How did they clean themselves?

[omoplata]

I am very curious how the Romans cleaned themselves. I always read about people using oil -sometimes perfumed oil, but still fundamentally just plain olive oil- which they would rub on and after a while remove by gently scraping it off with a small piece of wood.

 

Would this really remove much dirt from your body? Did Romans have any material other than oil that would have been more useful in removing oil and dirt from the skin? In public baths, would all of this oil not mess up the pools extremely quickly? Was this oil really just olive oil, or am I mistaken with regards to its composition?

 

And most importantly, has anyone here tried to bathe like the Romans?

[Crispina]

I am very curious how the Romans cleaned themselves. I always read about people using oil -sometimes perfumed oil, but still fundamentally just plain olive oil- which they would rub on and after a while remove by gently scraping it off with a small piece of wood.

 

Would this really remove much dirt from your body? Did Romans have any material other than oil that would have been more useful in removing oil and dirt from the skin? In public baths, would all of this oil not mess up the pools extremely quickly? Was this oil really just olive oil, or am I mistaken with regards to its composition?

 

And most importantly, has anyone here tried to bathe like the Romans?

 

 

No, but I've walked like an Egyptian. Sorry. I've wondered about the oil thing too, but perhaps this was done before the bath (in water). Over time, it would have softened the skin that is for certain.

[Centurion-Macro]

I thought they used pumice stone to clean themselves, as well as the public baths, where they had slaves to rub the dirt off when they were being steamed - which actually worked quite well. I also believe there were different parts to public baths, so there were probably set areas for cleaning and swimming etc.

 

~I think the Ancient Britons actually used soap though, but I never verified the information.

[Galba]

Yes most romans did use olive oil and will tell you a little secret too..

 

It works !

 

A lot if not most of good old hard soap is made from olive oil, a lot of the "organic soaps" in Israel are made from olives.

This idea was borrowed from the ancient Egyptians (who in their turn borrowed it from the Babylonians).

 

Any way ,I think that the olive oil had soap like affect in the cleaning of the body.

[stella]

I thought they used pumice stone to clean themselves, as well as the public baths, where they had slaves to rub the dirt off when they were being steamed - which actually worked quite well. I also believe there were different parts to public baths, so there were probably set areas for cleaning and swimming etc.

 

~I think the Ancient Britons actually used soap though, but I never verified the information.

 

The 'Ancient Britons' do indeed appear to have used soap but not for personal hygiene; it appears to have been mainly used in the washing of wool. There are references on Sumerian tablets c2500 BC of the use of type of soap in the processing of wool. A building in Pompeii has been traditionally identified as a soap factory but the evidence is somewhat sketchy, but a form of soap was used in Roman textile production

 

It does seem that most early soaps were basically a paste and not in the form of 'hard soap' used today.

 

"

[Ludovicus]

In her "The Fires of Vesuvius" Mary Beard remarks how dirty the baths must have been without a filtration system. Did the use of oil as a skin cleanser contribute to the problem of dirty bath water? Did the baths employ slaves to skim the water in an attempt to keep the pools clean?

Edited June 21, 2010 by Ludovicus

[omoplata]

Yes most romans did use olive oil and will tell you a little secret too..

 

It works !

 

A lot if not most of good old hard soap is made from olive oil, a lot of the "organic soaps" in Israel are made from olives.

This idea was borrowed from the ancient Egyptians (who in their turn borrowed it from the Babylonians).

 

Any way ,I think that the olive oil had soap like affect in the cleaning of the body.

 

I don't think any soap was ever made from olive oil alone. To make it into a soap you need numerous other ingredients in addition to olive oil. Ash is one that I can think of -though I haven't checked this piece of data, as I am writing in somewhat of a rush. The simple reality, however, is that pure olive oil will certainly not lift oily stains off your skin or any other surface for that matter, oil lifting oil just won't work... I have tried putting a little olive oil on my dirty hand and rubbing off the dirt, and as you can imagine I had no success at all. However, maybe I felt dirty as I did not like the feeling of an oily hand, which is because I am not used to it... I don't know; a larger trial is needed.

 

I am really surprised more researchers of ancient history have not tried to bathe with olive oil. I am sure some historians must have done it, no? After all, historians have tried to reenact almost every imaginable scene from the past, including building mini-pyramids in their back yards, to running with heavy armor while trying to hurl a javelin. I couldn't find the right reference yet, but I am sure someone must have tried.

 

The dirt that must have built up in the water is certainly a good point. Could olive oil have been preferred -among other reasons- because it floats to the top and could have been skimmed of easily?

[Ludovicus]

Is it possible the Romans used a dispersant in the bathing tanks to deal with the floating scum? Bicarbonate of soda?

 

They must have drained the tanks at the end of each day, refilling them with fresh water.

Edited June 22, 2010 by Ludovicus

[Galba]

Yes most romans did use olive oil and will tell you a little secret too..

 

It works !

 

A lot if not most of good old hard soap is made from olive oil....

 

I don't think any soap was ever made from olive oil alone. To make it into a soap.......

 

I agree with you on the most part, but the fact is that most soaps are really made outoff Olive oil(Fat) and yes with other chmechals too...But if the olive oil itself is such a big part from the soap it must have some cleaning proparties.

 

And I will do some testing of my own on this matter, results will be published soon !

[omoplata]

Excellent Galba... really looking forward to it.

Does the literature provide any further insights as to what exactly the Romans did? Was it straight up, pure olive oil they used? Did they rub it on with their hands? How long did they wait until they removed it? Any other details that we know?

 

 

By the way, this is a good web site that gives recipes with oil, and one of the recipes is using only olive oil as the oil base

http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/soapreci.../castrecipe.htm

I first thought -upon reading this- that you could make a soap with only olive oil and nothing else, but the way it is written is a little misleading. You do have to add lyle and other things, which becomes clear when you read the instructions further.

 

With regards to olive oil having cleaning properties because it is the main ingredient in soap: well, most chemical reactions work in unexpected ways. You could use petroleum to make plastic bags, and even if most of the ingredients is pure petroleum, the end product will be a very very different substance.

[Ursus]

The Greeks lathered themselves with Olive Oil, then scraped it off with some kind of instrument.

 

 

I don't remember ever reading what the Romans did.

[Klingan]

Is it possible the Romans used a dispersant in the bathing tanks to deal with the floating scum? Bicarbonate of soda?

 

They must have drained the tanks at the end of each day, refilling them with fresh water.

 

I discussed this topic, thou only to a limited extent, in my magister thesis (Swedish version of a master). There are, as far as I know, no known chemical ways that the Roman used to clean their baths. We can however notice that most baths have a well developed sewer system and it seems probable that they either emptied the tank at the end of each day (or after some other period of time, depending on how much water they could use) or drained it continually. I prefer the later due to several reasons, these two being the most important:

 

- We have evidence for water mills (yes, plural) at the baths of Carcalla - it is hard to see how they could use these without a steady flow of water, i.e continually draining. The Baths of Carcalla are of course rather exceptional, but I would argue that the water wills were the invention here, rather than the presumed continual refilling of the pools.

 

- We also have strong evidence of reuse systems in Roman baths (the Stabiae thermae can be used as an example here), something that would be quite ineffective if the pools were refilled only at certain times.

 

There is however some certain evidence that some baths was emptied more or less never - there's one on Sicily that only used rainwater for its supply and thus had a very limited supply. How the Romans dealt with their bathing water was probably, in the end, a question of how much resources that were available.

[omoplata]

Hey Everyone...

 

Don't let this thread die; let's get some more input in here if we can.

[Gromit]

I've always read that the Romans simply rubbed olive oil all over themselves and then scraped it off with a bronze scraper called a strigil. There are quite a lot of hits on Google if you search for this. This is a photo from the Legio XX site showing a strigil and oil bottle, along with other implements such as tweezers, medicine vials, pick, marbles, etc.: The strigil is the sort of sicle-shaped instrument lying between the right and left corners of the basket.

 

My understanding is that in the thermae they would have done the oiling and scraping out of the water, and only afterward, when they only had a light coating of oil on them, would they have entered the water. If the water was circulating through the baths continuously and running off from a drain somewhere along a top edge of the pool, then the floating oil residue would mostly have been carried off too and emptied into whatever drainage was available at the site. My recollection of the layout at Bath in England is that there was a continuous flow of water from the hot springs through the baths and into underground drainage there. This is a picture of the brick-lined Roman sewer from which the water exits those baths into an open stream nearby:

 

I have never tried cleaning my skin with olive oil, but I did not find that idea particularly surprising since I have seen mechanics back in the 60s use clean motor oil to dissolve the dirt and grease from their hands. Afterwards, they would wipe off most of the dirty oil, then use soap and water to clean off the rest. Oil pretty much dissolves oil and grease, in my experience. Of course, you couldn't afford to do that at 2010 oil prices!

[omoplata]

Thank you very much Gromit.

The pictures are particularly informative. We are still waiting for results of actual experiments from people trying to clean themselves with olive oil. I am thinking of giving it a go too...