AN EARLY HAIR TRADE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXII, Issue LXII, 29 January 1912, Page 6

AN EARLY HAIR TRADE.

The Greek, Egyptian, Carthaginian, and Roman ladies of 25 centuries ago made use of the most astonishing quantities of borrowed hair, and the Roman women of the time of Augustus were especially pleased when they could putdo * their social rivals by piling upon their heads a greater tower ©f additional tresses. They also arranged curls formally around the head. An extensive commerce in-human hair was carried on, and after the conquest of Gaul, blonde hair, such as grew originally'on the heads of German girls along the Rhine, became very fashionable ,in Rome. Caesar collected a vast amount of hair from the vanquished Gauls, which he sent to market at Rome, and in the Roman provinces a cropped head was regarded as a badge of slavery or at least of subjection. The hair dressers of Rome were persons of real importance, md charged exorbitant prices for forming the hair into fanciful devices, such as harps, wreaths and diadems.