History of the English Word: Shampoo

Among the words to have come into English from India is the word shampoo. Many of you might have guessed that the word shampoo has a French background (perhaps from Champoux). Nope. Actually, Champoux turns out to be a French surname, and has nothing to do with washing your hair. Shampoo, from the Hindi word champo, was first recorded (1762) as a verb meaning to give a head massage. A century later the word referred to washing hair, and a few years later, it referred to the soap with which one shampooed.

Naturally, a question comes to mind: If English didn't have a word for a product used for washing hair until basically the mid-1800s, does that mean that perhaps the English-speaking peoples did not have the thing itself?
Short answer: yes.
Longer answer: People used to use ordinary lye-based soap to wash their hair in times of old. That meant that they had to deal with soapy residues, especially in places with hard water. It's no wonder that the new shampoo compounds that came in during the 1930s were welcomed as exciting progress indeed!

An that, folks, is the history of the word (and a bit of the product) shampoo.