2007-12-01 03:58:34 · 18 answers · asked by jim 1 in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
The soap as we know it was used by the Celts. As its most basic soap was fat mixed with ashes. Romans (and Greeks)
went to the public bathes. The idea was to sweat so that, as with a sauna, the sweat would get rid of the body's dirt. After this a slave would rub olive oil into the visitor's skin and then scrap it off with a strigil (see link)
http://carlos.emory.edu/ODYSSEY/Teachers/woa/content_images/Strigil_big.jpg
Just like the Egyptians and the Greeks before them the Romans did not like pubic hair : young girls began removing it as soon as the first hair appeared. They used tweezers, which they called the volsella (see link).
http://www.gsr-roma.com/museo/htm/file%20museo/donne%20museo.htm#VOLSELLA
They also had a kind of depilatory cream, the philotrum or dropax, the forerunner of the current depilatory creams. Waxing was also a way of depilating; this was done with resin or pitch. There were special slaves to help with depilation, they were called alipilus. Beauty was a smooth hairless body for the women.
2007-12-01 06:10:25 · answer #1 · answered by Cabal 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
People in ancient Rome used olive oil instead of soap when they bathed. They would rub themselves down with oil (or have a slave rub them down) then they would take a metal scraper and scrape off the oil, together with the dirt, dead skin and assorted other funk.
A good example is in the HBO series 'Rome.' In one of the early episodes, Lucius Verenus comes to Marc Anthony seeking help. Anthony is standing naked in his courtyard, while a slave scrapes the oil from his body.
The first time I saw it I though he was having his body shaved (which some of them did) but then I saw that the blade was made of brass, which won't hold a very good edge, and then I remembered about how they bathed and realized that was what he was doing.
As far as what the women did, I couldn't say. The period depictions I've seen, from murals in Pompeii, pottery, etc. usually don't show pubic or underarm hair on women's bodies so I imagine at least some of them, probably the wealthier ones who had the time and resources, did shave those areas.
Someone above said that they never heard of Romans shaving "in normal life." In fact, all Roman men's faces were clean shaven. Facial hair was considered the mark of a barbarian. Wearing a beard would have been considered a disgrace, decidedly un-Roman. It would be like someone today from one of the 'blue blood' families like the Vanderbuilts walking around with a green mohawk.
2007-12-01 04:22:59 · answer #2 · answered by austin_renaissance_man 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Roman Shave
2017-01-15 07:19:18 · answer #3 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No soap. Romans cleaned by rubbing oil (usually, olive) on and scraping it off, then bathing in hot, tepid and cold baths. The scraping device was called a strygil. For the upper classes, men would either have their facial hair shaved or have it plucked out. Some men went against the trend. Marcus Brutus wore a beard because he had horrible acne into adulthood. Women either left their pits and pubes alone or had it plucked. The lower classes were far less faddishly fastidious. Hair removal was a specialized slave skill. History records that Julius Caesar was appalled by body hair and have every hair except on his head plucked. He preferred his women plucked, but was absolutely insistent that they be freshly-bathed before sex.
2007-12-01 04:14:05 · answer #4 · answered by nam_miles 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Chinese was the first to invent soap. Roman at the time, did quite a bite of trading with the East. I'm not sure if soap was introduced or trade at the time yet. However, Roman use alot of olive oil and herbs. The Roman copied the Greek in many ways.
2007-12-01 05:45:12 · answer #5 · answered by freshmint 1 · 0⤊ 2⤋
The Romans did have soap, but it was more a cream from the Aegean Sea, collected by diving and picking up that soft, spongy 'coral' and making it into a creamy substance by mixing it with water and other powders.
As for the women, they did shave their underarms, but only the rich, married women did this, and normally by 'picking' each hair out individually.
2007-12-01 04:02:45 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
If memory servers correctly, the ancient Romans had a communal bath, with fragrance water. They didn't have soap and I doubt that anyone shaved because they had to use knives instead of razor blades.
2007-12-01 04:01:47 · answer #7 · answered by lilhappyflower 4 · 2⤊ 1⤋
The romans did bathe with soap sometimes- but the more wealther families used oil. It was rubbed all over their bodies and then a slave usually scrapped it off. The very wealthy Patrician women used to sit in bathes, but it wasn't really to bathe more then to "cleanse"
And they shaved both. Shaving legs was commmon for both men and women.
2007-12-01 04:07:53 · answer #8 · answered by pepsi_chugger8899 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
"I have read that the Romans learned of soap from the Germans some time in the first century CE, and that previous to that they used urine (ammonia) for clothes. Using the two in combination, of course, would be even more effective. Urine was apparently treated in some way before use, but I do not know how. It may have been either a chemical process or a distillation."
2007-12-01 04:02:55 · answer #9 · answered by redunicorn 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
They used scented oils, the scraped it off with a curved tool.For hair removal both males and females used tweezers.There was an interesting board telling visitors of this when I visited the Roman Baths at Caerleon a few years ago.You may find this site interesting too.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/
http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa031303a.htm
2007-12-01 04:05:09 · answer #10 · answered by CMH 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋