NOT SO DAISY FRESH

Summer really starts to stink in mid-August, at least in the U.S., and so does everyone living through it. Even now, there’s little or no deodorant that can stand up to yard work in a 110-degree heat index. Or, let’s be honest, just walking from the air-conditioned car to the air-conditioned room and back again.
But at least we have modern ways to deal with the sweat.
In the late 19th century, there weren’t a lot of effective deodorants, but there was a strong new emphasis on cleanliness. Particularly for the ladies.
August must have been pretty miserable.
Breathable cotton clothes only get you so far if you’re wearing several layers of them. Even with the help of dress shields, which were exactly what they sound like: half-moon-shaped (usually) fabric things that were sewn into the appropriate place in your top, there would still be a lot of sweat out there. Dress shields also came in rubber, but I, for one, don’t even want to imagine what it must have been like to have a chunk of damp rubber stuck to my underarm in 90-degree weather.
And all of that before things started to, shall we say, smell less than daisy-fresh.
The first commercial deodorant, a thick cream with the enchanting name of “Mum,” as in “keep it mum,” was invented in 1888. But it would be decades before people just picked up a stick of something the way we do now. Most folks made or bought some kind of concoction that included perfume to mask the scent of sweat, alum to dry it – and often, an ingredient to discourage the bacteria that make sweat stink.
Terrifyingly, at least some home recipes included carbolic acid. That was a popular disinfectant at the time…not to mention a really good way to get a chemical burn if you used too much of it. Let’s hope most people didn’t.
If you didn’t want to risk a DIY, chances were pretty good your local druggist would have something useful. At the time, local pharmacies made all kinds of concoctions in-house, from patent remedies to cosmetics, and your friendly neighborhood druggist almost certainly had a better handle on how much carbolic acid was too much!
The format of your deodorant wasn’t nearly as set as it is now. Most of us are used to sticks, and the occasional roll-on or crystal. But the roll-on wasn’t invented until the 1950s (inspired by the ballpoint pen, of all things!), and the deodorant itself could have been anything from a thick cream to a thin liquid.
No matter what it was, it was pretty messy to put on by our standards. You’d have to rub in the cream, or use a swab to wipe the liquid on the appropriate spot. Powders were also popular for women, and those aren’t known for staying in one place.
Still, it was all better than reeking. And at worst, if you ended up smelling of lavender, carbolic acid, and sweat, people would know that you did make a good effort. That, for our respectable Victorians, was at least as important as whether you actually succeeded in stamping out the stink.
Cleanliness, after all, was next to godliness…and there’s a reason why all of those old horror stories dwell on the foul stench of demons! (They could have used some Mum!)

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