
Date:  Tue Jan 21, 2003  9:42 pm
Subject:  Re: [tt-forum] RE: HYGIENE
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Great ideas keep rolling in....thanks, I especially like the bidet and the
flannel swatches. Also, the dry bathing is what I'll be doing the most of. I
expect to use my baby wipes until they run out and they are handy, make you
feel fresh and if you fold a number of times, can reach most crucial areas with
only one. Then I'll go the distance with the cloth/sponge routine. If there
were enough sun, we could use an outdoor shower which is a black rubber bag
with a nozzle and very inexpensive.
Thanks all!
Leigh Ann

----------------
Good message,

I've taken dry bath with washcloth for years, with occasional shower now and
then, its faster, use a small amount of warm/hot water in a bowl -apply soap
to wet wash cloth, and rub all over. rewet if needed, rinse off soap or use
another wash cloth to rinse several time, dryoff apply talkum to sesitive
areas and you're done!

Larry
----------------------  

Date:  Tue Jan 21, 2003  2:40 pm
Subject:  RE: HYGIENE


RE: HYGIENE 

Bathing once a week? I am currently living in a fairly rustic situation {ugh!}
but once a week? {Double ugh!} I think not! Even if the only water source is an
outside hose! Fortunately I have means to heat water, a couple of five gallon
buckets and three to six 20 or 32 oz pop bottles at my disposal. It sounds
simplistic but this system of bathing took me a little while to figure out.
It's not a luxurious bubble bath by any means but quite functional. {From an
outdoor dog / clean freak mentality anyway.} If you have short hair one bucket
of water is probably sufficient. {I have quite long hair so last summer when it
was warmer I even went so far as using three buckets. Shameful extravagance
except that the water was reused for clothes washing and the neighbors flower
garden.}



Fill buckets with water then fill your pop bottles out of them. Top off buckets
if necessary. I use a 12in square of scrap wood to stand on. If your not very
limber you might try elevating the water buckets a little for the first part.
Submerge your head in the first bucket {this is when I wash my face too} then
over the drain or ground soap up hair. Squeeze out as much soap as possible.
Repeat if necessary. Dunk your head into the first bucket a few more times
draining hair on ground till most all the soap is gone. Now use the second
bucket in the same way for final rinse. Then use the second bucket to wash
every thing else. Standing in the first bucket while washing will keep the rest
of your body a lot warmer and your feet a lot cleaner. {Presuming there's means
to heat the water.} Not all feet will fit so look for size appropriate bucket
guys. {You could try one foot in each bucket maybe? What a Kodak moment!!} To
scrub feet I sit on one of the buckets with my feet on the wood. Now the pop
bottles to rinse with. {I found out in a most unpleasant manner that my skin is
quite sensitive to soap residue so thorough rinsing of the tender bits is
recommended.} If it's just to damn cold to stand around in a puddle naked you
could try this. Requires some warm {or otherwise} water a washcloth and some
alcohol. Simply get a wash cloth wet add a small of alcohol and work your way
from top to bottom. A couple applications of undiluted alcohol to underarms ET.
and wiped off kills bacteria for quite awhile. {Careful of the tender bits when
using undiluted.}



WHAT ABOUT WHEN THE SOAP RUNS OUT?

Soap making is not very difficult though it does require two essential
ingredients. Alkaline {lye} and fat {animal or vegetable.} and you MUST HAVE a
NON-CORRODE(A)BLE {you know what I mean, there just doesn't seem to be a real
word for it} kettle and some heat. {OK, so that's four essentials.} 

Look up "OLD TIMERS" site on net. They have a goodly list of short, simple, to
the point articles on rustic technologies. You'll find a detailed article on
getting your lye from wood ashes there. I've not tried the wood ash method but
have made soap with red devil lye and home rendered beef fat. It's really
pretty simple. Getting some of the finer soaps to set might take a little
practice {coconut /olive oil.} Fortunately if your soap flops you can just
rebatch it till ya get it figured out. Or if it's soapy but didn't set hard you
can consider you're successful at making liquid soap. Be sure to keep a snug
cloth cover while aging this stuff to keep bugs and dust out. Makes a good
laundry product with out so much aging and your hands will be real smooth after
using unless you have some gloves.

YOU REALLY NEED TO AGE HOMEMADE SOAP! IT'LL TAKE YOUR HIDE OFF OTHERWISE!



WHAT ABOUT WHEN THE ALCOHOL RUNS OUT?

Look into sugar beets and maybe try making you own! 



CAN NORTH AMERICA GO ON WITHOUT TOILET PAPER? 
"OH MY GOD!"

How about this one? A bidet in the outhouse. REALLY!! OK, so it's just a couple
of pop bottles filled with water. Do you think anyone will consider me rude if
I just skip the handshake on a formal introduction?



HERE'S A PERSONNEL NOTE TO THE FEMALES;

Back in my Grannies time decent women used and reused washed and boiled rags.
IE: on the rag. What is not well known is that "indecent" women used a
washable, boilable homemade tampon. These we're constructed out of a piece of
natural sponge with a layer of cotton cheesecloth sewn on. The seam along one
side then was fashions into string at the end and made fast this type of tampon
was commercially available at least into the 70's. They may still be around.






Date:  Tue Jan 21, 2003  6:54 pm
Subject:  Re: [tt-forum] RE: HYGIENE
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What a great post. We have also been thinking about the immense storage
space it would take to store enough toilet paper and come to the conclusion
it is just silly. We bought a composting toilet for our shelter and were
considering those single sheets like you used to have in school or like you
find in rural forest service outhouses. Even if you bought a couple of
cases, it is eventually going to run out. So.....what to do? The problem
with bottles of water or a detachable shower head-bidet is how do you dry
off to pull up your drawers? Well, it occured to me that when my two boys
were babies and I used cotton diapers, I also used small flannel swatches
that I soaked in water and kept in a empty baby wipes box. These worked
very well, and were thrown into the diaper pail along with the diaper to be
washed and reused. You can buy stacks of inexpensive white wash cloths at
Costco or make small flannel swatches and then place a diaper-type pail next
to the toilet. You could even moisten these using water and a minute amount
of rubbing alcohol. A couple of times a week you just throw all the used
cloths into the wash and voila'.

Marsh in Arizona
