A 2002 article from Maxim magazine
Clean Freaks
When soap and water just aren’t enough.
Crude Oil Shampoo
Students of trance-addled fruitcake Edgar Cayce lather up with black gold straight form the well. 100% Pennsylvania Grade, rich in wax and paraffin, is their number one choice for clean, healthy hair. Naturally this must be followed by a gentle conditioning rinse. Their choice: pine oil and grain alcohol.
Electric Facial
Dermaculture’s Iderm Galvanic Treatment Machine sends direct current into a mask fitted with 18 electrodes. Acidic solutions applied to your skin are driven into the cells by a repelling negative charge. Once all that KFC clogging your pores has been melted down, the sludge is sucked up by the handy vacuum attachment. Fun fact: Dermaculture was founded by a German scientist in 1937 — same year they opened Buchenwald!
Mouth Chlorination
Chlorine dioxide is said by many to be the latest and greatest weapon in the war against bad breath, and there’s little doubt that it can actually kill germs. Otherwise it wouldn’t be used as pool cleaner, pesticide, and chicken coop disinfectant.
Nasal Douche
Jala neti is the ancient art of pouring water into your nose. Yogis use a special pot and slight tilt of the head to stream water into one nostril, through the sinus, and out the other. Traditionalists use adorable little teapot-shaped neti pots like those available through www.nasalpot.com. Spontaneous Westerners use a glass of coke and an unexpected joke.
Ear Candling
Crediting the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese and/or Hopi Indians with the idea, modern suburban shamans have taken to burning candles in their ears as an alternative to dangerous invasive cleanings with cotton swabs. Ear candles are actually hollow tapered tubes of wax-dipped fabric. As they burn down toward the delicate irreplaceable workings of the ear, the warmth softens wax, and the suction produced by the hot air rising within the tube draws out loosened debris and all remaining common sense.
Sweat Gland Injections
Block the nerves that trigger embarrassing underarm wetness by having a health professional shoot you up with Botox, a neurotoxin derived from the deadly botulism bacterium. Or ask the surgeon down at the bar for a thoracic sympathectomy to sever those troubling nerves once and for all. You’ll be cool as a cucumber, and side effects like permanently drooping eyelids and constricted pupils are really, really infrequent.
Stomach Flossing
Another yogic party stunt. Vastra Dhauti involves slowly swallowing all but a few inches of a 15-foot strip of moistened cloth — and then fishing it back up again. It’s how holy men keep their stomachs free of excess mucous. There’s nothing worse than excess mucous.
Coffee Enema
Maybe you thought coffee enemas were simply a casual social activity, but in fact they can also be used to clean your insides. Kindly akaloids in caffeine are said to stimulate ducts in the liver that flush out toxins. In Canada, one coffee achiever has even created S.A.Wilson’s Therapy Blend, the first coffee specifically roasted and blended for the job. Some say it’s “easier to retain,” and slower intestinal percolation means a more richly brewed flavor.
Urine Foot Bath
Folk medicine and amber-dappled proponents of urine therapy hail our bladder’s gold as a remedy against smelly shoes and athlete’s foot. In fact the urea found in urine also shows up regularly as an ingredient in commercial treatments for these conditions. That’s why you’ll frequently see biochemists wetting their shoes at barroom urinals.