Message:110 by General Eerie

WASHING CLOTHES GETS EASY

Ancient Romans lived a life filled with luxuries and beautiful churches. Their tastes and lifestyles were lauded by the entire race. Their dressing senses, drinking choices and architectural acumen paved the way for the modern Italy. But some of their habits were bizarre too. This is General Eerie with message 110 for his fellow earthians.

The evolution of laundry superficially appears to be listless. Yesterday, we washed clothes in streams and lakes with soaps. Today, we have detergents and washing machines. But science was nascent when the ancient Romans lived. Leave machines, there were neither detergents nor soaps. But, the tendency to wear clean clothes was always present. Then, what did they use to wash the clothes?Ancient Romans used urine as toothpaste, mouthwash and laundry detergent.

This idea may not be as bizarre as you may think. It's exactly what people did in Ancient Rome. Most clothing was made from wool, which was light in color and needed to be cleaned often. Dirty clothes were taken to the fullonica (a laundry) where it was the job of the fuller, or launderer to clean the clothes as thoroughly as possible. Soap was not used as a detergent until several centuries later; however, fullers discovered urine contained a natural cleaning agent-ammonia.

The process for obtaining the urine was rather interesting in itself. The fuller would place urine vessels on street corners for people to publicly relieve themselves. When the vessels were full, they were then carried back to the fullonica. The urine was diluted with water and the clothes were soaked in the mixture. Part of the cleaning process also involved someone standing in the tub of urine and stomping on the clothes, similar to an agitator on modern washing machines. After the clothes were cleaned, they were rinsed again to get the urine stench out of them.The glamorous job of hauling the urine and washing the clothes usually fell to either a young boy or a slave. Ancient Rome was a slave society; however, it is important to realize slavery then did not resemble Western slavery as we know it.

It sounds gross, but we've all thought about using our own urine for mouth wash. No? Maybe it’s just me. Regardless, urine contains ammonia which is a natural teeth whitener and can actually be used to prevent you from getting cavities! So before you go to the dentist next, you know what to do.