What on earth did people do when there were shortages of soap during the war?
If there's one thing that's become absolutely clear to me with these nightly baths, it's that I'm going thru a lot more soap than I was in the shower. One bar lasts me about ten baths before it breaks into pieces and has to be recycled to the soap dish beside my sink. Now imagine if I had a family of six (considered average in the '40s). My household would probably be going thru a bar of soap every other day. Unless I had a passel of little boys, that is! I know there are tricks to making a bar stretch. Like turning the little bits and pieces into a jellied soap. But even a few tricks like that won't keep your family squeaky clean. The only thing I can figure is that folks just got used to being a little less clean than they'd like to be...
Another thing I've noticed about my baths is the bathtub gets grimier and in need of a cleaning much more quickly than it used to. It no longer surprises me that the authors of America's Housekeeping Book (1945) recommended that the tub be thoroughly cleaned each and every day. Here in a single-person household, mine could probably use a good scrubbing twice a week.
Though the vintage articles on bathing I quoted from last week were split on whether a woman should soak in the hot water before - or after - doing her washing and exfoliating, I've fallen firmly into the before camp. The water is at its hottest and most likely to take the knots out of your shoulders. And it's not all cloudy with soap scum and, well, probably dead skin cells. If I waited to lie back and relax until after I got myself all cleaned up, I'd be soaking in my own grime! Definitely, definitely a before kinda girl.
All told, my nightly baths take me about 40 minutes. That's counting from the time I begin drawing the water until I'm drying off after my brief post-bath shower (for shaving and for washing my hair). It's more time consuming than a single shower in the morning, but I love the feeling of being super clean when I climb under the covers. Even better, it's a ritual that's actually getting me to bed earlier at night. It used to be I could easily stay up until 10:30 or 11:00 puttering about, surfing the net. These days, I'm into the tub by 8:30 or 9:00 and ready to turn out the lights and go to sleep by 9:30 or 10:00. I'm all mellowed out, I guess, by the time I get out of the tub. Don't feel like watching TV or even reading. I just want to call it a day. And you can't beat a little extra beauty sleep!
One of my vintage beauty missions this week is to be very mindful of giving myself a vigorous dry with the towel after my bath. It's also made me more mindful of my towels! So I'm going to go thru them in the next few days --- thinning out the linen closet, so to speak. If it's threadbare in spots - if it's not something I'd put out for a guest - then it's time to hit the rag bag. (The ratty towels will make great cleaning rags once they're cut up.) If I spy any loose threads, I'll trim 'em off with my sewing scissors. This will clear up some room for a few new towels in vintage colors.
11 comments:
In re: soap shortages. Women were encouraged to sew "soap sacks" by cutting out the useful parts of worn-out washcloths. Bits and pieces of soap were put in the sack and it was used in the bath or shower.
I've also seen (but it was WWI vintage, not WWII) an ad for something called a soap saver; it was a box of fine mesh on a long metal handle. The box snapped shut. Housewives saved bits of soap and put them in the mesh box, and then swished it through a sink full of hot water by the handle.
I'm not sure how practical this last device really was.
Know all about the grimy bathtub, with four dirty children! I shoo them out of the bath then wipe down the tub with their washcloths, then dry it with an old towel. It keeps the tub shiny clean between weekly scrubbing.
I have this great book called " the 1940's look" by Mike brown which has all theses great articles about living in the era. 'Hard water means more soap is wasted, bath water softener can be made by making up a strong solution of washing soda crystals and adding half an ounce of oil of lavender' Soda crystals are really handy as they are a degreaser in the washing machine and they recommend them in your house cleaning- this may help with your bath!
My Grandma made soap.She made enough for everybody. I remember her outside gathering ashes. Lye soap is not sweet smelling or soft on the skin. I am sure that skill came in handy during the depression and the war years.
Speaking of soap, Yardley's Lavendar Soap is one of my favorites. It would be prefect for an evening bath.
I too was going to say that women were more likely to make their own soap during the war years. I've heard it's not too difficult to do, and the ingredients aren't very expensive. They usually net a large amount of soap too for such a cheap price.
Shay, the soap sack idea is interesting - now I've got a use for my worn-out washcloths! - but it's still hard for me to imagine how much a little "found" soap like this would've really added to a household. It seems like shortages must've meant significantly less soap for everybody.
Jo, clever!!! Neat idea to keep the soap scum at bay. It may be worth using a new washcloth everyday. I'm going to try this one out.
Rosina, The Manual frequently mentions softening the water in relation to the wash. Presumably because it's easier to work up a good suds in soft water. I'm not sure whether my bath water here is hard or soft, but it does have a lot of something in it (iron?) that makes it stain my tub with a reddish shade.
Mrs. Tailleur and Amber, I bet you're right about making a real basis soap from scratch. There were plenty of ashes to be had about the typical home.
Thanks for the suggestion, Mrs. S! I use a lavendar sachet in my linen closet and love that calming scent on my sheets...
Unwrapping your soaps and letting them dry/cure/sit out open before using them makes them last longer. Just an easy tip. You can just store them unwrapped in a bowl in your linen closet to freshen things up a bit, too!
Perhaps they didn't take baths each day? I don't know -- I grew up with the daily bath/shower ritual so have never known anything else, but maybe with previous generations it wasn't so prevalent. I'm not saying they were part of the Saturday-night-only bath crowd, just that they may not have taken full baths each day and thus the soap lasted longer.
Intriguing idea, Kimberly! I've never heard of that before.
You may be right, Mary. Granted, my 1946 grooming routine includes nightly baths on the list - but the war was over by that point and soap shortages were easing (here in the US, at least). We've heard of meatless Tuesdays and giving up leisure driving... maybe skip-a-bath-every-other-day was the patriotic thing to day during the war. It'd be fascinating to find out if sponge baths were being promoted.
Up until sometime in the 1970's people "washed up". They didn't bathe every day. They bathed Saturday night before church on Sunday. Grandma made her soap and it was hard and didn't make suds (like Lava soap is now). You can still buy soap savers. I have a little sponge sack that holds the leftovers. Also, you can get a plastic thingy that that molds the soap silvers into a new bar. I just use an old cracked coffee mug...
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