This page is devoted to inventions worn on other parts of the body other than the head. When we think about things to wear, it’s usually things like shirts, pants, shoes, and dresses. Sometimes these inventions looked like ordinary clothes or shoes, and sometimes they were odd looking things you strapped onto some area of the body. However they were worn or looked, each one had a special use.

The Portable Bathtub

One of the all over the body inventions was a portable bathtub. One version of the portable bathtub was invented in 1904 by Adolf Herz and another by Frances Allen in 1972. Both were large portable bags with a hole in the top for the user’s head that you filled with water and bathed inside of. Adolf Herz developed his because of the poor quality of hotels and the lack of baths. For his portable bathtub, you filled the bottom of it with water, then climbed in, closed it up to your neck and started washing up. Frances Allen improved on Adolf’s original design in that the user could attach the upper hose to a water supply and a drain hose at the bottom end of the bag. The person then closed the bag with a zipper on the inside and begins to scrub away. Once the bath was over, the plastic bag was drained out the lower hose, and could be stowed away for another day of traveling. Many people have invented portable bathtubs because the quality of hotels and their bathing facilities varied a great deal from place to place.

Sunbather's Toe Rings

While the portable bathtub inventors were thinking of getting the body clean, another inventor, Russell Grathouse, was worried about getting the body sun tanned. To prevent people from getting uneven tans, Mr. Grathouse invented the sunbather’s toe rings in 1973. The sunbathers put the toe-rings on each big toe so that the feet couldn’t spread apart while they were lying in the sun. Then they would get an even tan. Mr. Grathouse even put a tiny hole in the center for a flower.