Laura Freeman Laura Freeman

The cult of clean

I should feel sympathetic to the new cult of cleanliness. Instead it repulses me

issue 16 April 2016

How clean are you? I ask not as a mother confessor. I’m not interested in the state of your soul. What I want to know is: how clean is your sock drawer? Your fridge? Your gut?

These are the pressing questions of the new cult of clean. Its apostles urge us to divest ourselves of worldly possessions, to renounce ‘dirty’ food and alcohol and to dress in monkish grey or bleached white.

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