Do you think we're maybe a tad too worried about cleanliness these days?
So do I.
I was wandering the aisles of my local supermarket the other day and suddenly felt quite overwhelmed by the vast array of stuff on the shelves that was dedicated to rendering something or other free of germs and/or grime. And those two words, germs and grime, loomed large, being featured on ever such a lot of the products displayed. They're quite scary words, aren't they? Take germs. Germs bring fever and pestilence upon the face of the earth. We must be ever vigilant to eradicate them, or we will fail our families and all those dependent upon us for their health and
well being. If we do not scrub and cleanse till our fingers bleed who knows what terrors we will expose them to.
And, personally, I don't know. Here, in the Western world, we seem to have been pretty much free of plagues for a fair old time now. When's the last time you met someone with a boil? Thought not.
But I tend to give the credit for this happy state of affairs to the amazing advances of those clever people engaged in medical science. We are inoculated against all manner of dread diseases. We are, by and large, well nourished equipping us to fend off infections. There are drugs in abundance to protect us from all kinds of horrors. I'm not convinced that splashing about with something that'll take the skin off your hands if you forget to don your Marigolds is going to make much difference.
Don't misunderstand me. I like a clean and fragrant home as much as the next tardy slut, but I have better things to do with my time and.....equally importantly....my money than devote much of either to the sort of specialist cleaning regimes that those shelves full of packets and bottles and aerosols suggest are necessary to keep us safe from harm.
Personally, I find that a bucket of warm water and a good squeeze of washing-up liquid will deal with pretty much anything very effectively. And here I'm going to give you a little extra tip. You're welcome.
You know when you get a build up of product on your hair? Oh, and that's another thing. Why do bloody hairdressers always say 'product', singular? Surely it's a build up of 'products' isn't it? But anyway, when your hair gets so clogged with the overpriced gunge they persuade us we all need in order to give us the sort of shiny, flicky hair they have in the adverts (which are all CGI'd, so it's never going to happen anyway) and you just can't get it squeaky clean, then washing it with a squirt of Fairy, or similar, will strip it all out and return it to its virgin form. If only all things in life were that simple.
I got that little tip from the lips of a very high class hairdresser who assured me all the best salons use it. They don't tell you, of course. Nobody's going to be fool enough to pay an extra tenner for the stuff they soak their frying pan in. No. You get told it's another miracle 'product'. That's marketing for you. Don't be sucked in.
And grime. That's another of those frighteningly evocative words. Grime is loads worse than dirt. Dirt is as nothing as compared to grime. But I'm really not sure that many of us are encountering grime on a day to day basis anymore. If your husband was going down the mines and coming home, head to foot in sweat and a thick layer of gritty, black dust I doubt I'd describe him as a bit mucky. I'd acknowledge that he was grimy. But the Western world's not engaged in nearly so much dirty work anymore, and the mines that remain have showers on site so the grime doesn't get as far as the domestic hearth.
Grime is deeply embedded. Grime befouls. The dictionary says so. Now, I don't know about you, but I can't honestly say that I often feel befouled. And nobody's ever described my home as such, either. They've probably said other uncomplimentary things about it. But befouled? Never. I think most of us are safe from befouling. But if you read the blurb on even half those items on the shelves you'd think the country was in the grip of a befouling epidemic. Grime, they cry, in a voice of horror and warning, is everywhere. And I'm here to tell you it isn't.
Which brings us to the thorny problem of personal hygiene. Those other shelves, the ones with the soaps and shower gels and hair PRODUCTS with an S, take note, and deodorants are equally stacked to the rafters with stuff designed to part us from our money to allay the terrible fear that we might in some way offend with our bodily odours.
I don't want you worrying that I'm one of those freaks that think we should all revert to nature and go about liberally coated in all our natural secretions. I've no doubt that nature knows what it's about and those emissions are there for a damned good reason. But it's much too late to expect society, as a whole, to go back to the good old days of sewing ourselves into our under garments in the winter and never submerging yourself in water for fear of weakening the body. We all recoil from the stale odours that sometimes assail us in crowded places, because we're no longer used to them. But do we really need so many different sorts of cleansers to send us out into the world fresh and delightful? Of course not.
A bar of soap, warm water, a dab of deodorant and maybe something moisturising is perfectly adequate. But I know people who slather themselves in so much grease and gunge that, every time they take a shower, the local RSPB are having to hose down the seagulls.
Don't be drawn in, people. You know it's just those bastards in marketing trying to mess with our minds. Advertising is the scourge of the modern world. We don't need to be told what we want and need. We have brains. We can work it out for ourselves. You know it makes sense. The wonderful George Orwell said, 'Marketing is the rattling of a stick in a swill bucket.' He knew a thing or two, did old George.
I've been around for a while now, and I don't want to go back to a time when my mother's entire life revolved around keeping her home and family clean. It was her obsession. And, to be fair, that of her friends and neighbours. Her life was regimented by domestic duties. I saw how the arrival of the vacuum cleaner, revealing in one, short session a pattern on the carpet that her many hours of sweeping with a brush had failed to maintain, revolutionised the lot of the housewife. How putting dirty clothes into a washing machine freed up an entire day of the week. Things that make it easier are good.
Let's not take a backward step, and imagine that if we're not continuously fighting against grease, limescale, ground-in dirt, understains (anyone remember that 'ad about 'understains'? WTF?!) and the like, that we're lesser human beings. That we're failing in some way. We're not. We have lives to live.
Make use of the powders that make washing clothes so much more effective than rubbing and scrubbing by hand ever could. But don't start imagining you need different ones for different washes, or those horrid, slimy conditioners or other additives. They're a waste of money.
Get an all-purpose spray for cleaning the kitchen and one for the bathroom. Possibly, the same one. If you read the ingredients they're pretty much the same thing anyway.
Give the money you save to a third world country charity, to provide running drinking water for the inhabitants, never mind the means to have two fucking showers a day!
And by the way, a wodge of old newspaper will polish up your windows better than any specially designed, over priced, miracle ultra-fibre cloth, available at a ludicrous price, will ever do. So there.
Thanks so much for reading.
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