Wednesday 18 July 2012

Lavoire of Love

Every now and then one comes across something so mouthwateringly delicious that one wants to run around in circles shouting, "Hey, this is bloody fantastic, and I'm not gonna shut up about it for the next hour!" Indulging in cultural activities recently, we stumbled across this gorgeous object. Don't you wish you had one of these babies to wash your mangy old face in when you're hungover? We certainly do.

Lavoire, 1890s, Malmöhus Museum
 This particular beauty is apparently called a lavoire. According to a frustrating Google search, a "lavoir", without the feminine e, is a type of construction for washing clothes. This is patently not true of the dainty contraption above, but unfortunately we can't find any information other than scraps from Google Books. Though to be honest they're fairly thrilling scraps: one book is called The Countess and Her Daughter (pretty saucy title for a Wednesday night!) and contains the titillating words, "Sylvia learned to wash herself in segments". Another one is called "Knock in the Night", and appears to be a source of very interesting information indeed; we might have to return to it another time.

For more pictures of gorgeous and/or baffling hygiene contraptions, have a look at this post.

Also, Intellectual Friend, if you're reading this, please write us an informative email about the the difference between a lavoir and a lavoire, because we suspect that you know all about it. 

Related Reading:
Academic Excesses

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...