Virgo and Soap

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The German historian Heinrich von Treitschke, a Virgo (b. 15 September 1834 - 1896) is best known for a mere three words: CIVILIZATION IS SOAP. (He actually said something quite different: that the English believe that civilization is soap.)

Still, the well-known connection of astrological Virgo to soap, cleanliness and purity pretty much holds water. William Lever of Lever Brothers, for instance, the inventor of the soap manufacturing process . . a Virgo, and indeed responsible for the proliferation of washing-up in the British Isles, which drew forth Treitschke’s memorable observation. 

 Michael Chiklis of The Shield, classical composer Anton Bruckner, and vegan musician Moby: 3 Virgos!

Arn. Schoenberg, b. THIRTEEN September 1874
I mention Moby's veganism as Virgo is inevitably preoccupied with orthorexic notions of health and nutrition. Boringly precise, endearingly fussy, or pathologically obsessive-compulsive, thus Anton Bruckner's numeromania, also the similar numeromania (triskaidecaphobia) at the root of composer Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone system. Virgos may be highly sensible or highly strung, there's always a pitch of refinement.

99 - 44/100% PURE! (reg.) The depth and brilliance of this advertising slogan is the recognition that perfection is unattainable, that the profound fate of measurement and knowledge is to strive and fail and strive again. That truth is only approached by endless asymptote. The very concept of purity "invokes" desecration and frantic defenses. Hence Virgo's urgency and  stubborness. Hence George Bataille (10 Sept. 1897), Antonin Artaud (4 Sept. 1895) and Alfred Jarry (8 Sept. 1873). OCD vs. a compulsion to desecrate is the typical Virgo neurosis.

"I live like a monk: with one toothbrush, one cake of soap, and a pot of cream."The three great screen beauties born under Virgo, Greta Garbo, Sophia Loren and Raquel Welch, are all known for their obsessive beauty ahd health rituals. Vera Stravinsky,  recording her impressions of Greta Garbo,  wrote that Garbo was  uninterested in the conversation around her until someone mentioned discovering a new soap. "Is it good for stockings?" was Garbo's only memorable remark of the evening.

 

Cameron Diaz (b. Aug. 30, 1972) is arguably Hollywood's most compulsive celeb. Not only does she open doors with her elbows to avoid touching germ-infested knobs - doorknobs, that is - she also admits to scrubbing her Hollywood home scrupulously and washing her hands 'many times' each day."

Heidi Montag (b. 15 Sept. 1984) famous for her unending quest for physical perfection through obsessive exercise and plastic surgeries.

Jeremy Irons, b. Sept. 19, 1948

The British-born star, biding time in Ireland's Shannon Airport, got so bent out of shape over a filthy airport bar that he gave the beer-soaked tables and overflowing ashtrays some desperately needed elbow grease...

" . . .He said: 'I'm just hanging around here. I'm bored and it has to be done. This place is disgusting. . . . I had an hour to kill in the lounge. I had done enough reading, and I looked around me and the place was a dump, so I decided to clean up, I find being delayed at airports quite depressing, and I felt much better after cleaning up. . .'"

Virgo Michael Jackson was, of course, a famous germaphobe.