HAIR, FIFTIES STYLE

The subject that I have chosen to write about today is one that will probably gross out anyone not of my own generation, but I’m doing it anyway. I believe it represents an era that is no longer around, and unless we go back to a form of primitive living due to a catastrophic event, we will not see this type of living again. What I’m talking about is “hair” and how we used to take care of it.

I remember the first time I mentioned to the children that we girls washed our hair only once a week when we were little and on up into our married years. They were totally disgusted. But let’s think about what equipment we had to work with and how we had to go about it.

In the first place, there were no hair products except shampoo. No conditioner, no mousse, no waxes, or even hair spray. Secondly, there were no hair dryers except in the “beauty parlors” and they were the kind on a stand. So we were reduced to washing our hair, usually rolling it wet and sleeping on the uncomfortable curlers all night. I distinctly remember rolling the ends up into little flat curls against my head and clamping a clip in to hold it. (Many times I woke up the next morning only to find one of them had come down during the night and I had curls everywhere and one straight piece.) You can see why our hairdos were so flat on top of our heads.

Right after we washed our hair was the worst time to do anything with it. It was so soft and fine that the curl would fall out during the day. It was always more manageable and looked better a day or two later. Most of us had to continue to roll our hair each night so the “set” would stay in. Amazingly, our hair was accustomed to this type of cleansing and it didn’t get oily until maybe the last day. I promise! I’m convinced that hair can get used to this type of treatment, but we are so determined to wash it everyday (or more!) that it can’t get into that cycle.

This is the way BJ did hers when she was in college. She would change her sheets every other Thursday night and wash her hair every Thursday night. During the first week of clean sheets, she slept on one side of the pillow and the next week, she turned her pillow over and used the clean side for her clean hair. Now that’s organized!

All that changed with the hand held dryer, plus curling iron, plus hot rollers. Also, we have all sorts of hair products that helps hold our “do” in place all day. And then we do the same process all over again the next morning.

I guess it’s worth it, especially after a remark I received last summer at the high school reunion. A wife I had never met said to me after looking at my 1957 picture, “You look much better now. The hairstyles were just not becoming back then!”