Cleanliness of the skin is necessary in good skin care, and important to the health of the body. Here are some tips about bathing and skin care.

A bath should be taken often enough to ensure cleanliness. Warm water and soap need not be used more than once or twice a week under ordinary conditions. If the soap causes itching, it is well to use a small amount of olive oil on the body afterwards, rubbing it in thoroughly, and going over the body with a soft cloth after the oil rub, thus removing the oil which would otherwise soil the clothes. If the skin is not kept clean, the millions of pores are liable to be partly stopped up, which results in the retention of a part of the excretory matter within the skin, where it may cause enough irritation to produce some form of cutaneous disorder, or the skin may through disuse become so inactive that too much work is thrown upon the other excretory organs, which may also become diseased from overwork and excessive irritation.

Soaps

Soaps are irritants. Tallow soaps and olive oil soaps are less irritating than other varieties. Whatever kind of soap is used, it should be rinsed off thoroughly, for if some of it is left in the pores of the skin roughness or even mild inflammation may ensue. Be especially careful about the soap used for babies, avoiding all highly colored and cheap perfumed soaps.

Sponge Bath

Whether to take a daily sponge bath or not is a matter of no great importance, and each individual can safely suit himself. If there is quick reaction and a feeling of warmth and well-being following a cold sponge, it is all right. If the skin remains blue and refuses to react for a long time, the cold sponge bath is harmful. The cold plunge is always a shock, and no matter how strong a person may be, frequent repetition is not to be recommended. People who take cold plunges say that they do no harm, but it is well to remember that life is not merely a matter of today and tomorrow, but of next year, or perhaps forty, fifty or sixty years from today. A daily shock may cause heart disease in the course of twenty or thirty years.

Cold Baths

A good way to take a cold bath is to get under a warm shower and gradually turn off the warm water. Then stand under the cold shower long enough to rinse well the entire surface of the body.

Those who take cold sponge baths in winter and find them severe, should precede the sponging in cold water with a quick sponging off with tepid water, and they should always take these baths in a warm room.

Dry Rubbing

After all baths give the body a good dry rubbing, using brisk movements. Bath towels, flesh brushes or the open hands may be used for the dry rubbing.

The sponge bath has practically no value as a cleanser. Its chief virtue consists in stimulating the circulation of the blood and the lymph in the skin. In summer it is cooling. It is important to have good surface circulation, but this can be attained as well by means of dry rubbing. The rubbing is more important than wetting the skin. A skin that is rubbed enough becomes so active that it practically cleans itself, and it protects against colds and other diseases. Some advocate dispensing with the bath entirely, but that is going to extremes. Cleanliness is worth while for the self-respect it gives the individual.

Hot Baths

Hot baths are weakening and relaxing, hence weak people should not stay long in the hot bath. Cold baths are stimulating to strong people and depressing to those who do not react well from them. Swimming is far different from taking a cold bath. A person who can swim with benefit and comfort for twenty minutes would have a chill, perhaps, if he remained for five minutes in the bath tub in water of the same temperature. Swimming is such an active exercise that it aids the circulation, keeping the blood pretty well to the surface in spite of the chilling effect of the water.

Warm Baths

If a very warm bath is taken, there should be plenty of fresh air in the bath room and it is well to sip cold water while in the bath and keep a cloth wrung out of cold water on the forehead. People who are threatened with a severe cold or pneumonia can give themselves no better treatment than to take a hot bath, as hot as they can stand it, lasting for one-half hour to an hour, drinking as much warm water as can be taken with comfort both before and after getting into the tub. This bath must be taken in very warm water, otherwise it will do no good. It is weakening and relaxing, but through its relaxing influence it equalizes the circulation of the blood, bringing much to the surface that was crowding the lungs and other internal organs, thus causing the dangerous congestion that so often ends in pneumonia. After the bath wrap up well so that the perspiration will continue for some time. When the sweating is over, get into dry clothes and remain in bed for six to eight hours. To make assurance doubly sure, give the bowels a good cleaning out with either enemas or cathartics, or both. Then eat nothing until you are comfortable. Such treatment would prevent much pneumonia and many deaths. The best preventive is to live so that sudden chilling does not produce pneumonia or other diseases, which it will not do in good health.

People with serious diseases of the heart, arteries or of the kidneys should not take protracted or severe baths.

To sum up the use of water on the skin: Use enough to be clean. No more is necessary. The application of water should be followed by thorough drying and dry rubbing. If the reaction is poor, do not remain in cold water long enough to produce chilling. As a rule thin people should use but little cold water, and they should never remain long in cold water.

Water intelligently applied to the skin in disease is a splendid aid in cleansing the system. It is surprising what a great amount of impurity can be drawn from the body by means of wet packs. However, this is a treatise on health, so we shall not go into details here regarding hydrotherapy.

Dry Friction of the Skin