Hair Twists in History

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 265, 5 August 1937, Page 5

Hair Twists in History

Some of the Elaborate Roman Coiffures Were Seven Hours in Making BUT WE HAVE SHORT TIME FOR CURLING THE Business Miss was iippatient. “Four hours, my dear,” she said. “Four hours sitting under an electric gadget just to have a curl put in your hair ends. Ridiculous!" With growing indignation, she told me that as her hair grew quickly she had to have it waved every four months and set about once a week. The set took two hours ... other attention accounted for, perhaps, four hours every week ... so that she spent roughly 350 hours every year upon her abbreviated, crowning glory. It seemed excessive—until I remembered the history books. Never, at any time in the history of civilisation, have women spent so little time and money and patience on coiffure as they do to-day.

THE history of hair-dressing is one X of the most interesting byways into ■which the bookworm can wander. In the first place, clues are infrequent and the references in chronicles and literature sparse.

It seems that way back in the days of Babylon and Memphis, women awakened to the fact that more . men are caught in a net of human hair than by any other snare. In many an ancient papyrus there is reference to lotions and dyes to make the hair beautiful: paintings and carvings show that the women of Egypt expended great pains to achieve the heavy helmet-like effect of hairdressing which one associates with the pictorial art of the period. In those days, however; men of quality were no less particular than women; though it is true that their head hair received notably less attention than their face hair! The household accounts of princes and princelings along the Euphrates Valley corf'ain considerable items of expenditure on rare greases and perfumes for their mighty beards. Although women of the aristocraticcaste spent considerable sums on coiffure, their standards would seem amazing to the modern world. Before the

16th dynasty in Egypt, for instance, many women encased their hair in a solid sheath of pine-tar or pitch, in which gold dust and small jewels were embedded. Long tresses were then out of fashion. The ladies of Memphis and Alexandria wore what would pass to-day its the “long-bob”—had, that is, any hair been visible through its pitchy sheath. Greeks’ Modern Hairdressing. THE Grecian idea of hirsute beauty was considerably different. In Athens long, blonde hair was much prized, and as far as one can make out was prepared and dressed—though not worn—much as it is to-day. A clean race, the. Athenians washed their hair frequently and supplied any deficiency in natural oil by the use of fatty and sweetly perfumed pomades. For special occasions, the hair was plaited elaborately with threads of silver or gold—sometimes studded with jewels—and coiled high on the head, helmet fashion. Rome, at the time of Athenian supremacy, was merely a noisome little village on the Tiber, and it was not surprising that Roman women should follow the older civilisation in hair fashions. ■ As time went on, however, the coiffures became more and more elaborate until, about the time of the second and third centuries, we have records of Roman ladies anointing their patrician locks with such queer preparations as the gall of lizards, scented fish-oil, pomegranate juice, soured asses’ milk, and the blood of civet; cats 1 Pearls for Hair Powder. ALTHOUGH preparations and specifics of beauty became more and more elaborate (along with eating), the actual style of hairdressing varied little throughout the entire history of the Greek and Roman empires. The hair was braided and worn in complicated coils, piled high on the head. Preparation of a coiffure took as long, in later and more degenerate times, as seven hours, three or four slave girls toiling to make sweet and sleek the crowning glory of a high-born mistress. Poppea was reputed once to have used a powder of crushed pearls to set off her coiffure for a great State banquet. There are also records of other Roman women having gone to this incredible extravagance—for pearls were the most prized of all jewels in Roman timfis. After declining Rome’s orgy, brushing and bathing hail- seems to have fallen into disregard. From the fifth to * the twelfth centuries there is little accurate record of what women did with their shining locks, although later tradition credits the ladies of Charlemagne’s and Pippin's courts with playing musical instruments and combing their gleaming tresses. Incidentally, somersaulting from history to pre-history for a moment—even Paleolithic women and men seem to have indulged in some form of hairdressing, as the Mousterian caves of France contained implements which could hardly have been put to any use but that oi unsnarling the tangles of the dawn-woman’s mop. Hair on Wooden Frames. TN medieval times the art of the hair- -*• dresser came back into its own. At first the classical tradition was followed, but this rapidly gave place to the “head-dress” type of hair arrangement that lasted, almost unaltered, un- • til the beginning of the eighteenth century. Then, someone discovered the charm of fringes and ringlets. In the insanitary Europe of the 14th to 16th centuries, it was the custom of women to have an exceedingly elaborate coiffure once every four or five months. The hair was carefully built up on light wooden frames, plaited, tied, singed, oiled and moulded into a solid-looking structure. Thereafter considerable attention was given to the visible surface, but the coiffure itself remained “unopened” unfil it lost its shape. Then the hair was laboriously

and painfully untangled, cleaned and rebuilt.

The 18th and 10th centuries introduced the most intricate and charming hair styles of all time. Curling tongs, though they had been in isolated use almost since prehistoric times, came to be part of every woman’s toilet requisites. All sorts of variations of the classical styles were evolved.

For the most part, the hair was still worn as a helmet, but the outlines of the coiffure were softened by kiss Curls, ringlets, fringes and small plaits. The women of the French court, in the 50 years before the Revolution, indulged in the most elaborate hair-dressings of all history. After making sure that the texture, colour, condition and arrangement of the hair was as perfect as the skilled hairdresser could make it, they promptly covered the whole work of art with fine, expensive and specially prepared powder. In the court of Louis XVI coiffures two and three feet high were common, and court women devoted at least five hours every day to the dressing of their hair. Those simple and charming coiffures of last century took time, too. Artificial hair, at all times used to bolster

up bulky creations, came back iuto general use. And until short hair fashions made it difficult to use such an artifice, the “switch” was a general but well-concealed item of every woman’s personal belongings. So, after all, the modern girl has little cause for complaint if she spends an hour a day on making her “bob” look trim. The hairdressing of to-day is a simple, cleanly and unpaihful process, in comparison with what it has been since women first began to usurp the male privilege of physical adornment and display.—G.P.D.