The foul odors of the fullers' shops must have been proverbial, for Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis) draws an unfavorable comparison between the smell of. a woman he calls Thai's and the fuller.

Thais smells worse than the veteran crock of a stingy fuller, recently broken in the middle of the road.

Source: Martial, Epigrammata 6.93.1-2, translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, Press, 1993)