Until modern times, taking a bath was rare, even controversial. The Spanish saw it as a Muslim custom, and the French thought that it softened the body and opened the pores to disease. It was seen as more hygienic for the élite to change clothes often and wear them tight. But there were some early adopters. Queen Elizabeth I is said to have taken a bath once a month whether she thought she needed it or not, and one member of the British élite wrote in his diary in 1653 that he would start experimenting with an ‘annual hair wash’.
