1. In ancient Rome, the accumulated sweat, dirt and oil that a star athlete or gladiator scraped off his body was sold to his fans in small vials. Roman women used it as a face cream.

2. An "arsewisp" was what genteel medieval and Renaissance people cleaned themselves with after defecating– a fistful of hay or straw.

3. Teeth were cleaned in the middle ages and the Renaissance with green hazel twigs and woollen cloths.

4. A 16th-century French recipe for deodorant: crush rose petals, and rub them in the armpits.

5. Rather than the dangerous business of wetting the head and using shampoo, 16th-century French women were advised to rub their hair with bran or powder before going to bed, and comb it out in the morning.

6. Until the end of the 19th century, only the wealthy used toilet soap, and it was used more as a perfume or cosmetic than as a serious aid to cleanliness. The soap used to wash floors and clothes was too harsh for skin, and Castile soap, as the gentler soap made with olive oil was called, was prohibitively expensive. Instead, people made do with water and friction.

And some of the most familiar modern hygiene products came about accidentally...

1. Ivory soap’s famous slogan, "It floats!" was the result of inattention: a worker left the soap’s mixing machine unwatched for too long, and the overflowing lather was presumed to be useless. But, when hardened and cut into cakes, not only did it clean, it floated.

2. Listerine was invented as a surgical antiseptic and, without changing its formula, packaging or price, morphed over 40 years into an oral antiseptic, astringent and, finally, an astonishingly successful mouthwash.

3. Kotex sanitary napkins began life as wood-fibre bandages for soldiers in World War One. Battlefield nurses began using them as sanitary pads, rather than the traditional bleached rags, and after the war the bandages were re-packaged and renamed Kotex (for "cotton-like texture").

Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing is published today by Profile Books price £8.99

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