Keep your nail-filings to yourself....

Since when did it become acceptable to engage in overt displays of personal hygiene on public transport? I've noticed an increasing and annoying trend for people to indulge in various acts of what would once have been called their 'toilet' whilst traveling on the bus, tube or train. At the risk of being sexist, it's always women (men are probably generally less concerned with such matters - at least they don't generally want to appear to be so concerned in public). This ranges from the apparently harmless act of hair-brushing (harmless, you might say, but fairly gross if you think of the amount of hair they leave behind on the seat that then sticks to your coat/jacket), through to various sorts of make-up application (do it at home rather than scattering tissues and lotions everywhere) to various things that even most tolerant people might regard as unpleasant in public (plucking eyebrows and clipping fingernails, carefully flicking the discarded bits of keratin onto the floor). While I realise that none of these things in themselves are likely to lead to the end of civilisation it is a bit nasty isn't it? Also, putting on lippie and mascara on a crowded tube involves all sorts of elbow movement that's not great for the people sitting either side, especially if the cosmetic of choice then accidentally ends up on innocent bystanders. Get up earlier or wait until you get to work!