To think there's some things you just don't do on public transport...

[SamanthaBrique]

...and flossing your teeth on the tube is one of them?

@Evangeline3 They weren't married to each other, but were married.

I love watching people do make up on the train. I've done it too. Sometimes it's just multi-tasking, travelling whilst doing it!

I did once watch a woman, all dressed up in a mini-skirt and corset combo (I thought she might have been on her way to a festival) doing her make up on a train. She was really taking her time, and looked lovely, but she was using her phone camera on selfie mode as a mirror and had missed blending a big splodge of foundation on the side of her nose. I did tell her, but I still feel bad sometimes that I maybe embarrassed her. I just couldn't not tell her after she'd made so much effort.

Me and my husband were on a long train trip. We'd packed food so we wouldn't have to pay tea trolley prices. At lunchtime we got our food out, and just as we'd set everything out on the table the woman at the table beside us stood up, lay her child down on their table and proceeded to change the most shit filled nappy I have ever seen. The smell was horrendous. Lunch went in the bin, and we paid tea trolley prices later, when we felt we could eat.

On the bus with my young sons, there was just us at the start of the 30 minute trip home. 10 minutes later 4 teenagers got on, two boys, two girls. They went all the way to the back. A few minutes later I start to hear things like "unbutton her shirt" "lift her bra" "take her tits out" I sneak a look behind me. The two boys are standing in front of the girls, filming them on their phones...

On quite a few long bus journeys in South America (15-24 hours) it was common for people to just lie down in the aisle and sleep. They would also just lie their baby on the floor under their legs when they needed a nap.
Most of them chewed coca the whole journey.
A lot of the men had a habit of snorting up phglem in the most disgusting way possible. Writing that has just made my stomach heave at the memory.

Most memorable journey was an overnight bus on mountain roads. Dinner was provided on a tray, like on a plane . It was some sort of vile tripe stew, luckily we had enough snacks to avoid eating it, but it stank. The bus drivers then switched over, and the new one mistook himself for an F1 driver and proceeded to drive down the unpaved winding mountain roads like an utter lunatic. Almost everyone on the bus started vomiting and the tripe didn't smell any better second time around

When I used take the train to the city, almost EVERY woman in it put on make up on the journey. I never once thought they looked lazy and ridiculous. It was quite interesting looking at their different techniques. However I imagine my old fashioned prudish MIL would be aghast at women beautifying themselves in front of MEN!

As for being embarrassed for the woman using a tweezers, I am wondering how much interaction you have with the general public if you find that noteworthy.

To me it's simple: let's not talk about normal, but for most people there are two private areas in their homes; the bathroom/toilet which probably has a lock and the bedroom which mummies and daddies might want to lock sometimes. In general most people do not want to see in public at close quarters the private activities that occur in these rooms, married or not, Superwomen multitasking or just regular running late.

the guy had the sleeve up, and rubber band thing around his arm and was injecting himself

I would have assumed this guy was diabetic and therefore it could have been pretty essential that he injected himself immediately.

Body hair = dirty bitch? Seriously?

@GrannyHaddock
I don't put my make up on nor file my nails in my bedroom or bathroom.
Not sure how they are private activities.

What custardy says. I have a diabetic colleague who just clicks his pen on his thigh through his trousers. Most off putting when you are not expecting it!

Some of this is utterly foul but I really don’t see the issue with women applying make up on trains.

I get a busy commuter train everyday and there’s usually 2 or 3 women per carriage doing it. What is inappropriate about it...?

I am amazed that women can manage to put make-up on at all in a moving train, especially mascara. I was going to say earlier that I had never in nearly 50 years seen a man shaving on a train, but now I have learnt that it does happen. His head! Lovely.

I recall seeing a woman threading her friend's eyebrows on a tube train a couple of years ago. I remember thinking 'What's next? A bikini wax?'

What is too much armpit hair? What level is too much and what is is too much for?

I don't know, but I can plait mine.

I am always fascinated by watching people put make up on, on the train. As a pp said- the technique, the difference it makes etc.

Years ago, if you saw a man combing his hair in the street, reflected in a shop window, you would think "yuck". Grooming happened at home, at the hairdresser's, beauty parlour or manicurist. An adult coaxing a child over the internet is "grooming" them; it's secret, surreptitious, not for public viewing. This is why many of us are uncomfortable sharing small spaces with people carrying out grooming activities.

I saw a lady shaving her legs with a bic razor at a bus stop in Southfields a few years ago

I’m not uncomfortable at all sharing “grooming activities” in a train
granny-haddock. It’s just humans getting ready for the working day.

That's fine, nursy.I never said everybody felt the same about it, but where would you draw the line? Would you like your neighbour in the train to clean their teeth and spit on the floor? Eat a fry-up? Do a poo? Just getting ready for the working day.

Not much bothers me but I know it does other people, so I try really hard to stop myself scratching my crotch and picking my nose in public. They are both things I seem to be doing constantly at home!

To the poster who thought it fine to change a pissy nappy - no, just no. Make up, nail filing, eating - fine. But not pissy nappies

Nail filing is not OK, there's a lot of dust flying around.

Anything that involved bodily fluids or bits separated from the body is not on. Also anything that's smelly.

@ChardonnaysPrettySister I'm not sure what techniques you're using to file your nails where the dust is "flying around" but mine would just go on my trousers or a tissue. No big deal. Touching a bus bell has millions more germs.

Oh god, some of these (the pukey, pissy, wanky, bogey ones) are giving me palpitations! I'm so glad I don't have to use public transport more than once in a blue moon. I don't know how people cope.

On your trousers or on those sitting next to you. What do you think happens to the nail when you file it, whatever your technique?

Keep your nails to yourself, thank you very much.