HOW TO BATHE.
You May Wash from Tip to Toe in Ten Minutes.
Get enough Turkish toweling by the yard (you can get remnants) to make two pairs of thumbless mittens, just large enough to slip on over the thumb and allow the hand to stretch flat, also a large rough towel and a generous supply of tepid water, and, of course, soap, and either another towel to stand on or a piece of oilcloth four feet square.
It is very important to have a warm room, so that the body may not be chilled when you doff your garments. After taking everything off, stand on the oilcloth or towel in front of your basin, slip your mitts on, dip them in the water, squeeze the drips from the mittens, soap well and rub the body all over, beginning at the neck and ending with the toes. Take off the mittens, lay them down beside your basin; all the soil of the body will be in those mittens. Take your second pair of mittens, slip them on and go over your body again, rinsing the mittens several times thus: Take the soap off the arms, then rinse, then to the waist and so forth. Bathing thus rests and strengthens a tired body.
After getting most of the soap off (Dr. Dio Lewis says “it will not injure you to leave a little soap on the body; it counteracts the oil of the skin”) slip off your second pair of mittens and rinse them out well, then wring them as dry as you can and rub the drips off your body. The damp mitts will not only _____ the body, but it is wonderful the ____on they produce and how they open the pores of the skin. Then dry with the aforesaid rough towel, which seems almost unnecessary, but that last dry rub gives an afterglow. (The Walnut Bureau, October 14, 1892)
KH