THE FAMINE OF FAIR HAIR

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1681, 18 May 1904, Page 25

THE FAMINE OF FAIR HAIR

It is a question if women ever dressed their OAvn hair more becomingly than in the present day, or at the same time ever wore a greater quantity /of Avhat Pamela —-the girl from Pennsylvania—politely calls ‘'‘detached hair.” ■ The coifeur. too. ha® become so skilful that his creations defy detection, and so necessary are they to the scheme of beauty to which the society woman aspires, that even many of those who possess an abundance of their own tresses are constrained to adopt all kinds of artful little curls and clusters and puffs Avhicli can be pinned on in a “brace of shakes,” as the Irish say. TAventy years ago, Avlien any poor woman Avas obliged to wear a false piece, she was ever at her wits’ end to hide the miserable faot. and Avorried into a condition of nervous irritability lest others, unafflicted with thin or fading locks, might suspect. But now “detached hair” is absolutely indispensable to the smart woman’s toilet. The chief reason is that, in these days of rush and whirl, it saves time, as it can be so quickly adjusted, and it keeps so much tidier than a woman’s oaaui hair. What a relief when returning from a belated motor ride, for instance, with barely time to dress for dinner, to know it matters not that tlie hair is disarranged if there be a transformation ready to save tlie situation! But at the same time this increased demand for artificial hair on the part of those Avho do not actually need it is making the future for the poor thinhaired woman a dismal one to face. That is to say, if they are blondes, as the demand for fair hair is far in excess of the supply; in fact —terrible to relate—the supply of this colour is not only fast becoming exhausted but the sources from which it came have been closed to us. Fancy a famine of golden hair!— "not, of course, the dyed horror—but of natural blonde hair, such as no one could suspect of acquaintance Avith peroxide of hydrogen. That, hoAvever. is just what we have to face. Arid who can imagine the ultimate effect of such a state of things? Shall woman be forced to wear flaxen wigs of the same texture as those of a little girl’s dolly? Or, ‘‘What’s the matter Avith feathers ?” asks Pamela. \ Well, we can only wait and see. The

fact remains that in SAveden, Germany, and Norway, which till a feAv years ago chiefly supplied the market, laws have been passed forbidding the peasants to part with their thick, • heavy braids for commercial purposes under pain of imprisonment. But dusky beauties need not be depressed, however, for Italy, France, and Russia still remain for thefn.