Latest / Ridiculous History / The History of Morning Routines, Part Two: All Hail The Toothbrush! And Deodorant!

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The History of Morning Routines, Part Two: All Hail The Toothbrush! And Deodorant! · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
0:27
Speaker 1: fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
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Speaker 1: tuning in. Now, a quick bit of housekeeping. You may
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Speaker 1: notice that we had a little classic coming in the
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Speaker 1: place of morning routines Part one and part two, right,
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Speaker 1: and that's just everything's fine. That's just a little scheduling.
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Speaker 1: We'd like to kick off our summer break our What
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Speaker 1: is taking a Thursday a summer break for us? I
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Speaker 1: think it is technically. Let's intro our super producer, mister
0:59
Speaker 1: Max Williams. That's mister Noel Brown. I am Ben Bollen.
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Speaker 1: Previously on Ridiculous History. In Port one, we started talking
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Speaker 1: about just the concept of cleaning yourself up right, look
1:15
Speaker 1: at you, humanity, wash yourself.
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Speaker 2: Washing your ass. It's important. We did devote a lot
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Speaker 2: of that episode to some stuff we discussed in the
1:23
Speaker 2: past in terms of the history of soap and the
1:25
Speaker 2: impact of soap on that whole idea cannot be understated. Today,
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Speaker 2: we felt like this was beefy enough in and of
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Speaker 2: itself for a whole episode. We are moving into oral hygiene. Technically,
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Speaker 2: it's also supposed to be a midday routine and evening routine.
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Speaker 2: But most importantly, I would argue, and I think nine
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Speaker 2: out of ten Dennis might as well eight out of ten. Whatever,
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Speaker 2: morning very important, get a good start brush them teeth.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, if you have to choose one, right, is the
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Speaker 1: one you should choose. But it's also it's interesting because
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Speaker 1: it's like the question of how often you should change
2:06
Speaker 1: the oil on your car. Technically every time you drive it.
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Speaker 1: Oh good, po okay, all right, that's how race cars.
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Speaker 1: That is true.
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Speaker 2: Hence the pit crew and I will walk back a
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Speaker 2: little bit of what I said. We do also know
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Speaker 2: that evening brushing of the teeth may well actually be
2:23
Speaker 2: more important than morning because a lot happens while your
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Speaker 2: mouth is closed and you're sleeping, and all the bacteria
2:28
Speaker 2: that can kind of build up, and if you eat
2:30
Speaker 2: before bed and then you don't brush your teeth, god forbid,
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Speaker 2: it be something with sugar that can really be a
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Speaker 2: problem in that over night time.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, not to high road to anybody, but I
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Speaker 1: love brushing my teeth.
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Speaker 2: I like to do it.
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Speaker 1: At a few years ago, I started saying, you know,
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Speaker 1: we're working from home during COVID.
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Speaker 2: I was like, well, I don't know.
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Speaker 1: Man, anytime I happened by the bathroom, I got a
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Speaker 1: couple minutes.
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Speaker 2: Why not, I've been doing it to have been a
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Speaker 2: multitasker toothbrusher. I got one of those like Wi Fi
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Speaker 2: connected the tooth brushes that monitors your brushing habits. Probably
3:04
Speaker 2: feeds that data directly to talenteer. But whatever, it's fun.
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Speaker 2: It's a fun little gimmick and it really does make
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Speaker 2: me the gamification of oral hygiene really does. It's a motivator.
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Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Yeah. If I could jump in here real quick.
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Speaker 3: I actually on this point about last year, I my
3:22
Speaker 3: dentist told me I was overbrushing.
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Speaker 2: Oh dear. It was like I had only heard of
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Speaker 2: that from parks and red over brushes. Oh my god,
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Speaker 2: that's a real thing. Like, yeah, maybe maybe pair back
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Speaker 2: to brushing and introduce some more flossing, because that's certainly
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Speaker 2: something that I need to do. But I can't imagine
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Speaker 2: that you're not a megafloster.
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Speaker 3: I'm a megafloster. I have a water pick. Hey, everyone,
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Speaker 3: future max right here. I just want to jump in
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Speaker 3: and clarify something I said right there. I want to
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Speaker 3: make sure that everyone knows I'm not saying you use
3:51
Speaker 3: a water pic or floth, but you should use They
3:55
Speaker 3: say you should use a water pick and floths. That
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Speaker 3: much of a flossing nerd that I thought it was
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Speaker 3: essential for me to add this line in here. Well, obviously, yes, that.
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Speaker 2: Seeking in the phone and peacefull in knowledge.
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Speaker 3: It's just for you.
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Speaker 2: Right now.
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Speaker 3: I've met a couple of the people who are megaflosters,
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Speaker 3: and we're all beautiful, wonderful nerds.
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Speaker 1: Well, it's it's good to have a habit that does
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Speaker 1: not become like a routine, is beneficial to a certain
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Speaker 1: threshold before and you can you can overdo anything, uh
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Speaker 1: like I have. I've candidly gotten a little bit too
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Speaker 1: into water again, and you can drink too.
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Speaker 2: Much water swimming Now, I got you consuming water. So
4:50
Speaker 2: while theories about the causes of tooth decay have pervaded
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Speaker 2: over the centuries, much like those miasma theories we talked
4:58
Speaker 2: about the idea of the stench purveying some sort of
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Speaker 2: airborne you know, sickness, We've got a lot of those
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Speaker 2: kind of misplaced theories about things like toothworms in ancient times,
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Speaker 2: which we've probably updated to something that's not far off
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Speaker 2: from toothworms, which would be plaque and the bacteria that
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Speaker 2: is bred on your teeth if you don't brush those chompers.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, plaque is a playground for bacteria and that can
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Speaker 1: lead to decay. Also, statistically speaking, given the billions of
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Speaker 1: people who have lived and died over the course of
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Speaker 1: human history, there probably were a few people with something
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Speaker 1: like a toothworm.
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Speaker 2: Like a toothworm, but it's not normal and name your toothworm.
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Speaker 1: Right right before the modern toothbrushes, water picks and all
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Speaker 1: the do dads were talking about recently, people still knew
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Speaker 1: that oral hygiene was important because you're the first person
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Speaker 1: who smells your own breath, right, So they use cheesesticks
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Speaker 1: and thin twigs that they would gnaw on until one
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Speaker 1: end freyed off into you know, fibrous matter, and that
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Speaker 1: would be a way too, a way to attempt to
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Speaker 1: clean your teeth in your mouth. And depending on where
6:16
Speaker 1: you travel in the world, you may see some people
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Speaker 1: using things like chew sticks in the modern day.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well sure, I mean, even like said, flavored toothpicks
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Speaker 2: are very popular today. You can find these ones that
6:28
Speaker 2: are like confused with eucalyptus or mint rather yeah, maybe
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Speaker 2: not eucalyptus, but mint. And they are really tasty and
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Speaker 2: in a good way to kind of, you know, do
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Speaker 2: a little tooth maintenance throughout the day.
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Speaker 1: They can sometimes feel like a little bit of an
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Speaker 1: appetite suppressor, also true, or just a little little fidget
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Speaker 1: or if.
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Speaker 2: You're trying to quit smoking, for example, I know that's
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Speaker 2: very very very helpful for that. The toothbrush as we
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Speaker 2: more or less know it today does seem to have
6:56
Speaker 2: been invented in China sometimes during the Tang dynasty, and
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Speaker 2: they also invented Tang As it turned that's not true
7:03
Speaker 2: from six eighteen to nine oh seven a d in.
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Speaker 2: The earliest models were made of bamboo or pieces of
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Speaker 2: bone for the handle, and bristles made from boars hairs,
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Speaker 2: much like paintbrushes. Would have been.
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Speaker 1: Right, right, and that sounds super fancy Today when so
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Speaker 1: many toothbrushes are entirely plastic affairs, you can still find
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Speaker 1: boar's hair toothbrushes that they're often promoted these days as
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Speaker 1: an environmentally friendly alternative, you know, to the microplastic laden
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Speaker 1: toothbrushes that most people use. For sure, get rid of
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Speaker 1: that plaque and replace it with microplastic.
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Speaker 2: William Addis and an Englishman of note, gets credit for
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Speaker 2: kind of scaling and mass producing toothbrushes thousands of years later.
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Speaker 2: Years later. Of course, as is usually the case, he supposedly,
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Speaker 2: according to toothbrush lore, created a prototype around seventeen eighteen
8:00
Speaker 2: while in prison because of being a bit of a
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Speaker 2: rabble rouser, a bit of a rioter. In eighteen fifty seven, H. N. Wadsworth,
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Speaker 2: who is a dentist from Washington, DC, got the very
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Speaker 2: first patent in the United States for a toothbrush, which
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Speaker 2: he claimed was much better at scrubbing in between the
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Speaker 2: teeth than previous models.
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Speaker 1: And then we see in nineteen thirty eight the rise
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Speaker 1: of nylon bristles. We see the electric toothbrush all the
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Speaker 1: way back in nineteen thirty seven, courtesy of the American
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Speaker 1: inventor Tomlinson I. Moseley. He patented a design, but it
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Speaker 1: didn't really This happens all the time right with patents.
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Speaker 1: It didn't really catch on until someone else comes in
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Speaker 1: with maybe a more functional or somehow more friendly user
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Speaker 1: friendly model. So his is nineteen fifty four.
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Speaker 2: Kind of reckon that an early electric toothbrush might have
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Speaker 2: been a little bit of a terrify buying properties. It's
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Speaker 2: got a pull cord, uh huh, and it's gas power.
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Speaker 2: It's gas powered, so you have a you have.
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Speaker 1: A canister that you put on your back and that's
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Speaker 1: where you rip the cord. It's basically a lawnmower for
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Speaker 1: your mouth.
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Speaker 2: There's a tube. I'm so into this.
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Speaker 1: This is like Sussian and yeah, anyway, the thing about
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Speaker 1: this is we're talking about toothbrushes, and it may be
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Speaker 1: surprising to learn how old some of these innovations are.
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Speaker 1: But what was really mind blowing on my end was
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Speaker 1: to learn that toothpaste came before the toothbrush. They sued
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Speaker 1: out the gunk first.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean you know that sometimes people would
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Speaker 2: maybe just like apply it to their teeth, you know,
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Speaker 2: in the earliest days. Of course, the ancient Egyptians were
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Speaker 2: pretty quick to the party on a lot of this
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Speaker 2: kind of beauty stuff. Around three thousand to five thousand BCE,
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Speaker 2: they developed a dental cream with powdered ashes from the
10:01
Speaker 2: hooves of oxen. It also contained mr which is I
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Speaker 2: think kind of like an incense. It's like a aromatic material.
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Speaker 2: And well, maybe well that's frank incense. Maybe I'm confusing
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Speaker 2: my three wise men gifts eggshells as well, and pummis,
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Speaker 2: which does make sense because the toothpaste that they use
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Speaker 2: of the dentist does have these kind of particulate things
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Speaker 2: in it, the kind of grit that sort of helps,
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Speaker 2: you know, get the gunk off, and some toothpaste that
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Speaker 2: you can buy for home use has that as well.
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Speaker 2: So they really were pretty innovative in terms of like
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Speaker 2: the overall makeup of what kind of materials should be used,
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Speaker 2: something that like the ashes we know was a precursor
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Speaker 2: to soap. The hooves and the murrher perhaps were a
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Speaker 2: bit of a stabilizing agents or something to kind of
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Speaker 2: tie the room together, and the murdher perhaps also an
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Speaker 2: aromatic kind of situation a flavor. And then the eggshells
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Speaker 2: and the pumas would be the grit that would you know,
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Speaker 2: hopefully help you know, get some of the gook off
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Speaker 2: of You'd have to be careful with thought though, really
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Speaker 2: what you could damage the enamelog Yeah, such a needle
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Speaker 2: to thread with the abrision.
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Speaker 1: We also see not too too far away, people in
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Speaker 1: ancient Persia around one thousand BCE were doing similar things.
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Speaker 1: They made a mixture with gypsum, herbs and honey. So good,
11:18
Speaker 1: so far, and then the shop on twist. Yeah, the
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Speaker 1: shells of snails and oysters. Shells of snails and oysters.
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Speaker 1: I guess they'd smash them up and then again it
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Speaker 1: would be that kind of particulate matter. Yeah, probably like
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Speaker 1: a mortar pestle situation.
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Speaker 2: Totally, but it would it would kind of serve similar
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Speaker 2: purpose to those eggshells and pumus that the ancient Egyptians
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Speaker 2: were parallel thinking about. People would continue to kind of
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Speaker 2: make their own unique recipes for toothpastes and powders throughout history.
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Speaker 2: In eighteen sixty, book titled The Practical Housewife recommended mixtures
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Speaker 2: of powdered ris root, charcoal, Peruvian bark, something called prepared chalk,
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Speaker 2: which sounds interesting, and oil of bergamot or lavender. Now
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Speaker 2: we are starting to get into the more like spearmint
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Speaker 2: kind of flavoring, you know, of modern toothpaste. We were
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Speaker 2: already starting to get that sort of vibe with the
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Speaker 2: lavender and bergamont. A Connecticut dentist, a guy named Boy
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Speaker 2: of boy these names, Washington Wentworth Sheffield. He gets credit
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Speaker 2: for the idea of packing toothpaste into a tube, and
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Speaker 2: the rest is history. We can stop here the tube.
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Speaker 2: You gotta squeeze it from the end. By the way,
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Speaker 2: he's ad from the middle.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, the ADA is cutting into the show right now.
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Speaker 1: That's the American Dental Association. And I want to bring
12:38
Speaker 1: up we used one of my favorite US idiomatic phrases.
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Speaker 1: Nine out of ten dentists. I have this deep mythos
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Speaker 1: to my head about the renegade tenth dentist. I want
12:51
Speaker 1: to write a guy story. Yeah, he's the he's the
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Speaker 1: guy who beat me your backs. He's the guy on
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Speaker 1: every survey who says no toothpaste, Yeah, eat.
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Speaker 2: Sugar before bed. He's a real maverick. He'shannon. Yeah, he's
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Speaker 2: an anti hero.
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Speaker 1: But before this tube innovation, which was actually pretty huge,
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Speaker 1: a lot of people made toothpaste at home to save money.
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Speaker 1: And when they bought it in say the old general
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Speaker 1: store prior to the eighteen eighties, they were getting little pots,
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Speaker 1: like little almost like you would see a glass jar
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Speaker 1: of yogurt at the store, or paper boxes.
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Speaker 2: One hundred percent. And I maybe imagine that different stores
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Speaker 2: and early pharmacies in the way that. You know, early
13:39
Speaker 2: pharmacies would actually mix up the medicine on site. You know,
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Speaker 2: That's why I like the mortar and pestle is sort
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Speaker 2: of a symbol of that that some of these would
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Speaker 2: be sort of house versions, right, Yeah, like these, these
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Speaker 2: these tooth creams.
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Speaker 1: And we have an embarrassing, yet overall positive story to
13:57
Speaker 1: tell you about American history. Everything we described in the
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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, when we look at the US, it only
14:05
Speaker 1: applied to a pretty small demographic of Americans. Most people
14:11
Speaker 1: did not brush their teeth until a brilliant American businessman
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Speaker 1: named Claude C. Hopkins starts talking to an old buddy
14:19
Speaker 1: of his, and his buddy had created a minty, frothy
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Speaker 1: toothpaste that didn't taste bad, no burnt snail shells. He
14:27
Speaker 1: called it pepsident. And Hopkins is a marketing guy, right,
14:33
Speaker 1: He's not the guy who invents pepsident. He's the guy
14:36
Speaker 1: who normalizes brushing your teeth. So he launches on these
14:42
Speaker 1: Brens esque advertising campaigns, and they see results in more
14:54
Speaker 1: and more polls. The average American is saying, yeah, I
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Speaker 1: brush my teeth. It's kind of like popularizing bathing. Back
15:02
Speaker 1: in the day.
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Speaker 2: It really is, And it's so interesting to think of
15:05
Speaker 2: a time where like the humble toothbrush and toothpaste were
15:08
Speaker 2: like almost a novelty. He started to have like influencer
15:11
Speaker 2: type screaming about their pepsident smiles. And can I just
15:16
Speaker 2: say too, Ben that I love early marketing and early
15:19
Speaker 2: kind of product placement type stuff with like the Craft's
15:22
Speaker 2: radio theater or whatever. That's exactly right be the Colgate Hour.
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Speaker 2: But the term pep was so popular. I love pep.
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Speaker 2: I mean, has nothing to do with what we're talking
15:34
Speaker 2: about here, but the idea that this would maybe give
15:37
Speaker 2: you pep. I wouldn't be surprised if that was part
15:39
Speaker 2: of the marketing, Oh.
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Speaker 1: One hundred percent right, give you that famous pepsiden smile.
15:45
Speaker 1: And pepsident is this brilliant bit of language because it
15:50
Speaker 1: implies something, but it does not promise anything. Right, So
15:56
Speaker 1: Hopkins is figuring out a little bit of background on
15:59
Speaker 1: the smart He's figuring out how to promote pepsidens normalize
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Speaker 1: brushing one's teeth, And he says, Okay, I'm not a dentist,
16:08
Speaker 1: but I've got to find a way to make the
16:10
Speaker 1: case to the American people. So I can make a
16:12
Speaker 1: lot of money, and it is autobiography. He would later
16:16
Speaker 1: write about how he sat down with a pile of
16:19
Speaker 1: dental textbooks, the textbooks that kids have to study to
16:24
Speaker 1: become dentists, and in the middle of one book, he says,
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Speaker 1: I found a reference to the musin plaques on teeth,
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Speaker 1: which I afterwards called the film. And this gave me
16:33
Speaker 1: an appealing idea. I said, I'll advertise toothpaste as a
16:37
Speaker 1: creator of beauty. And that's what they're That's what he
16:42
Speaker 1: starts arguing for. It's not health necessarily, it's vanity. Why
16:48
Speaker 1: don't why don't you give yourself a bright, shiny smile
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Speaker 1: like the Shirley Temples and the Clark Gables and all
16:55
Speaker 1: the other folks on the big screen.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, run your tongue across your teeth and feel that
17:00
Speaker 2: icky film. That is the stuff that makes your teeth
17:03
Speaker 2: look a little bit off color. And he said in
17:07
Speaker 2: the marketing campaign invites decay. This is back in the
17:11
Speaker 2: day where you didn't necessarily need a ton of scientific
17:14
Speaker 2: backing to make claims like this.
17:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, nine out of ten dentists recommend camel cigarettes.
17:20
Speaker 2: They did. That's not a joke. I know, I know,
17:23
Speaker 2: it's a thing. Some even would argue or make the
17:26
Speaker 2: claim that cigarettes, certain brands of cigarettes were good for you,
17:29
Speaker 2: were good for your teeth.
17:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, ever, relaxing for you know whatever, sound scientific but
17:35
Speaker 1: is not scientific. Relaxing for the constitution, freshening of the lungs,
17:40
Speaker 1: which is near were.
17:41
Speaker 2: Enough the opposite of what cigarettes do.
17:43
Speaker 1: But this is another mind blower. All of these things
17:47
Speaker 1: that we just described, again, in the history of toothpaste,
17:51
Speaker 1: they did not have fluoride. That didn't come along until
17:53
Speaker 1: after World War Two in nineteen fifty five.
17:57
Speaker 2: So in nineteen fifty five we see Test launching their
18:01
Speaker 2: product line with the first toothpaste containing fluoride, which did
18:07
Speaker 2: have some scientific backing, which in and of itself, because
18:11
Speaker 2: of the lack of it, was like a huge marketing point.
18:14
Speaker 2: I would say research had shown that this material was
18:18
Speaker 2: the substance, was in fact effective in reducing cavities. And
18:22
Speaker 2: of course we know Norman Rockwell, painter of Americana, literal
18:28
Speaker 2: inventor of the visual reference to the American Dream, did
18:33
Speaker 2: illustrate those early crest ads featuring young people keep boys
18:38
Speaker 2: and girls, families hanging out, having a good time living
18:43
Speaker 2: that American dream and parroting the tagline, look, mom, no cavities.
18:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, perfect stuff, right, and an amazing painter my opinion,
18:54
Speaker 1: I just enjoyed, agreed the way he paints a story.
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Speaker 2: You could argue it's propaganda, though much is Oh, I'm
19:00
Speaker 2: not arguing that is just a fact.
19:03
Speaker 1: But we do know that floridation has been considered controversial
19:09
Speaker 1: in certain parts of the world and at points in time,
19:12
Speaker 1: but the overall science teaches us that fluoride in toothpaste
19:18
Speaker 1: is a good thing. You know, and you can trace
19:21
Speaker 1: rates of tooth decay in places or in populations that
19:25
Speaker 1: don't have floridated toothpaste.
19:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, and many municipalities around the country and around the
19:31
Speaker 2: world do still floridate there drinking water supply. And another
19:36
Speaker 2: thing that's under fire is that practice, with Robert F.
19:40
Speaker 2: Kennedy having some real hot takes on floridation and perhaps
19:45
Speaker 2: I think some pretty lacking scientifically claims about other knock
19:51
Speaker 2: on effects if I'm not mistaken.
19:53
Speaker 1: Right, I don't want to be too too political. I
19:56
Speaker 1: think that is a quintessential example of how off people
20:00
Speaker 1: can be when they never admit that they're wrong. And
20:04
Speaker 1: no one has ever called them on the progressively crazier things.
20:08
Speaker 2: They say, yeah, for sure. I mean I just say,
20:10
Speaker 2: you know, we know that floride has been controversial for
20:13
Speaker 2: a long time. This isn't like a new thing. So
20:16
Speaker 2: I guess that gets us a modern day. So why
20:18
Speaker 2: don't we move on to another facet fixture of the
20:23
Speaker 2: morning ritual, the humble deodorant stick yor perhaps deodorant spray.
20:29
Speaker 2: And when you start looking into that, you start looking
20:32
Speaker 2: further back and realizing that things like perfume are the
20:36
Speaker 2: predecessor of like a chemical agent that actually reduces sweat.
20:40
Speaker 2: Initially everything was about masking the stink.
20:44
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Like I was saying in part one, the
20:47
Speaker 1: first thing you would notice as a time traveler, depending
20:50
Speaker 1: on how far back you went, is that the past
20:52
Speaker 1: is stinky.
20:53
Speaker 2: Yes, so yeah, it's come up many times in the
20:56
Speaker 2: show and others.
20:57
Speaker 1: Essential oils are one of the earliest forms of masking
21:02
Speaker 1: an odor, right, And from there we get perfume. Or
21:05
Speaker 1: you were out in the woods and you smell a
21:08
Speaker 1: beautiful flower and you wonder, how could I smell like
21:11
Speaker 1: that instead of like bo?
21:13
Speaker 2: But instead you smell sort of like that mixed with bo.
21:17
Speaker 1: Right, Like how hospitals have a lemon scented sanitizer, but
21:22
Speaker 1: you smell what's under there.
21:23
Speaker 2: Sure.
21:24
Speaker 1: Due in more recent history, we started to see that
21:28
Speaker 1: people would take absorbent fabric and kind of sponge under
21:32
Speaker 1: their arms so that it didn't soak through their clothes.
21:35
Speaker 1: And then we see talcum powder, then the discovery or
21:38
Speaker 1: creation of baking soda. These were all precursors to modern
21:42
Speaker 1: day deodorant, and some deodorants still have baking soda or
21:46
Speaker 1: talcum powder or others sent agents to mask a smell.
21:50
Speaker 2: But not mistaken. Arm and Hammer has their own line
21:52
Speaker 2: of toothpaste.
21:54
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, as well, Look they took the baking soda
21:58
Speaker 1: train and figured out how to put it into everything totally. Yeah.
22:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then to be fair, making soda is a
22:04
Speaker 2: great odor absorber, Like if you put it like an
22:06
Speaker 2: open thing of baking soda in your fridge, it helps
22:08
Speaker 2: cut down on weird fridge smells. It's a pretty interesting
22:11
Speaker 2: substance that is pretty you know, useful in a lot
22:14
Speaker 2: of different ways. The earliest forms of deodorant we start
22:18
Speaker 2: to see emerging around two thousand BC in Mesopotamia, which
22:22
Speaker 2: it would be modern day Iraq, where people started to
22:25
Speaker 2: use aromatic remedies that included natural ingredients like oils and
22:30
Speaker 2: resins in order to of course mask that smell of
22:34
Speaker 2: body odor. They were often applied during a morning bathing routine.
22:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. The ancient Egyptians also were again first to the
22:44
Speaker 1: game in a lot of ways here, possibly because they
22:48
Speaker 1: were just such an ancient society, so they were the
22:51
Speaker 1: first to the post outside of Mesopotamia. They used a
22:55
Speaker 1: blend of natural ingredients, scented oils, incense, all to you know,
23:01
Speaker 1: mask the smell of living in a punishing desert climate.
23:06
Speaker 1: Cleopatra was always historically renowned as a beautiful public figure,
23:12
Speaker 1: and part of her beauty was her hygiene. She used
23:17
Speaker 1: her own perfumed claims for these purposes, oils and sense.
23:23
Speaker 1: This also transferred over to ancient Greece. The Greeks always
23:27
Speaker 1: took inspiration from the Egyptians, just like with bathing, right,
23:31
Speaker 1: just like with soap, and they started putting in a
23:34
Speaker 1: nice little smell in their grooming routine that continues on today.
23:39
Speaker 1: I like little sprits of something which just makes you
23:42
Speaker 1: feel good.
23:42
Speaker 2: You know, I love it. Yeah, And my middle age,
23:45
Speaker 2: I have become a lot more interested in colognes and
23:49
Speaker 2: things and try to have some classy ones, nothing too
23:52
Speaker 2: acrid or over the top. But I also really like
23:54
Speaker 2: a little rose water missed, you know, and like it's refreshing.
23:58
Speaker 2: You spray it in your face, closed your eyes and
24:00
Speaker 2: kind of missed yourself and it really does feel super nice.
24:03
Speaker 2: So I get that.
24:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one of my favorite quotes about klone for
24:08
Speaker 1: anybody considering getting into that game or perfume is cologne
24:13
Speaker 1: must be discovered, never announced. Yeah, or also a dabble doom.
24:24
Speaker 1: The Romans said a dab will not do them. They
24:28
Speaker 1: took personal hygiene almost to a different level. No, they
24:31
Speaker 1: wanted to go extra with it.
24:32
Speaker 2: No, I know.
24:33
Speaker 1: They already had the bath houses, and then they started
24:36
Speaker 1: adding a koutraumol there, festooning it with fragrant oils herbs
24:40
Speaker 1: and perfuming the waters, which is an interesting thing. You know.
24:45
Speaker 1: I've been to Onsen's, I've been to bathhouses before. Perfumed
24:48
Speaker 1: water is not something I have too much experience with.
24:52
Speaker 2: No, No, nor I do know. Though. A carryover I
24:55
Speaker 2: guess from this period of Egyptian sense would be the
25:00
Speaker 2: the much wrapped about Egyptian musk. I guess it's a
25:05
Speaker 2: sense you can get like. It's also an incense, popular incense.
25:09
Speaker 2: But I think it is in a Wu Tang lyric
25:11
Speaker 2: where they say something is fly like Egyptian musk.
25:16
Speaker 1: I believe you, because they're just fantastic with their strangely
25:21
Speaker 1: specific references. You know what I mean. I'm going to
25:25
Speaker 1: have to find that lyric and listen to that song.
25:28
Speaker 1: They made this mixture. The Romans, not Wu Tang, made
25:31
Speaker 1: this mixture they called ungeons, which was charcoal, animal fat,
25:36
Speaker 1: scented oil, so kind of like scented soap, basically as
25:40
Speaker 1: a paste, and they applied it to the body the
25:42
Speaker 1: way you would apply to the odorant. Today, however, the
25:46
Speaker 1: world is still divided on what should be considered a
25:51
Speaker 1: hygienic or uncomfortable body odor. In the US here where
25:56
Speaker 1: we often record this show, it's it's considered a social
26:01
Speaker 1: faux paws to have very loud bo right, and you
26:05
Speaker 1: hate getting stuck on the train or stuck in an
26:08
Speaker 1: elevator or any other enclosed space with someone who just
26:11
Speaker 1: smells like they need to clean themselves up.
26:14
Speaker 2: Part of it for New Yorkers in particular, have or
26:18
Speaker 2: and on just New Yorkers but anyone that is relying
26:20
Speaker 2: on close quarter public transit bo is a real triggers say,
26:27
Speaker 2: it's not great. In the best of times, when you
26:29
Speaker 2: were crowded into a subway car or like an l
26:33
Speaker 2: train and someone's like holding on to that little little
26:36
Speaker 2: strap on the ceiling fully exposed pit, you do not
26:40
Speaker 2: want there to be a green wafting fumes coming from that,
26:43
Speaker 2: like in a bugs bunny cart. It's it's egregious.
26:46
Speaker 1: It's just it's the old factory version of having music
26:51
Speaker 1: or a phone conversation going without headphones, you know what
26:55
Speaker 1: I mean. It's just I feel like not everybody comes
26:59
Speaker 1: from the same, sir, circumstances. But the ability to bathe
27:04
Speaker 1: and the ability to find deodorant or relatively, you know,
27:09
Speaker 1: that's a low bar.
27:10
Speaker 2: It's a low bar of soap right there.
27:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's got to be at least here in the West,
27:16
Speaker 1: at least. Part of it is these huge, continuing marketing campaigns,
27:21
Speaker 1: right and that's why we'll have more of our hippie
27:25
Speaker 1: esque friends saying, well, why can't people just smell like people?
27:29
Speaker 1: You know, you guys are so programmed. Everybody's got to
27:32
Speaker 1: smell like elder flowers. And aluminum.
27:35
Speaker 2: That is funny. Yeah, I love the scent of aluminum.
27:38
Speaker 2: We'll get into aluminum, by the way, because that is
27:40
Speaker 2: a problematic additive of certain types of deodorant, and there's
27:43
Speaker 2: sort of a holistic backlash against some of that, let's
27:47
Speaker 2: just say, and maybe some of those less chemically products
27:50
Speaker 2: they don't quite work as well, and you do sort
27:52
Speaker 2: of return back to the masking over actually dealing with
27:55
Speaker 2: the issue situation.
27:58
Speaker 1: Now, after all the ancient history, it is not until
28:02
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty eight that the first commercial deodorant debuts. It
28:07
Speaker 1: is called mum and this happens just a few years
28:10
Speaker 1: of the word after the toothpaste stuff. Right, So the
28:13
Speaker 1: early form of deodorant came in. It was like a
28:18
Speaker 1: wax pasty thing in a metal tin made of zinc
28:22
Speaker 1: oxide and then other natural ingredients, stabilizers, you know, things
28:27
Speaker 1: for the texture and this cream. Because of that zinc oxide,
28:32
Speaker 1: it was able to not just mask your sweat, but
28:36
Speaker 1: it was able to eradicate some of the bacteria on
28:41
Speaker 1: your skin, and your bacteria is what's making a lot
28:44
Speaker 1: of those foul smells.
28:46
Speaker 2: Although one might argue some of these early methods of
28:50
Speaker 2: anti perse rent weren't the best because they were using
28:55
Speaker 2: aluminum salts, which did prevent sweating, but they did so
28:58
Speaker 2: by clogging pores, which doesn't sound good. I don't think
29:03
Speaker 2: that's good. This is in nineteen o three with ever
29:06
Speaker 2: dry No every dry right, like ever dry better?
29:10
Speaker 1: Personally, I like ever dry better. It's a cleaner word, actually.
29:14
Speaker 2: But every dry doesn't really roll off the tongue.
29:16
Speaker 1: I like that point though about aluminum salts because it's
29:19
Speaker 1: kind of like saying, oh, someone is breathing too loud,
29:23
Speaker 1: so let's shut their nose and take their mouths.
29:26
Speaker 2: Problem solve. You do need some breatheability in the skin
29:31
Speaker 2: in the underarm, and clogged pores can lead to some
29:35
Speaker 2: negative knock on consequences. I believe you can even get
29:38
Speaker 2: like infections and stuff if you have too much, you know,
29:41
Speaker 2: clogged pores. AnyWho, in nineteen ten in Cincinnati, Ohio, which,
29:46
Speaker 2: by the way, we may have talked about the Cincinnati
29:49
Speaker 2: I found out many years ago was a big jingle town,
29:53
Speaker 2: was a big advertising town, and a lot of like
29:56
Speaker 2: jingle writing took place in Cincinnati. To an appropriate mention,
30:01
Speaker 2: So the unique combo of a surgeon and his school
30:05
Speaker 2: aged daughter as well as a bible salesman, former door
30:09
Speaker 2: to door bible salesman, because that used to be a thing.
30:13
Speaker 2: All coalesced and you know, sounds like a what is
30:16
Speaker 2: it like a walk into a bar kind of joke,
30:20
Speaker 2: but they all coalesced and came together to lay the
30:21
Speaker 2: foundations of what is now an eighteen billion dollar industry.
30:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a guy named doctor Abraham D. Murphy,
30:30
Speaker 1: and he is in an operating room pretty often because
30:35
Speaker 1: he's a doctor. In the early nineteen hundreds, this guy
30:39
Speaker 1: is a bit of a renaissance man. So in addition
30:41
Speaker 1: to being a crackerjack doctor, he invents a liquid substance
30:46
Speaker 1: that helps keep his hands free of sweat in the
30:49
Speaker 1: oar and his daughter we mentioned just a second ago.
30:52
Speaker 1: Her name is Edna. She tries this liquid anti perspirate
30:57
Speaker 1: thing to stop you from sweating on her arm pits,
31:00
Speaker 1: and she says, hey, not only are my pits finally dry?
31:04
Speaker 1: I'm sorry now, I don't mean to paint you as
31:06
Speaker 1: though you're some sweat ridden child. But she says, uh,
31:10
Speaker 1: you know, my uh, it's a good.
31:11
Speaker 2: Insult, right sweat ridden? Yeah, assults of injury for sure.
31:17
Speaker 1: So she says, not only does this dry out my pits,
31:21
Speaker 1: but also it helps address bo smells body odor smells,
31:26
Speaker 1: and they named it.
31:29
Speaker 2: Odor no oh no, isn't odo ban also a thing
31:35
Speaker 2: Odo Ban, I want to say, is a spray to
31:39
Speaker 2: for for like furniture. It's an odor absorber, odo ban theodoriser.
31:44
Speaker 2: It's more of a chemical product for pet solutions to say, right,
31:49
Speaker 2: which I think is great and also just sounds like
31:51
Speaker 2: one of those old timey brands Odo ban. We have
31:55
Speaker 2: Odo oh no? Right? Odor? Oh no? Odor oh no.
32:01
Speaker 2: It's just fun to say. You're like, oh no, it's
32:04
Speaker 2: more fun. Sorry, we're rewriting advertising history here.
32:07
Speaker 1: But I feel like it sounds like, uh, it would
32:10
Speaker 1: be a great episode of Deep Space nine. Odo oh
32:13
Speaker 1: no for you, that's for you.
32:15
Speaker 2: Max and her cousin Yoko No Yoko.
32:18
Speaker 3: Oh no, it'd be uh. It would definitely be an
32:22
Speaker 3: Odo and Corek episode, but not the one where they
32:24
Speaker 3: have to climb up on a mountain because that one's
32:26
Speaker 3: really sweat.
32:26
Speaker 2: Odo is a character. Yeah.
32:28
Speaker 1: Odo is a shifting character from beyond the wormhole.
32:32
Speaker 2: He's crazy, one of the local characters in Star Trek history. Fair. Yeah,
32:36
Speaker 2: it's hot take for Max, it's dick at all.
32:40
Speaker 3: Okay, wow, not everyone, not everyone loves him, but everyone
32:45
Speaker 3: can everyone can agree that he's a.
32:47
Speaker 2: Really good character, really compelling.
32:49
Speaker 3: Renee Autobate. I can never get his last name.
32:51
Speaker 2: It is complicated.
32:52
Speaker 3: But he had been acting for he was in his
32:53
Speaker 3: seventies I think, or maybe sixties when he did Odo.
32:56
Speaker 2: He was a very good actor. Uh.
32:57
Speaker 3: He passed away I think twenty nineteen, right after the
33:01
Speaker 3: documentary came out. The documentary is also amazing. Our future
33:04
Speaker 3: Max is back or recorded one for that flossing bit earlier.
33:08
Speaker 3: So how hard is it to put a second addendum
33:10
Speaker 3: in here? The beauties of being the producer?
33:13
Speaker 2: So I looked it up.
33:14
Speaker 3: It's pronounced Renee ober Jenois, Renee ober Jennoi. Apologies because
33:20
Speaker 3: I know I'm not nailing the pronunciation perfectly. His first
33:24
Speaker 3: credit roll, according to IMDb, was from nineteen seventy where
33:27
Speaker 3: he played father John m'kayhee on an episode of Mesh.
33:30
Speaker 3: He's also in seventy three episodes of Boston Legal along
33:34
Speaker 3: with fellow star trek Alum William Shatner. He did pass
33:38
Speaker 3: away in twenty nineteen at the age seventy nine. And
33:40
Speaker 3: you know, Noel just said, oh, hot taker, right there, No,
33:44
Speaker 3: not at all. According to IGN, he is the seventh
33:47
Speaker 3: best character in Star Trek history, while the rap has
33:50
Speaker 3: him as eighth. And you may be saying, oh, that's
33:52
Speaker 3: not so high. He's behind like people like Data McCoy,
33:56
Speaker 3: Cisco Spock, Jean Luke, Ricard Kirk, big names, so very popular,
34:22
Speaker 3: r I.
34:23
Speaker 2: P Odo.
34:24
Speaker 1: So the issue with is that it's so fun.
34:31
Speaker 2: Oh wait, if you say that's better, that's better than Odon,
34:37
Speaker 2: you just gotta do the it's it's all. It's all
34:39
Speaker 2: in how you.
34:40
Speaker 1: Say it's Yeah, it's got a good that what it
34:47
Speaker 1: reminds me of that toast of lented.
34:50
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, there's only something. No, there's a lot of
34:53
Speaker 2: ways emphasize. So, okay.
34:57
Speaker 1: Is not perfect. It irritates the skin, especially if you
35:02
Speaker 1: use it regularly, and because of the acidic aluminum that
35:06
Speaker 1: we've been teasing here, it can also damage your clothing.
35:09
Speaker 1: This stuff is hardcore.
35:11
Speaker 2: So then we've got another chemist, this one I believe
35:14
Speaker 2: from France, entering the Chat in nineteen forty. To help
35:18
Speaker 2: out with this problem. He filed a patent for a
35:22
Speaker 2: what's called a buffered antiperspirant stop beet with the.
35:28
Speaker 1: French ending ette exactly. This resolves that excessive acidity problem
35:36
Speaker 1: by combining anti perspirant with a soluble nitrile, which is
35:41
Speaker 1: not as bad as it sounds.
35:43
Speaker 2: Now it's soluble. You don't want it to be insoluble. Right,
35:47
Speaker 2: it's soluble. That means that it well, I don't know,
35:50
Speaker 2: I'm just talking.
35:52
Speaker 1: So it's after World War two. This is a huge
35:56
Speaker 1: time for American progress and for American consumerism because.
36:01
Speaker 2: A lot of those innovations get accelerated due to a
36:03
Speaker 2: war effort, and then that stuff sort of trickles down
36:05
Speaker 2: into normal, polite society. Right.
36:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, aerosol spray is an excellent example of that. This
36:13
Speaker 1: is a technology that came from the military, and now
36:16
Speaker 1: people are saying aerosol spray is a new and convenient
36:20
Speaker 1: way to apply deodorant. History would prove people started using
36:23
Speaker 1: aerosol spray for almost everything through the fifties and sixties
36:28
Speaker 1: and even today.
36:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, but all those CFC's really led to the depopularization
36:35
Speaker 2: of aerosols of all kinds. And I would argue that
36:38
Speaker 2: there certainly are I see it every now and again
36:41
Speaker 2: in a hair salon, but typically things are more like
36:45
Speaker 2: would you call them palmdes or you know, or pumps,
36:48
Speaker 2: pumps exactly more like a spritz rather than the aerosol
36:52
Speaker 2: because in nineteen seventy seven, the FDA banned aluminums or conium,
36:56
Speaker 2: which is the active ingredient in aerosols, over safety concerns
37:01
Speaker 2: and also of course the EPA raising concerns of those
37:04
Speaker 2: CFC propellants used in aerosols causing depletion in our precious
37:09
Speaker 2: ozone layer.
37:10
Speaker 1: And this is where we can give you some good news, folks.
37:13
Speaker 1: In addition to the invention of roll on deodorant and
37:19
Speaker 1: the rise and fall of aerosol technology, we've seen real
37:24
Speaker 1: positive results from banning aluminum zirconium.
37:29
Speaker 2: Like heals itself a little bit done it.
37:33
Speaker 1: As of September twenty twenty four, the United Nations found
37:38
Speaker 1: the ozone layer is well on track for a full recovery.
37:42
Speaker 2: So go team, And not to be political, but just
37:45
Speaker 2: do you want to point out that there are some
37:48
Speaker 2: qualities to this progress that may well be reversed due
37:51
Speaker 2: to some not particularly environmentally friendly policies of various governments
37:57
Speaker 2: across the world, not just here in the United.
37:59
Speaker 1: Yet it goes back and forth, right and we see
38:04
Speaker 1: various cultural shifts. It's just it's tough to get you know,
38:09
Speaker 1: even twelve people to agree on something. So getting a
38:12
Speaker 1: billion people to forego convenience or fore go profit in
38:17
Speaker 1: pursuit of the greater good, that's always going to be.
38:20
Speaker 2: A tall milkshake. It's tough. Yeah, especially you know, in
38:23
Speaker 2: a in a country and a society where a kind
38:25
Speaker 2: of profit is sort of the name of the game,
38:27
Speaker 2: and a year over year growth is not just you know,
38:31
Speaker 2: a suggestion, it's an expectation.
38:33
Speaker 1: Check out our earlier episode, which unfortunately still holds up
38:38
Speaker 1: on how the how the US started moving away from
38:43
Speaker 1: the term citizen and started calling people consumers.
38:46
Speaker 2: Oh that is a fun episode. I totally forgot about that,
38:48
Speaker 2: and it really ties into this whole marketing aspect of
38:51
Speaker 2: history that we're always on about. And with that we
38:55
Speaker 2: have we have war that we want to get to.
38:58
Speaker 2: We do starting with aerosol. We could have gotten into hairspray,
39:01
Speaker 2: of course, which we teased a little bit, and palmaids
39:04
Speaker 2: and various you know, natural remedies for that. But honestly, Ben,
39:07
Speaker 2: I think Jeff really went over and above on this one,
39:10
Speaker 2: and really the hair stuff is kind of its own thing.
39:13
Speaker 2: You know, we can maybe do a history of hairstyling
39:16
Speaker 2: and haircuts and hair products, right.
39:18
Speaker 1: Especially the ridiculous versions of what people put in their hair,
39:24
Speaker 1: either in good faith attempts for better health, or for
39:30
Speaker 1: vanity or for spiritual purposes. The story's pretty wild, and
39:34
Speaker 1: we can't wait for you to join us on that journey.
39:37
Speaker 1: For now, we're going to call it a day. We're
39:40
Speaker 1: going to go participate in our brushing, but not overbrushing,
39:44
Speaker 1: right so well.
39:46
Speaker 2: Also, don't put too much pressure, don't use to it.
39:48
Speaker 2: That's one thing I like about my electric toothbrush. It
39:50
Speaker 2: tells you when you're pushing too hard, and it also
39:53
Speaker 2: vibrates periodically to let you know when to move on
39:56
Speaker 2: to the next quadrant.
39:57
Speaker 1: Also, don't use too much toothpase. Remember when you see
40:01
Speaker 1: ads for toothpaste, that huge s shaped dollup they put
40:05
Speaker 1: on there, that's not dolphin and that's just by like
40:09
Speaker 1: they make money when you over use toothpaste.
40:12
Speaker 2: But also like food styling and that kind of styling,
40:14
Speaker 2: like what you're looking at there is some sort of
40:17
Speaker 2: polyurethane like you know, folm or something.
40:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so with that we want to give a
40:23
Speaker 1: big thanks and shout out to our super producer mister
40:27
Speaker 1: Max Williams, our research associate for this episode, Jeff Factor
40:31
Speaker 1: G Bartlett, and then of course aj Bahama's Jacobs. I wonder, yeah,
40:37
Speaker 1: I'm still wondering if he if he saved a morning
40:39
Speaker 1: routine from his year of living constitutionally.
40:42
Speaker 2: We wouldn't they have used like charcoal too. We haven't
40:45
Speaker 2: really talked about activated charcoal have base, which is becoming
40:49
Speaker 2: kind of trendy now, but it does strike me as
40:51
Speaker 2: maybe something that they would have used in olden times
40:54
Speaker 2: to still brush their teeth with charcoal. It's a real
40:56
Speaker 2: interesting way to take a really freaky selfie with your
40:59
Speaker 2: teeth thought blacked out. Yeah.
41:01
Speaker 1: We also didn't talk about just the aesthetics of some
41:04
Speaker 1: tooth treatments that people used in the past, like that
41:07
Speaker 1: period of time in Japan where was considered attractive for
41:11
Speaker 1: women to out their teeth blacked.
41:12
Speaker 2: Out, and we could also lead that into things like
41:16
Speaker 2: grill culture. Yeah, and what's the word, I guess you
41:20
Speaker 2: could say aesthetic dentistry.
41:22
Speaker 1: Aesthetic dentistry, Oh, yeah, like when people are bejeweling their
41:26
Speaker 1: teeth now timporarily.
41:28
Speaker 2: Apparently Kanye has gone insane because of the affection that
41:31
Speaker 2: he got from his grill piece.
41:33
Speaker 1: That's one of the theories, Ed. One of our theories
41:37
Speaker 1: is that you will join us very soon for another
41:40
Speaker 1: episode in the future.
41:41
Speaker 2: Who else do we need to thank here at the end?
41:43
Speaker 2: They Oh, obviously we got to think Chris frosciotis and
41:46
Speaker 2: he's Jeff Coates here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland, the Quizzer.
41:49
Speaker 2: You already thanked the puzzler A J. Mohamas. I'm Ben.
41:52
Speaker 2: Thanks to you, buddy, Thanks to you, Buckaroo. We'll see
41:56
Speaker 2: you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
42:06
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
42:09
Speaker 2: your favorite shows.