Snape Sanity's Journal

Featured Topic #2: Snape and his appearance (including his hygiene or lack thereof)
Featured Topic #2: Snape and his appearance (including his hygiene or lack thereof)

So, according to canon, Professor Snape is a thin, pale man with sallow, oily skin, greasy black hair that is shoulder-length and hangs in curtains around his face, black eyes that are most often cold and sometimes glittery, uneven yellowish teeth, and a very large hooked nose. Snape greatly resembles his mother, but has his father’s nose. He wears all black during the day (although he did wear green for a Quidditch match, once), and a gray nightshirt at night.

Teen and child Snape are all that, minus the often cold eyes and yellowish teeth (neither is attributed to Snape’s younger selves), and with different wardrobes. Both teen and child Snape tended to have more intense eyes, and were described not just as thin, but also stringy.

Teen Snape was additionally described as looking “like a plant kept in the dark”, being “round-shouldered yet angular” and walking “in a twitchy manner that recalled a spider.” He was shown at Hogwarts wearing his Slytherin uniform and graying underpants.

Child Snape was additionally described as having dirty, poorly cut, overlong hair. His clothes were “so mismatched that it looked deliberate: too short jeans, a shabby, overlarge coat that might have belonged to a grown man, an odd smocklike shirt.” (Petunia thought the shirt looked like it belonged to Snape’s mother.) He was described as looking not well-cared for.

I think it’s safe to say that Snape was not well taken care of as a child, and didn’t take very good care of himself as a teen or adult. He was never described as smelling bad, so I assume he took good enough care of himself so that he didn’t stink. And he’s not missing teeth and his breath is never described as bad, so I assume he took care of his teeth enough to avoid those things. I think it’s also safe to say that he probably didn’t eat or sleep properly, as his skin looked consistently dull and unhealthy.

Thoughts?

( Here’s some follow-up questions… )

As always, feel free to answer whichever questions interest you or riff on the topic however you like.

PS: The sub-topic of Snape and facial hair will be covered by an upcoming poll that

ravenstar84 is putting together. Stay tuned.

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