Hair

Anne here and today I'm talking about hair — specifically hair in the Regency and Victorian eras, not just hairdos but exploring a few attitudes to hair.

Hair (on the head — not so much elsewhere) has long been regarded as a woman's glory, and for much of history most women grew it long. Short hair on a woman signified that either they had been ill and their hair cut off to conserve their strength, or that some other disaster had befallen them. In Ancient Greece when the burial of the dead in the ground began, widows would cut their hair and bury it with their husbands. Centuries later women accused of being Nazi collaborators had their heads forcibly shaved to shame and humiliate them. 

However in the Regency era it became very fashionable (if also a trifle daring) to chop off your hair.  Thus we have some young ladies looking like this. This is a portrait of Lady Caroline Lamb.

At the same time, other young ladies kept their long hair and their maids arranged their hair in elaborate updos. (If you want to watch a short video on how to create a regency-era hairdo, click here.) Only young girls wore their hair loose, as long, loose hair on a woman was supposed to carry sexual connotations. When she turned 15 or 16, a girl would put her hair up, signaling her new status as a young woman. Married women and older women often covered their hair for the same reason. See my post on turbans.

The appropriation of statues from Ancient Greece and Rome, and works of art brought back by travelers returning from the Grand Tour, sparked a fashion for the "classical look" with curls and hairstyles resembling those statues and drawings, with hair worn in a simple chignon, with curls and ringlets softening the face or trailing over the shoulder.

Here, for example is a Roman bust from the 1st century AD — but it could be any Regency-era lady, couldn't it? This image is from this site, which has lots more fascinating information about hair in the Regency era.

Hair ornaments might be made of feathers, flowers (real or artificial), strings of pearls or beads, ribbons, bandeaux fancy combs or clips and tiaras. More excellent info here.  

The giving and keeping of a lock of hair had huge personal significance in those days. When in Georgette Heyer's novel,The Convenient Marriage, Hero, the young heroine, loses a card game and is asked (by a villain) for a lock of her hair, it is much worse than if she had lost a large sum of money, because of the intimate personal significance that would be ascribed to the gesture. 

During the Victorian and Edwardian eras woman's hair really came into its own. Hair was supposed to be thick and lush, and thus various methods were used to augment hair, not just for women whose hair had thinned due to illness or age. Hair thickening and strengthening tonics and applications were widely peddled. Hair extensions came into fashion, also "rats" which were pads of human hair, often saved hair from the wearer's hairbrush and made into a pad to heighten the hairdo.

Styles varied a great deal, from plain styles,  parted and pulled into a neat bun or twist, to quite elaborate styles using curling tongs, "rats", extensions and more. Hair ornaments  and combs also ranged from simple "push in" combs to elaborately decorated ones.

In the Victorian era people preserved locks of hair in lockets, under glass, like a painting — sometimes with a portrait of the loved one, locks of hair were clipped from dead people and kept as a memento. When Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, died in 1861, she sparked a mourning-jewelry trend by wearing his hair in a locket. It then became hugely fashionable to make jewelry out of the hair of dead loved ones — plain, braided or even made into decorative designs.

Houghton Library at Harvard has a vast hair collection, ranging from locks purporting to be from Shakespeare (not true) to some from other famous people. You can read more about it here.
Below are some Victorian-era mourning brooches, using hair of a loved one.

One of my favorite quotes from a TV production of Anne of Green Gables is when Anne, in her usual melodramatic fashion, asks her bosom friend Diana from whom she is being separated, "Wilt thou give me a lock of thy jet-black tresses?" To which Diana, less well-read than Anne, says, "But I don't have any black dresses." And Anne explains she means hair. Later she tells Marilla, “I’m going to sew it up in a little bag and wear it around my neck all my life.”

If you'd like to try creating a few Georgian or Victorian-era hairdos, watch these short helpful videos. Here's a Marie-Antoinette kind of hairdo, using a wig to get the required height. Or if Edwardian hair is to your taste, try this. Here's an informative video on creating an 18th century hair-do.  And here's a Downton Abbey hairdos video. 

Now, over to you: any of these styles of hair appeal to you? Do you like the idea of mourning brooches using hair or do you find it a bit gruesome?

Comments

[Constance]

As someone with poker straight, thin hair, the idea of living when one was expected to have curls bouncing around one’s face is somewhat depressing. And having had my own bad experiences with modern curling irons, I can well imagine the horrors that might have resulted from using an 18th or 19th century version! But the soft chignons and other updos are just as popular today, aren’t they? Once again, the more things change…. Thanks for a very interesting, if not hair-raising, post, Anne!

[Christina Courtenay]

What a wonderful post, Anne - so many fascinating hairstyles! I tried a Regency one for an event once and I have to say it was the most unflattering thing ever! I looked like I was about 95 But maybe I didn't do it right. I think the Greek/Roman styles were pretty for the most part. As for mourning brooches, I wouldn't mind one with a lock of hair inside, but having something entirely made of a real person's hair makes me shudder!

[Tricia Dellas]

A few weeks ago I was cleaning out a drawer and found an envelope containing locks of hair from my babies (now in their forties). I must have sat there for an hour remembering those wonderful terrifying years.
So, yes, a lock of hair is very personal very powerful and a tangible connection to another person.

[Mary T]

Thanks for all of the interesting videos you included. I found them quite interesting. I remember while watching THE GUILDED AGE how impressed I was with the hairdos that included elaborate braiding in them. I thought it must have been very time consuming for their lady's maids to accomplish. But having watched these videos I realize that they had help from hair pieces back then also.

I loved having long hair, but I also have very straight hair and for years slept on rollers. One night, when I was in my early twenties, I sat up in bed and yanked every one of them off my head. The next day I had my hair chopped very short and kept it that was for several years. Then they invented hot rollers and I was back in business (smile) again.

[Annette N]

I come from a family which genetically has the hair that other people lack. I used to have long hair (it was the 60's and 70's and the thing to do). My thick straight hair got so long I had bad headaches.
I realize this all sounds like a humble brag, but I promise it is not.
Heavy and straight as a string. Not good. Does not hold curls. The one time I got a permanent as a kid, my hair was so burned it became a family joke. Later on, lighting a gas space heater, my long hair caught fire. I did not realize, till I happened to look in the mirror...could not figure out what that terrible odor was.
The final silly story, when my son was a baby, I got most of my long hair cut off. Came home and my son did not recognize me. It took awhile for him to accept me as his actual mother. Normally he liked everyone, but for some reason, he did not like the stranger with short hair and his mother's voice.
I would not have liked all the time and effort to put curls in my hair. But, I can certainly see why women would go to the effort because they looked lovely.
Thanks for the post. It was so interesting and seeing Lady Caroline Lamb,was a bonus.
As always, I learned from the Word Wenches.

[Sweetapple, Lyn]

Mourning hair is interesting. It is a nice remembrance. I remember my older cousin using rats to puff up her hair in the late 1960s. Hair is also used in the traditional casting of church bells. https://www.qgdigitalpublishing.com/publication/?m=18934&i=775990&p=26&ver=html5

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Constance. As someone whose hair is also fine and straight, the idea of those old curling irons also makes me glad I never had to use them. But I guess that's why having a good ladies' maid was so important. When I was a child my hair was always in plaits, and these days I have it fastened back and off my face, using a clip like a bulldog clip — so much easier than a lot of pins.

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Christina — yes that mourning brooch on the left is entirely made of human hair — a pretty amazing achievement, if slightly gruesome. And I imagine, with the gorgeous volume of hair that you have it might be tricky to make a Regency-style updo. When I was researching this post, I came across a lot of photos of women with very long hair and I thought, "Just like Christina" *g*

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Tricia, yes a lock of hair can carry a lot of emotion, I agree. When I was packing up my old house in preparation to moving, I found a long plait of my hair, cut off when I was around 12. One of my sisters used the other plait as a home made hair piece — her hair never would grow long, so she used mine.

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Mary. I can't imagine sleeping in rollers. Ouch! My mother had very long hair when she was a girl and she had to sleep with her hair in rags, which she said was uncomfortable, but I imagine rollers were much worse. She had her hair cut when she was 20, and from then on always had short hair. She had perms and was always getting one of us to out her hair in rollers after she washed it. I was amazed when she finally decided to stop doing that and her hair turned out to be as straight as mine.

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Annette. Your long hair sounds amazing. I think a lot of women have hair that they'd rather was different. My hair grows fast and long, but one of my sisters can never get hers to grow past her neck. I have straight hair and I've always wished for curly, but my curly haired friends straighten their hair. Above I explained that my mother had curly hair for most of her life, but once she stopped getting perms and using rollers it grew out completely straight. We are perverse creatures, aren't we?

Love the story of your baby boy not recognizing you. A friend had a similar experience when he shaved off his beard.

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks for that, Lynn. I never knew hair was used in the manufacture of church bells. I love the idea of the sweepings from hairdressers' floors being used.

And yes, rats came and went with the various hairstyles over the years — and those beehive hairdos of the 60's would certainly require some help to achieve. I wonder if they'll ever come back again — I was thinking rats, but maybe also beehives. *g*

[Teresa Broderick]

I have fine, dead straight hair. I wore it long when I was young and my Dad said it looked like rats tails! I've had it permed, coloured, long, short and anything else you can think of:) Now a days I keep it very, very short. I like it that way. Also I decided about two years ago to let the colour go. I'm lucky enough it's coming out silver rather than dull grey.
I have two pieces of hair and this might make me sound screwy but they belong to my last two dogs. I clipped two pieces to keep on the days they passed away. They meant so much to me.
Loved the post.

[Kareni]

Thank you for a fascinating post, Anne.

I remember my grandmother saving the hair from her hairbrush; she also saved the leftover bits from bars of soap and put them in a wire box with a handle and used that for dishwashing. I likely assumed that grandmothers saved everything.

Tricia Dellas, locks of baby hair sounds like a far more charming keepsake than baby teeth!

[Mary T]

Rag curls! I had forgotten all about them. My mother would curl our hair that way when we were small. But when I left home at 18 I was much too sophisticated for anything that comfortable or unfashionable.

[Mary Jo Putney]

Anne, I think you're right--all women wish their hair was different. BETTER! My hair has always been dead average--mid brown, a bit of wave, reasonably thick--not awful but never anything to write home about. My heroines, however, ALWAYS have great hair: thick and long and shiny. In other words, wish fulfillment. *G*

[Anne Gracie]

Thanks, Teresa. I don't think it's screwy at all to keep some clippings of your dogs' fur — dogs are special and take a little piece of our hearts with them when they go. One of the hard things about leaving my old house was my Bessie-dog's grave.

I tend to either have very short of very long hair — either way I don't like it hanging around my face, so when it's long it's usually tied back somehow. I think long hair is easier – when I have mine short I'm always having to get it cut so it doesn't look like a mop. Whereas now, since it's long, I haven't been to the hairdresser for three years or more.,

[Anne Gracie]

Kareni, I remember my Nana having one of those little wire cage thingies with soap bits for the washing up, too. She was a clean fiend, but she didn't believe in detergent. *g*

[Anne Gracie]

Yes, Mary Jo, it's a rare woman who is completely happy with their hair. I was so surprised when I discovered that my mum, who'd been curly all her life, let it grow out and it was dead straight. I knew she had perms and used curlers, but never having done that to my hair, I thought it was all about shaping her hair. Which it was, but not how I thought it worked. *g*
Love the wish fulfillment of your heroines' hair.

[Jenny Wilcox]

My hair, also, is very fine and straight - I used to joke to friends and family that I was going to shave it off and buy a wig!
As far as mourning brooches using a loved ones hair - just NO! I don't even want to think about it. I have been shown these and do not like to even handle them. Shivers down my spine just thinking about it.

[Karin]

My mother had a wonderful head of curly hair, but I got my father's hair which is fine and straight, my brother got the curls!
I used to keep in a neat, shoulder length bob, but like many people, I stopped going to the hairdresser during the pandemic, and now it's as long as it was when I was in my college years in the 1970's!

[Cecilia]

Several times in my life my hair was long enough to sit on. I usually just kept it plaited and wound around my head. Each time I cut it off to a number 1 shave and donated it to the wig makers who make wigs for girls and women who have lost their hair to illness. My hair grows long and straight. I suspect if I was in the regency era I would have had hair that trailed on the floor. I have kept samples of my childrens hair and would like to try my hand at hair embroidery. I was fascinated to read how the hair from hair dressers can be recycled into so many amazing things, and that hair makes a fabulous composting fertiliser for gardens because of the level of nitrogen. Good subject Anne.