Smells Like Virtue: Hygiene and Perfume in the Renaissance

If you were born into the Renaissance, your morning might begin not with a splash of water and minty toothpaste, but with a quick rub of scented linen, a comb through your hair, and a dab of rose water behind the ears. The world was rediscovering classical art and philosophy, but soap and scrubbing hadn’t quite caught up. Hygiene during the Renaissance was a curious mix of inherited medieval habits, revived Roman ideals, and some rather questionable medical theories about pores, miasmas and humours. It wasn’t quite the stinkfest we like to imagine, but it wasn’t a lavender-scented utopia either.

People did wash – just not the way we do. A basin, a jug and a towel were staples in most homes, and hand- and face-washing were daily rituals. In Italy and France, small portable basins called “aquamaniles” were used to pour water over one’s hands before and after meals. Bathing the entire body, however, was a more delicate matter. Physicians warned that hot baths could open the pores, allowing disease to creep in like an unwanted dinner guest. So while the ancient Romans had built grand bathhouses, the Renaissance Europeans were often wary of plunging themselves into tubs, especially after the Black Death had made everyone slightly paranoid about cleanliness bringing contagion.

Instead, the art of staying clean was performed through fabrics. Linen was the real hero of hygiene. Changing your shirt or undergarment regularly was considered far more hygienic than soaking yourself in water. The shirt, worn next to the skin, was thought to absorb the body’s impurities. Replace the shirt, remove the filth. It was a perfectly logical system in a world where laundry was hard work and water sometimes filthy. A well-to-do Florentine might change linen daily, while a peasant might rely on divine protection and a sturdy sense of smell.

There was also the matter of public bathhouses, once thriving in medieval Europe, now eyed suspiciously by moralists who associated them with disease and sin. Many were closed by the fifteenth century, replaced by perfumed waters, scented gloves and powders. Cleanliness became something you wore rather than something you washed. The wealthy perfumed themselves liberally – musk, ambergris, rose oil, and vinegar of the four thieves were popular choices. The logic was simple: if you can’t eliminate the smell, at least outperfume it.

Hair care, though, had its own rituals. Combing was an essential act of hygiene as much as vanity. Head lice were a democratic menace, so everyone from servants to courtiers carried fine-toothed combs. Oils made from rosemary or nutmeg might be rubbed into the scalp to give it shine and a pleasant scent. Women, whose elaborate hairstyles could rival architectural feats, often sprinkled their hair with aromatic powders, and wrapped it in linen caps at night to preserve both scent and structure.

The mouth was another frontier of Renaissance cleanliness – or at least, intention. Toothpicks were as fashionable as they were functional. Wealthy nobles had theirs carved from silver or ivory, often worn on chains like a symbol of refinement. Mouthwashes were concocted from herbs, wine, and sometimes alarming ingredients like crushed pearls or burnt alum. Unfortunately, the growing love affair with sugar, especially in Italy and England, meant that tooth decay became the latest fashionable affliction. The Medici family might have looked elegant, but their dental remains tell a far less glamorous story.

Soap existed, of course, and could be made from olive oil and lye, but it wasn’t used daily. In southern Europe, Castile soap from Spain was prized for its smoothness and scent. In the north, harder soaps were used to wash linen rather than skin. The concept of personal freshness was less about microbial purity and more about balancing the body’s internal humours. A clean soul mattered as much as a clean face.

Public hygiene, meanwhile, was starting to become a civic responsibility. The Venetian Republic led the way with its Magistrato alla Sanità, founded in 1490, to inspect ships, quarantine the sick and oversee waste disposal. Florence had street cleaners, and London, always a bit late to the hygiene party, had ordinances against dumping refuse into the Thames (not that anyone listened). Cities realised that plague didn’t discriminate by class – and so, hygiene slowly moved from the boudoir to the bureaucracy.

Perfumes and powders became a substitute for cleanliness, but they also marked social status. Scented gloves, pomanders filled with herbs, and sachets worn inside clothing became tokens of sophistication. To smell good was to be civilised. The Renaissance elite might not have bathed often, but they invested heavily in the olfactory illusion of purity. Even Erasmus, who was obsessed with moderation, remarked that he preferred to be surrounded by those who smelled of soap rather than sweat – a distinctly modern sentiment.

Women’s hygiene was surrounded by layers of superstition and silence. Physicians wrote long treatises on the “leakiness” of the female body, prescribing everything from vinegar douches to rosewater rinses. Childbirth and menstruation were medical mysteries treated with perfumed compresses and charms. The midwife’s kit often contained both herbs and holy relics, just in case science failed. Cleanliness was moral as much as physical, and women bore much of that burden.

Hygiene at home extended beyond the body. People swept their floors, aired their bedding, and burned herbs to purify rooms. Smoke was thought to chase away disease-bearing vapours, and windows were opened at dawn for fresh air – though not for long, lest the morning chill upset one’s humours. Even candles were chosen with care: beeswax smelled cleaner than tallow, and a well-lit room implied both wealth and health.

In truth, the Renaissance was an age suspended between two kinds of cleanliness: the visible and the moral. Washing one’s hands and changing one’s shirt were acts of virtue as much as hygiene. To be unkempt was to invite suspicion of vice or poverty. Cleanliness was a visible sign of order, discipline, and divine favour. Ironically, the more perfumed and powdered society became, the further it drifted from the Roman ideal of water, exercise, and public baths.

It wasn’t until much later, in the Enlightenment, that people began to rediscover the simple joy of soap and water without fear of the plague. The Renaissance, for all its art and innovation, remained a little wary of the bath. Yet, it built the bridge between medieval superstition and modern hygiene. Out of linen shirts, rosewater, and a touch of moral anxiety came the foundation of what we now call cleanliness.

So next time you take a hot shower and reach for your citrus shampoo, spare a thought for your Renaissance counterpart – carefully wiping their face with a perfumed cloth, confident that virtue, linen and a dash of musk could keep the world’s filth at bay.