Milk bath


A milk bath is a bath taken in milk instead of water. Often other scents such as honey, rose, daisies and essential oils are added. Milk baths use lactic acid, an alpha hydroxy acid, to dissolve the proteins which hold together dead skin cells.

History

There are legends that Cleopatra bathed in donkey milk daily for her complexion. These legends have not been confirmed and some historians believe that Roman Empress Poppaea set this bathing fashion after Cleopatra's death.
Queens Catherine Parr and later Elizabeth I of England used milk baths to make their skin appear more youthful and pale.
Tincture of benzoin was also referred to as a 'milk bath' in 1800s America, which could in some cases be confused for baths of cows milk, also popular in the time.
There are references of cows milk as a bath technique found in India in the 1800s in "Fifty-one years of Victorian life" by the Dowager Countess of Jersey.
In the early 1900s, singer and Broadway star Anna Held was reported to bathe in milk daily but was later quoted as having bathed in milk 2 times a week when living in Paris but found 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.
A buttermilk bath was also a common historical bathing technique for show animals and remains to be in practice today.

In film and media

Mandatory
Optional