History Undressed provides an interesting post on the History of Hygiene, Bathing, Teeth Cleaning, Toileting and Deoderizing, including details about the Regency era.
Earlier in the nineteenth century the hands, feet and face were regularly washed as in previous centuries, and the rest of your body every few weeks or longer. However the tides quickly changed.
It is said that Beau Brummel bathed every day, and made this more popular among the aristocrats. He believed men should smell clean, without the use of perfumes.
- Edwardian Promenade wrote a fascinating piece about The Shoe Queen: Rita Lydig, whose shopping addiction led to her downfall.
She was a confessed shopaholic, never ordering one thing of a kind, but duplications of each item by the dozens, often with the slightest of variations in materials, lace or design. It was not uncommon for her closet to boast twenty-five copies of a favorite coat. However Rita didn’t dress for display; she dressed for art. Each item was but a piece on the canvas of her body, to convey a mood perhaps, or a “look” she felt that day.
- Scandalous Woman offers up the Scandalous Life of Elizabeth Chudleigh, whose trial for bigamy and subsequent divorce titillated 18th century tabloids and scandalized the lower classes.
Elizabeth, now that she was settled as the Duke’s mistress and had no more money worries, began to spend lavishly, buying property in London and in the country. She had a house built in London which she named Chudleigh House (after her marriage, it was renamed Kingston House). She also began to entertain, planning lavish parties for her royal friends. She was still one of the Princess of Wale’s Maids of Honor, and her mother had now moved to Windsor as the Royal Housekeeper.
Jane Austen in Vermont provides a series of links to undergarments in this post, which also refers to the recent sale of Queen Victoria’s enormous bloomers. The queen was only 5′ tall, but her waist was 50″.
Jane Austen's World 
