When was shampoo invented? It was invented in India in about 1500.
Our hair gets dirty because we secrete an oil called sebum which protects the structure of the hair and stops it from breaking. However, this oil can build up and other things can stick in it, such as dirt. It also has an oily smell. People didn’t usually wash their hair very often and they would pile it up on top of their heads, just washing it when they had to. Most methods of washing involved using something dry to absorb the excess oil.
People have treated and cleaned their hair for thousands of years and they had many different ways of doing it. People in Indonesia made a shampoo using the husk and the straw of rice. They burned them into ash and mixed the ash with wayer. This cleaned the hair but left it very dry, so they used coconut oil as well. People in the Philippines used a shampoo made from soaking and rubbing the bark of the vine Gugo which is a very good cleaner. People in North America used extracts from a woodfern and people in South America used the liquid left over after quinoa is washed.
The shampoo we use and the idea for shampoo itself came from India. From about 1500 AD in India, a concoction of boiled soapnuts, gooseberries, Acacia, and other herbs was boiled and then strained. The liquid that came off contained saponins, which are a natural cleanser. This liquid creates a lather, and it leaves the hair soft, shiny, and manageable. The word for this liquid is cā̃pō, which is pronounced champu. It means to massage or to press. This is obviously where our English word shampoo came from.
So, how did shampoo get to Europe? In 1814, a Bengali trader called Sake Dean Mahomed travelled to Britain. He and his wife opened up a champooi parlor in Brighton. He would give massages and his wife would shampoo hair using the Indian method. Before this, people in England had washed hair using boiled soap shavings in water. This cleans the hair, but it leaves it with a dull, unhealthy-looking coating. Sake Mahomed’s concoction left the hair soft, shiny, and manageable and it was such a hit he got into the papers.
Most people didn’t bathe or wash their hair that often. Getting a shampoo wasn’t a very common occurrence and it was not something you could do at home. In 1898, a German chemist called Hans Schwarzkopf invented a powdered shampoo that could be used at home. It went on sale in drugstores and people in Germany started to wash their hair a little more frequently than they had before. The powder was not really a shampoo in the way that we would think of one today. It was more a cleaning powder that made the hair smell nice. It was still not common to wash your hair as often as people do today. An article in the New York Times in 1908 said that it was acceptable to wash your hair as often as every 2 weeks.
In 1927, Schwarzkopf invented a liquid shampoo and put it on sale in Germany. It was very popular. In 1934, Proctor and Gamble marketed Drene, which was the first shampoo to use a synthetic cleaner rather than soap. It was much easier to wash hair, yet people still didn’t wash it as much as the shampoo companies would like. In the 1960s and 70s, they used lots of advertising to convince people that they needed to wash their hair almost every day.
So, how often should you shampoo? It depends on who you ask. Shampoo companies say that you should wash it at least every day. Some people say that you don’t need to use shampoo at all. Some shampoos contain harmful chemicals that can damage the hair and the environment.
So, when was shampoo invented? The idea of shampoo was invented a long time ago and different people had different ways of doing it. The word shampoo came from India and the idea of shampooing came from there as well. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shampoo
https://www.nykaa.com/beauty-blog/bb-time-travels-the-hair-story-of-shampoo/
https://dustyoldthing.com/history-of-shampoo/