Life in the Depression

A friend recently posted a link to an NPR piece on the "No 'Poo" movement. The report focused on folks who were going without shampoo for ecological reasons: plastic bottles, chemicals that if ingested would be considered poisons, water purity. The people who follow the movement often site that our hair is like animal pelts and does not need shampoo to be clean. I've read some who say the use of shampoo aggravates and increases oil production, requiring the use of more shampoo and conditioner to boot, because shampoo dries out the hair shaft by removing the oil that would typically moisturize the shafts. Some report that if you stop shampooing, your hair will improve and the oil production decrease.

In a British test several women took the six week challenge: no shampoo for six weeks. Some reported an improvement in hair condition and reduction of oil production after a few weeks and like the test. Others reported greasy, ugly, smelly hair with no improvement after several weeks.

Some No 'Poo folks use nothing at all. Others use dissolved baking soda as a wash and apple cider vinegar as a rinse. And they do it less frequently than they used to shampoo.

One reporter found an allegedly Mexican tradition of rinsing the hair with water and using wet washcloths to redistribute the oil from the top of the head down the hair shaft by stroking these cloths 100 times down each section of hair.

One report stated that shampoo didn't exist until sometime in the 1930's and even then wasn't used daily until ad campaigns of the early 70's encouraged it. This comment together with my personal experience as a child: washing my hair once a week and using apple cider vinegar as a rinse, got me to thinking: how did people REALLY wash their hair in the 1930's? Did they do it as seldom as some of these reports state? Did people really not use soap or shampoo regularly?

The following is a response from someone who was a child during the Great Depression to the questions: what did you use to wash your hair/body as a child/teenager? how often?

As to hair:
As a child:
1) We used soap--the same kind and thing we used for bathing. Sometimes
Mother used water and vinegar to rinse my hair and sometimes she probably
used nothing but water. There was no running water so this means my hair
was washed in a small "wash" pan and rinsed by pouring water from a bucket.
2) I don't know how often it was washed but my guess is it depended on
weather and events. I.e. in winter, less often. In summer, maybe weekly.
If we were to attend church, visit family, have pictures made, etc. it
would have been washed for that I'm sure.
3)Between washings we just brushed or combed it!

As a teen:
1) Same as above except I did my own. If we had shampoo, I used that.
2) Weekly--every Saturday!
3) Same as above!

As to bathing:
As a child:
We used soap and water. I doubt we bathed even weekly. Most of the time we
bathed using the small "wash" pan which meant you did what we later referred
to as a "spit" bath (not everything got very clean). We sometimes bathed in
a zinc tub--much better bath! In summer it was in the backyard. In winter,
inside by the fireplace! I do remember in the winter my heels would get
grungy which meant I certainly wasn't doing much scrubbing on them!

As a teen:
We used soap and water. Bathing was similar to above except much more often
and much cleaner. When we moved to a house with running water, bathing was
in a bathtub. Hair was still washed only once a week and bathing was as
needed. I do know that by the time I graduated from high school bathing was
daily!

That ends the response to my questions about shampooing and washing during the Depression and 40's/50's. It only represents 2 people's experience, but it's interesting. It intrigues me to look at what we take for granted daily nowadays. How extravagant are our expectations? How much of that is mass-marketing produced reality? And how much of it is necessary or a good idea? Many things to ponder as Earth Day approaches.

And about a month ago, I cut back on shampoo. I was a daily washer. Now, every 2-3 days. My hair is pretty oily by day three usually, but the second day is doable.