Male grooming?

[McGeezer]

OK, I am a new guy here, and don't want to sound rude, but in my looking through the various sections of this great board, I haven't seen many thread dedicated to men's grooming back in the day.
Are there many members that still use a brush and soap to lather up for a shave...straight razors, double edge razors? Remember Pinaud? Bay Rum?
Just throwing it out for discussion.

 

[John in Covina]

the general acoutrements section has tons of that stuff. also go to google and do a search like "Fedora Lounge Shaving"

 

[Rudie]

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?7035-Aftershave-That-nostalgic-true-masculine-smell!

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?29288-Shave-of-the-Day

 

[Shangas]

There's plenty of threads here on vintage shaving. And plenty of men who do it. I've been shaving with a straight-razor for about 3 years.

 

[dhermann1]

I suspect there are a lot of aspects of personal hygiene that have NOT been covered in depth. This post made me wonder how often the various classes of folks 80 years ago were able to bathe, and how they kept themselves clean in general. There was a time when lots of people lived in boarding houses, sharing a single bathroom at the end of the hall, and had to wait around for the previous person to finish. Lotsa stuff like that.

 

[Shangas]

It's my understanding that, unless climate caused it to be a necessity (tropical regions, for example), most people only bathed once a week. Partially due to bathroom availability, and the trouble of getting hot water.

 

[McGeezer]

Thanks for the responses. Guess I'll do some research before I start new threads, but I did find some good stuff.
But the remarks about bathing reminded me of a visit to my Grandparents home in rural Missouri around 1953/54. They had indoor hot/cold running water (something they lacked when my Dad was drafted in 1941), but no indoor toilets (got those a little after our visit). I was young, but still recall how cold an outhouse can be in the morning.
IIRC, my grandfather, who worked the fields and with the cattle, bathed most days, my grandmother less often.

 

[John in Covina]

It's my understanding that, unless climate caused it to be a necessity (tropical regions, for example), most people only bathed once a week. Partially due to bathroom availability, and the trouble of getting hot water.

My mom used to tell be about having to heat up water on the wood stove which had a water heater section too. they would haul in buckets of hot water to fill the bath tub. And that was in Denmark at my grandparents house, the bathroom was added on because they had an outhouse previously. That room was so cold in July and August i would not want to have visited them in the winter that must have been real cold. so daily baths would use a lot of time. Althought the old sponge bath can be done quick.

There was a time when the idea of bathing too often was thought to be bad for your health.

 

[McGeezer]

I am reminded of a scene in the movie "Will Penny"...Charlton Heston (as Will Penny) is asked how often he bathes. His answer is "two or three times." Next question.."A month?" Response..."No, a year". Of course that was set in the 1880's I think, but don't know it changed much up to the early 20th Century.

 

[Shangas]

There is a rumor going around that it was this advertisement...

...from the Victorian era (I think) which sparked a change in bathing regularity. How much that's true, I don't know. But it's what I've read.

 

[TomS]

My dad talks about heating water on the kitchen stove for a saturday night bath. He is in his 80s.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Pears Soap had some great ads. They would hire a good artist and let him have his head.

One artist went through a file of fan letters looking for inspiration. He found it. The first ad he did, showed a seedy, unshaven tramp with a caption from one of the letters: " I first used your soap 2 years ago, since then I have used no other".

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

 

[Shangas]

Some of the Pears Soap advertisements are hilarious. But some of them are very much 'of their time'. I still found them funny, but yeah, they probably wouldn't fly today.