate the growth of the hair.
Despite the chicken excrement showing no signs of improvement, men continued this practice for decades until they finally realized that chicken poop wasn’t the answer that they were looking for.
Colonials Went to the Bathroom in Overflowing Outhouses
In today’s day and age, we have running water, plumbed-in toilets, and waste pipes, which means we don’t have to pay too much attention to our bathroom habits. Back in the Colonial era, however, they didn’t have any of that. Instead, they had to go to the bathroom in outhouses – and within that outhouse was a privy pot for them to sit on. These filled up pretty quickly, though, and before too long they had to empty them.
With nowhere else to turn, colonials opted to empty their pots in nearby rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water that also served as their water sources. This ultimately lead to the spread of disease and even death.
European Settlers Spread Diseases That Killed the Natives
Being exposed to new viruses and diseases can be deadly, as the body hasn’t learned how to defend itself from them. And when European settlers made their way to New England during the Colonial era, they also took strange and unknown European diseases with them – and the Native Americans had never been exposed to such germs before. As a result, over 90% of Natives were killed when these diseases started to spread.
Of course, their poor hygiene and lack of sanitation made the situation even worse, and it wasn’t long before people were dying left, right, and center. And the numbers continued to drop for decades.
Colonials Often Wore Clothes While Bathing
If you heard that someone was having a bath in their clothes, you’d raise your eyebrows. During the colonial period, however, this was the norm. Colonials often wore clothes while bathing, as they were of the opinion that exposing the skin to huge amounts of water would actually cause you to drown from the inside out. As a result, they would only bathe for short periods of time and would cover their skin with clothes.
This practice was hugely popular during the early 18th century, but thought around this concept began to change a few decades later when the Enlightenment scholars discovered the health benefits of water on the skin.
They Thought Underwear Absorbed Impurities
Underwear has been around for centuries, and it’s just as important today as it was back in the Colonial era. But while we now know the importance of cleaning and washing underwear after each use, they thought differently during colonial times. They actually thought that your underwear absorbed the impurities in the body, so they would wear the same underwear for weeks on end before washing them. Not only that, but they also made sure to have their underwear on show.
Both men and women made sure that the hems of their underwear peaked through their outfits, to show the outside world that they were morally pure and taking steps to absorb their impurities.