When the Mayflower arrived, the Pilgrims were noted for their bad smell. They washed their hands and faces on a daily basis, but that was it. That was the 17th century when it was a practice to not wash and that underwear "would keep the body clean." The hosting Indigenous peoples disagreed, but couldn't persuade them to get clean.
It was a combination of morality and disease.
The issue was bath houses: "It doesn’t seem as if most church organizations had a big problem with the bathing itself, just the perceived immorality exhibited at many bath houses. For example, 6th century Pope Gregory I is known to have encouraged Christians to bathe regularly. And, as alluded to, Muslim and Jewish groups were likewise known to be even more fastidious than their Christian brethren about keeping clean."
"As to why (bathing decreased), around the mid-14th century - about 60% of the European population died within about seven years or so - not too dissimilar to “The Snap”, but in this case because of the Black Death. This saw the former popular practice of people communing in bath houses together start to become decidedly less popular for a time, though it seems to have picked back up after. "Twenty-five years ago, nothing was more fashionable in Brabant than the public baths. Today there are none… the new plague has taught us to avoid them"
"There doesn’t seem to be a time in recorded history that people are known to have ceased bathing in some form altogether, with the record for the least hygienic not going to our ultra distant ancestors like medieval peoples or those before, but to our more recent ones, with the abandoning of better hygiene by some groups around the 16th century and beyond thanks to widespread disease and the development of more prudish attitudes."
And let's check out our current times. We also have our kings and queens who boast of not bathing, and gave the impression the majority of the population held their "beliefs".
It is celebrities who make these similar boasts today - I guess they send above like "kings and queens":
"The tiny yet influential sector of the population who popularized juice cleanses and jade eggs—are touting the skin-care benefits of not washing. “You should not be getting rid of all the natural oil on your skin with a bar of soap every day,” Shepard argued. “It’s insane.” Or, as Gyllenhaal described his strategic non-showering: “helpful for skin maintenance.”
And bathing their children: “Now, here’s the thing: If you can see the dirt on them, clean them. Otherwise, there’s no point,'” Kutcher added.
On to Kristen Bell: “I’m a big fan of waiting for the stink. Once you catch a whiff, that’s biology’s way of letting you know you need to clean it up.”
It moves on to a racial theme: “Celebrity white folks bragging about not showering have the privilege of not worrying about stereotypes they’re inherently ‘dirty,’ said journalist Jemele Hill. “Black folks don’t have that luxury. *Most* of us were raised to be obsessively clean because we always have to ‘present well’ for white folks.”
Bathing seems to remain a very important topic - who could guess there would be a "no bathing" movement now.
Today's pictures are motion blur on the highway amongst the pines.
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