Hygiene in general improved throughout the 17th century
During the 1600s personal hygiene improved, as medicine and living conditions gained ground against the superstition and squalor of preceding generations. Amongst the poor and less well-educated classes, bathing remained an activity regarded with suspicion. So did changing into clean clothes, often because no other clothes were available into which to change. The poor of the 17th century did not maintain diverse wardrobes. Typically, all that was changed was what were called “smallclothes”, today more commonly referred to as underwear. Laundry, like bathing, was an activity consigned to one day of the week, often the day preceding the Sabbath. Labor was proscribed on the Sabbath, but watching one’s wardrobe dry on an outside line, or before the fire, was not considered labor. Nor was it considered entertainment, also proscribed, though it was about the closest thing to it in some areas.
The wealthy began to consider bathing with more favor, and relaxing in one’s bath, often while playing chess or at cards, was a pastime of the affluent. There were those who opposed bathing; that their position was considered eccentric is attested by the fact they are still remembered for it. Bathing, shaving, donning clean clothes, and making an attempt to suppress, however temporarily, the parasites seeking refuge on one’s body became a ritual. So did the practice of donning various scents, and both men and women attempted to cover failings of the complexion with powders and pastes, many liberally laced with toxic metals including lead and mercury. Men with short hair concealed it under elaborate powdered wigs. Men with longer hair powdered theirs as well, at least when engaged on social functions. Males and females carried perfumed handkerchiefs, to protect dainty sensibilities from the aroma of the great unwashed.