These Colonial-Era Hygiene Habits Will Make You Glad To Be Living In Modern Times

Keeping ourselves clean and presentable is a crucial part of our daily routine, with hours spent on grooming. But when we reflect on the colonial era, we encounter a striking difference in how people approached hygiene.

Back then, streets were used as garbage dumps, and the idea of washing with soap and water hardly crossed the minds of anyone from peasants to government officials.

It’s intriguing to delve into the hygiene practices of that time, where dirtiness was the norm and cleanliness was considered a luxury!

Outhouses

Probably the one thing about colonial times that modern people would find most unappealing are outhouses. They were essentially small sheds outside that functioned as bathrooms, with no proper methods for disposing of human waste.

One trip outside to an outhouse in the middle of the night and there’s no doubt you’ll be longing for indoor plumbing.

Lye Soap

Lye soap was a sort of old-school cleaning detergent made from a combination of lye and animal fat. For many, it was expensive and thus was used sparingly for only the most necessary or valuable of items.

Sadly, bathing was not a daily occurrence so soap itself was not commonly found in colonial households.

Flea-Covered Clothes

Unfortunately, colonial times were not especially clean or hygienic, which meant that clothes could easily become infested with fleas.

There are reports that this was a common problem for early colonists, some of whom complained about bug infestations that included fleas, roaches, mosquitoes, flies, and lice.

This meant that victims of infestations either had to constantly pick fleas out of their garments or just accept their unhygienic fate.

Infrequent Bathing

Regular bathing was not really a thing in the colonial era, which meant that people often went for long stretches of time without thoroughly cleaning themselves.

Even when they did bathe, it’s debatable as to how clean the bath would’ve made them given the lack of modern bathing products such as soap and shampoo.