Hairdresser

“ This description of hair is extracted from a lecture which I delivered to the members of the British Hairdressers’ Academy and their friends, at the Rooms, New Bond Street, a few years ago, and the importance of a correct knowledge of this branch of the subject will be apparent before my book is ended.
Every hairdresser knows that if his work is to be good, he must use only hair of the best quality in his business ”

“ A head that looks like a wax image in a hairdresser's window is certainly anything but pretty. Neither is it artistic, for the correctly crimped and waved side-locks are too mechanically planned to look at all natural. To nearly all women the plainer the mode of hairdressing the more becoming it is. That does not mean that you should comb your hair straight back and wad it into a funny little bump. Quite the contrary. Comb it back if you will, but have the coil loose and graceful. It is very bad for the hair either to be pulled back tightly or to be closely arranged. ”

“ Not many years ago there was a hairdresser in the Rue Racine, who, probably on account of his proximity to the universities of the Collège de France and the Sorbonne, had this inscription on his window: “κειρω τακιστα και σιναω,” “I shear quickly and am silent.” This classical hairdresser was evidently acquainted with the answers given by Anaxagoras to a barber who asked him, “How do you wish to have your beard shaved?” ”

“ The chief distinction between masculine and feminine attire lies in the hair. Whereas the men shave nearly the whole of the head, the women allow their hair to grow, and even add to it when they do not possess a sufficient amount to produce the extraordinary forms into which they twist their locks. Various fashions of hair-dressing prevail in different parts of the country, but in all cases the women take extraordinary pains with their heads, and twist their hair into elaborate and fantastic patterns, which scarcely any European hairdresser could equal. ”

“ The American girl is Republican in her ideas, but she draws the line at hairdressers. In theory it is absurd: the hairdresser is a man and a brother: but we are none of us logical all the way. It made her mad, the thought that she had been seen by all Dresden Society skating with a hairdresser. ”

“ In this case the face is turned in profile, and its delicacy is enhanced rather than injured by the masses of hair which frame it. The hair, instead of being drawn tightly back from the forehead in the ordinary way, waves in graceful curves, which are quite beyond the art of any hairdresser. ”

“ M. Alphonse Bouchard, writing on the subject in The Hairdressers’ Chronicle, in the year 1873, and at a time when hair was scarce in consequence of the then prevailing fashion, says:—
“The hair that has fallen off is carefully collected by men who make this work their special business. They despise that which their brethren of the rag eagerly search for. ”

“ And, besides that, people did not generally want to have clothes made when they were on their travels.
There was another part of a lady's-maid's business which was much more likely to be required, and of which, also, I was at present ignorant; and that was hairdressing. But that was a deficiency which could easily be remedied by some lessons from a good hairdresser; and the first thing that I meant to do in London was to inquire for an artist of this kind, and become his pupil until I had learnt from him enough of the art to fit me for a maid's place. ”

“ Not an ordinary hairdresser at all. He only works for a few of our aristocracy and one or two leading ladies on the stage. I pulled it half down and built it up again, but it's an improvement, isn't it? ”

“ Another type of coiffure is being adopted by some hairdressers, who leave the hair flat and smooth round the face, and only make a sort of bird's-nest of the ends, which stand well up so as to lengthen the profile in an upward direction. ”

“ Hairdressers, or "artistes in hair," as they call themselves, are also in demand at New Year, for each lady then wishes to have her coiffure as magnificent as possible. This is a day of hard work to these artistes, and in order to meet all their engagements, they begin their rounds at midnight. ”

“ Even at parties, ladies will be envious of one another, and will talk about each other, and pick one another to pieces; then they pack all they can on the hair-dresser's shoulders. Truly, the hair-dresser has a good deal to contend with. ”

“ A lady informed me, last summer, that she had made a three-months' tour in Europe, with her family, and enjoyed herself very much, at about half the expense it would have required to pass three weeks at Saratoga, and not half the trouble. But fashion, in our country, is carried to an extreme which is positively vulgar, and I, the poor hair-dresser, can see it as well as the poor devils of husbands who have it all to pay for, and who are often reduced to penury and madness by the extravagance of their wives and daughters. ”

“ To carry out the everyday life of this dream world, no small amount of sacrifice and labour was needed, and we are informed that over twelve hundred hairdressers were in full occupation in Paris alone, frizzing, curling, and arranging in a thousand and one fantastical ways, hours being needed to perfect the head-gear of a lady of ton. ”

“ It might be imagined by ignorant people that hairdressers, who pay so much attention to the adornment of the outward man, would be apt to forget the requirements of the inner entirely; this, however, was not the case, jugged hairs and barbercues being among the least of the delicacies provided. ”

“ There can not the slightest thing occur among a certain set, either in their own family or among others, but whoever works for them must know—more particularly their hair-dresser; but there is a certain set above all such things, and I am happy to say I work for those in that set ”

“ During most of that time I was East and South, dressing hair, as the Cincinnati ladies were not French enough to employ a hair-dresser at that time; but in these latter days some of our ladies go to France in the summer, and New Orleans in the winter—so, by that means, they do not lose sight of the French fashions.
About two years ago, two ladies, in Cincinnati, thought I should have work enough to keep me at home; so they each employed me a month to dress their hair. They being ladies of very high standing, many thought to follow their lead. ”

“ The old woman was crying, and did not know what to do, while the old man ran out in a rage, and caught the little white boys by the hair and gave them a good pulling; but the little blacks, from their hair never having been combed or attended to, had nothing to pull, so they slipped through his fingers and off to the orchard, while I got some sheets and sewed them together so as to make a table-cloth, and commenced to set the table. Before I got through, the parson came: so they concluded to get married and send the parson away before the frolic began. It was then about six o'clock. ”

“ It is much easier to get into the higher circles now than when I first became a hair-dresser. All that is necessary now, is to go to the Burnet House, stay-there awhile, visit from one room to another, till you find out which of the ladies visit such and such families out in town; then cultivate their acquaintance.
There are two fashionable dress-makers in Cincinnati at present, where almost all the fashionables can be met with. ”

“ Going along the street I saw a young girl in Bloomer costume, and said to her, "My dear child, go and pull off those breeches and put a piece on your dress to let it down, and don't be disgracing all woman kind." The girl, from her looks, made me understand she did not know whether to be frightened or indignant.
I proceeded on to my work. I first went to a lady in the east end, whom I have been combing for the last seven years; the task I have to perform there is a great deal more of pleasure than labor. On entering that morning I found the lady and gentleman at the breakfast table. ”

“ A VARIETY OF HEAD-DRESSES ADOPTED IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
skilful hair-dresser who could "build" a head was at a premium; the art of hair-dressing being reckoned as one of the most important, and as rare as difficult. No lady's maid, however clever, was entrusted with this difficult task, and very complicated was the work of constructing the popular coiffure, which was piled half a yard high, and decked with pads, and false hair, and curls so stuck down and plastered with pomades that they might hold for weeks without being pulled down. ”

“ A well preserved Head of Hair, in a person of middle age, at once bespeaks refinement, elegance, health and beauty. It may truly be called Woman’s Crowning Glory, while men are not insensible to its advantages and charms. Few things are more disgusting than thin, frizzly, harsh, untamed Hair, with head and coat covered with Dandruff. Visit a barber and you feel and look like a new man. This is what LYON’S KATHAIRON will do all the time. The charm which lies in well placed Hair, Glossy Curls, Luxuriant Tresses, and a Clean Head, is noticeable and irresistible. ”

“ A hair-dresser, monsieur, a man who divines your soul and your habits, in order to dress your hair conformably with your being, that man has all that constitutes a philosopher—and such he is. See the women! Women appreciate us; they know our value; our value to them is the conquest they make when they have placed their heads in our hands to attain a triumph. I say to you that a hair-dresser—the world does not know what he is. ”

“ Her light-brown hair was, naturally enough, dressed with consummate art, and the character of her beauty being suggestive of purity and gentleness, she looked (her black silk dress apart) like a Madonna who should have been coiffée in the Rue de la Paix. What a delightful person for a barber's wife! I thought; and I saw her sitting in the little front shop at the desk and taking the money with a gracious smile from the gentlemen who had been having their whiskers trimmed in the inner sanctuary. ”

“ Just at that time the style of hair dressing was one of those styles which are endurable, and perhaps even very beautiful, in the hands of a first-rate artist and on the heads of those very few women who dress well; but which are more and more hideous the farther you get from that distant pinnacle of the mode, and the lower down they spread among the ranks of society. ”

“ It not only reveals to the most ordinary comprehension the hitherto concealed mysteries of the Art, but will prove an indispensable adjunct to every lady's toilet table, as by its aid she will not only be able to dress her own hair in every variety of style, but make her own Hair Jewelry and articles of Hair work, including Switches, Braids, Curls, Waterfalls, &c., assisted by a reference to plates of the most modern European and American styles. For children, no art or accomplishment is more useful than the ability to make articles of tasteful ornament in Hair Work. ”

“ There are, however, various styles of dressing the hair of girls, by which you can form a pretty accurate estimate of any girl's age up to her marriage, when the coiffure undergoes a definite change. The boys all look top-heavy and their heads of an abnormal size, partly from a hideous practice of shaving the head altogether for the first three years. After this the hair is allowed to grow in three tufts, one over each ear, and the other at the back of the neck; as often, however, a tuft is grown at the top of the back of the head. ”

“ We think the Frenchwoman right, because it is by what are called trifles that good and also great effects are produced.
We come now to an accessory of considerable importance—the hair. As a great amount of time is expended upon hair-dressing, and as no one ever thinks of wearing it in its natural state, and as nothing is more under the influence of fashion than the hair, it has become by consent of all an accessory of great importance. Will any one affirm that it is a matter of indifference how the hair is dressed? ”

“ Whether, to wear a head-dress, however, depends not alone upon fashion but upon the individual. If the type of hair ornament at the moment in fashion is becoming, wear it, especially to balls and in a box at the opera. But if it is not becoming, don't.
Ladies of fashion, by the way, do not have their hair especially dressed for formal occasions. Each wears her hair a certain way, and it is put up every morning just as carefully as for a ball. The only time it is arranged differently is for riding. An informal dinner dress is merely a modified formal one. ”

“ Another turn of the wheel of fashion has given us a simple mode of dressing the hair, which is well adapted to the average English head, and which is fully explained by the accompanying sketch. It may be taken as a safe rule, when the forehead is low and face small, that the hair may be drawn back with advantage, but a long face is generally improved by arranging the hair in soft curls on the forehead, and by waving it slightly at the sides, which adds to the apparent width of the countenance. ”

“ Those fortunate women to whom straight hair is becoming should never indulge in curls. There is nothing prettier than hair drawn loosely away from the face. It leaves displayed those lovely lines on the temples about which artists and poets go mad. As to the style of dressing one's hair, that must be left solely to one's taste. If the lines of the head, the shape of the face and the hair itself are studied a bit the solution of the most becoming coiffure is very easily solved. ”

“ To utilize the hair from the heads of others is an ancient practice still to be met with, and all sorts of [131] means for making the most of one’s own hair in the shape of pads and so on are still adopted.
When speaking of footmen, we shall find that those who dress in the costume that was in fashion when hair powder was in vogue still wear it, and the custom has been traced to the days of Rome, when gold dust was put upon the head. ”