A tepid bath may be taken at almost any time; and a bather may remain longer in one, with safety, than in a cold bath.
307. Do you approve of warm bathing?
A warm bath[[277]] may, with advantage, be occasionally used—say once a week. A warm bath cleanses the skin more effectually than either a cold or a tepid bath; but, as it is more relaxing, ought not to be employed so often as either of them. A person should not continue longer than ten minutes in a warm bath. Once a week, as a rule, is quite often enough for a warm bath; and it would be an excellent plan if every boy and girl and adult would make a practice of having one regularly every week, unless any special reason should arise to forbid its use.
308. But does not warm bathing, by relaxing the pores of the skin, cause a person to catch cold if he expose himself to the air immediately afterward?
There is, on this point, a great deal of misconception and unnecessary fear. A person, immediately after using a warm bath, should take proper precautions—that is to say, he must not expose himself to draughts, neither ought he to wash himself in cold water, nor should he, immediately after taking one, drink cold water. But he may follow his usual exercise or employment, provided the weather be fine, and the wind be neither in the east nor the northeast.
Every house of any pretension ought to have a bath-room. Nothing would be more conducive to health than regular systematic bathing. A hot and cold bath, a sitz-bath and a shower-bath—each and all in their turn—are grand requisites to preserve and procure health. If the house cannot boast of a bath-room, then the Corporation baths (which nearly every large town possesses) ought to be liberally patronized.
309. What is the best application for the hair?
A sponge and cold water, and two good hair-brushes. Avoid grease, pomatum, bandoline, and all abominations of that kind. There is a natural oil of the hair, which is far superior to either Rowland’s Macassar oil or any other oil! The best scent for the hair is an occasional dressing of soap and water; the best beautifier of the hair is a downright thorough good brushing with two good hair-brushes! Again, I say, avoid grease of all kinds to the hair. “And as for women’s hair, don’t plaster it with scented and sour grease, or with any grease; it has an oil of its own. And don’t tie up your hair tight, and make it like a cap of iron over your skull. And why are your ears covered? You hear all the worse, and they are not the cleaner. Besides, the ear is beautiful in itself, and plays its own part in the concert of the features.”[[278]]
If the hair cannot, without some application, be kept tidy, then a little of the best sweet oil might, by means of an old tooth-brush, be used to smooth it; sweet oil is, for the purpose, one of the most simple and harmless of dressings; but, as I said before, the hair’s own natural oil cannot be equaled, far less surpassed!
If the hair fall off, castor oil, scented with a few drops of essence of bergamot and oil of lavender, is a good remedy to prevent its doing so; a little of it ought, night and morning, to be well rubbed into the roots of the hair. Cocoanut oil is another excellent application for the falling off of the hair.