Amilk bath is a bath taken in milk instead of water. Scented ingredients, such as honey, rose, daisies and essential oils are often added. Milk baths use lactic acid, an alpha hydroxy acid, to dissolve the proteins which hold together dead skin cells.[1]
There are legends that Cleopatra bathed in goat milk daily for her complexion. These legends have not been confirmed and some historians believe that Roman Empress Poppaea (wife of Nero) set this bathing fashion after Cleopatra's death.[2][better source needed]
Queens Catherine Parr and later Elizabeth I of England bathed in milk in the belief that it would make their skin appear more youthful and pale.[3][4]
Tincture of benzoin was also referred to as a 'milk bath' in the United States in the 1800s, which could in some cases be confused for baths of cow milk, also popular at the time.[5]
There are references to cows milk as a bath technique found in India in the 1800s in "Fifty-one years of Victorian life" by Margaret Elizabeth Child Villiers, Countess of Jersey.[6]
In the early 1900s, singer and Broadway star Anna Held was reported to bathe in milk daily. She was later quoted as having bathed in milk two times a week when living in Paris, finding it difficult to do so while traveling. Her husband Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. later reported to the press that she bathed in milk daily and set up photo shoots so that reporters could photograph the milk being delivered to her.[7]
Abuttermilk bath was also a common historical bathing technique for show animals and remains in practice today (such as for pigs and dogs).[8]
According to scholars, milk baths were used "as a recipe for beauty", as well as for healing, rejuvenation and disenchantment.[9]
Mandatory
Optional
