Vintage Hygiene Practices That Are the Very Opposite of Clean

 
Shoe Polish May Have Cleaned Shoes but It Was Also Deadly

Shoe shiners were everywhere throughout the Victorian era. You would often see them set up with a little block for you to plop your shoe up onto, and they would polish away, cleaning all the gunk from the streets off of people's shoes and making them look brand new. However, the most popular and affordable shoe polish used was a strong chemical, Nitrobenzene, that could cause serious health issues, especially after repeated exposure.

Nitrobenzene was so poisonous it could cause people to faint and, for those who worked within daily, could lead to death—a considerable price to pay for clean shoes.