Shampoo or "Champo"? This history event will amaze you! 😆✅
We Shampoo our hair regularly, right? But Do you actually know, what did it actually mean when the word has been started using by British people? When white people from East India Company in 17th century came to India, they wondered when they see a Masseur sitting at the corner of the public road. The masseur always display the bottles of the oils with fragrance. When the massage is finished, customer bend the neck towards the bucket to wash their hair; masseur wash their hair with the foam of Aritha (soap nut).
It was strange for them to believe that the roots of the Aritha tree (soap nut tree) produces foam. White people had never done this before, so they have adopted this new hobby with the word "Champo".Basically this word was pronounced Shampo instead of champo. The dialect difference made this word shampo as time passed. Finally, it became shampoo from Champo. Till the middle of the 19th century shampoo meant massaging and washing the hair with Soap nut foam. In 20th century manufacturer of Europe and America made a product just to wash the hair and not body, called Shampoo. Since then we have believed that the shampoo is the liquid Chemical which is being used to wash our hair. But the reality was totally different back then! Amazing isn't it? This Champo word it self was derived from Sanskrit word chapati which means pressing something. Chapati is something which was taken as a base in Indian Dish. So as you see the process of pressing in a way is the meaning of champo which evolved into word Shampoo.
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Reference:
Almeida, R., 2020.Tracing The Roots Of 25 English Words With Entirely Indian Origins. [online] Homegrown.co.in. Available at: <https://homegrown.co.in/article/44786/tracing-the-roots-of-25-english-words-with-entirely-indian-origins> [Accessed 20 June 2020].