Editing Bathing (section)

====Soap promoted for personal cleanliness====
[[File:Pears'Soap02.jpg|thumb|upright|"The order of the bath" [[Pears soap]] advertisement in 1889, a reference to the [[Order of the Bath]]. Soap reached a mass market as the middle class adopted a greater interest in cleanliness.]]
By the mid-19th century, the English urbanised middle classes had formed an ideology of cleanliness that ranked alongside typical [[Victorian era|Victorian]] concepts, such as [[Christianity]], respectability and [[social progress]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Eveleigh, Bogs|title=Baths and Basins: The Story of Domestic Sanitation|publisher=Stroud, England: Sutton|year=2002}}</ref> The cleanliness of the individual became associated with his or her moral and social standing within the community and domestic life became increasingly regulated by concerns regarding the presentation of domestic sobriety and cleanliness.
<ref>{{cite web|url=https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/articles/1615|title=Health & Hygiene in Nineteenth Century England|access-date=23 May 2019|archive-date=22 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201122165558/https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/articles/1615|url-status=live}}</ref>

The industry of soapmaking began on a small scale in the 1780s, with the establishment of a soap manufactory at [[Tipton]] by [[James Keir]] and the marketing of high-quality, transparent soap in 1789 by [[Andrew Pears]] of [[London]]. In 1807, Pears found a way of removing the impurities and refining the base soap before adding the delicate perfume of garden flowers, founding [[Pears soap]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=A and F Pears Limited {{!}} Science Museum Group Collection |url=https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/cp135706/a-and-f-pears-limited |access-date=2024-12-07 |website=collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk |language=en}}</ref> It was in the mid-19th century, though, that the large-scale consumption of soap by the middle classes, anxious to prove their social standing, drove forward the mass production and marketing of soap. 
  
[[William Gossage]] produced low-priced, good-quality soap from the 1850s. [[William Hesketh Lever]] and his brother, James, bought a small soap works in [[Warrington]] in 1886 and founded what is still one of the largest soap businesses, formerly called Lever Brothers and now called [[Unilever]]. These soap businesses were among the first to employ large-scale [[advertising]] campaigns. In 1882, English actress and socialite [[Lillie Langtry]] became the poster-girl for Pears soap, and thus the first celebrity to endorse a commercial product.<ref>{{cite news |title=When Celebrity Endorsers Go Bad |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2002/02/03/when-celebrity-endorsers-go-bad/260776e6-d38c-4319-b683-eb466c499dce/|access-date=December 7, 2024 |newspaper=The Washington Post|quote=British actress Lillie Langtry became the world's first celebrity endorser when her likeness appeared on packages of Pears Soap.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Richards |first1=Jef I. |title=A History of Advertising: The First 300,000 Years |date=2022 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |page=286}}</ref>

Before the late 19th century, water to individual places of residence was rare.<ref>''The Western Heritage'' (2004) by Donald Kagan, Steven E Ozment, and Frank M Turner. {{ISBN|0-13-182839-8}}</ref> Many countries in Europe developed a water collection and distribution network. [[London water supply infrastructure]] developed through major 19th-century treatment works built in response to [[cholera]] threats, to modern large-scale reservoirs. By the end of the century, private baths with running hot water were increasingly common in affluent homes in America and Britain.

{{anchor|Saturday night bath}}
At the beginning of the 20th century, a weekly Saturday night bath had become common custom for most of the population. A half day's work on Saturday for factory workers allowed them some leisure to prepare for the [[Sabbath|Sunday day of rest]]. The half day off allowed time for the considerable labor of drawing, carrying, and heating water, filling the bath and then afterward emptying it. To economize, bath water was shared by all family members. Indoor plumbing became more common in the 20th century and commercial advertising campaigns pushing new bath products began to influence public ideas about cleanliness, promoting the idea of a daily shower or bath.{{Citation needed|date=March 2009}}

In the 21st century, challenges to the need for soap to effect such everyday cleanliness and whether soap is needed to avoid body odor appeared in media.<ref name="theguardian.com">Fleming, Amy, ''[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/aug/05/i-dont-smell-meet-the-people-who-have-stopped-washing?CMP=GTUS_email ‘I don’t smell!’ Meet the people who have stopped washing] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230724122207/https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/aug/05/i-dont-smell-meet-the-people-who-have-stopped-washing?CMP=GTUS_email |date=2023-07-24 }}'', The Guardian, August 5, 2019</ref>