OLD AND NEW HAIR TREATMENT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3521, 20 October 1882, Page 4

OLD AND NEW HAIR TREATMENT.

The arrangement of women's hair, which has so much to do with their appearance, has undergone more changes during the last quarter of a century than the style of her dress. Skirts from six to ten yards in circumference, gaged in to pointed waists, wing sleeves with full caps at the armholes, and other fashions in garments at that time do not look as awkward at present as the sleek hair covering the ears and puffed out full behind them, and the immense braids which made the head look like a basket in the hack- the popular way of arrangement twenty-five years ago. What a metamorphosis in a woman's head from that time. The hair is now made light, dry, and fluffy, that it may be crimped and frizzed and curled. A little' Betty knot' is all that is requisite in the back, where the manystranded braids were so luxurantly coiled or the cushion-like chignon was pinned on. That was the period of pomades, when sleek and well-plastered locks were shiny with grease and the hair was made heavy with oil. It was then part of a housewife's duty to beat up lard, soften it with caster oil, perfume it with bevgamot, and keep the jars of the toilet table filled with the mixture. A lump the size of a hickory nut was but a small amount with which to anoint the head daily. So freely was this urguent used that the average head was soaked with grease. Nightcaps were necessary to preserve pillowslips, and caps were kept by the most tidy housekeepers to place on the heads of guests •when they sat near the wall ; otherwise a circular mark of grease was left upon it to remind them of their visitor. The first innovation appeared in the form of a ' ti'icopherous,' which was a mixture of alcohol and oil. It became popular for hair dressing, because it was more cleanly than the solid grease of pomatum. After this ' invigorators ' of all kinds followed, each one containing less oily matter. Finally the ' blonde style'set in, and as grease made the hair dark and heavy, and is an enemy to crimps, all t.he lo'ions for hair dressing were compounded without the oily ingredients, and the clay -of dirty heads passed. With pomatum nightcaps went out of fashion, and although there is much complaint in this age of ' frowsy ' heads, they are preferable to locks saturated with strongly-scented grease. —New York Commercial Advertiser.