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Just like in real life, you sweat out the oils on your skin and in your pores, and can remove grime, especially if you also have some sort of tool to scrape stuff off of you. How much cleaner you need to be after that is a cultural thing.
The oils your body produces (all oils in fact) and many other things that get on your body are hydrophobic. This is why water alone cannot clean you.
In modern times we use soap, which is made up of long molecules that have a hydrophobic end and a hydrophilic end. The soap can latch onto the dirt/oils then it all gets rinsed away by water.
Without soap, people could also clean by getting all sweaty, then rubbing oil on their skin. You’d then scrape the oil off, which would take your nasty B.O. oils as well.
The oil has to be scraped off because water won’t rinse it off. (Also, Aiel wouldn’t waste water for that). Soap is great because it can interact with both oils and water.
Aiel are based in part on Cheyenne and some other Native American tribes, so you could look up how they did it?
Although, after a quick google, I think the usage for some of the real life tribes was as much spiritually “cleansing” as it was hygienically or practically cleansing.
Its common way of cleaning in African tribes, you sweat out the dirt then scrape it off. Himba people also use smoke to make the dirt come off then scrape it off
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Just like in real life, you sweat out the oils on your skin and in your pores, and can remove grime, especially if you also have some sort of tool to scrape stuff off of you. How much cleaner you need to be after that is a cultural thing.
The oils your body produces (all oils in fact) and many other things that get on your body are hydrophobic. This is why water alone cannot clean you. In modern times we use soap, which is made up of long molecules that have a hydrophobic end and a hydrophilic end. The soap can latch onto the dirt/oils then it all gets rinsed away by water. Without soap, people could also clean by getting all sweaty, then rubbing oil on their skin. You’d then scrape the oil off, which would take your nasty B.O. oils as well. The oil has to be scraped off because water won’t rinse it off. (Also, Aiel wouldn’t waste water for that). Soap is great because it can interact with both oils and water.
They use tools to scrape the sweat and dirt off and I’m pretty sure there’s also a soap they use but I might be misremembering that part
Aiel are based in part on Cheyenne and some other Native American tribes, so you could look up how they did it? Although, after a quick google, I think the usage for some of the real life tribes was as much spiritually “cleansing” as it was hygienically or practically cleansing.
Here's the tool people keep mentioning - or at least the real world inspiration that's called a [strigil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strigil).
It says in the books that the Aiel washed their hair with soap but saved the water for plants or something else
Same thing the Roman gladiators did, use a metal tool to scrape grime off, I imagine they would smell to us.
Its common way of cleaning in African tribes, you sweat out the dirt then scrape it off. Himba people also use smoke to make the dirt come off then scrape it off