Women Cutting Their Hair, Please Help.

[Praxeas]

In the heat of Egypt, noblemen and women clipped their hair close to the head. But for ceremonial occasions heavy, curly black wigs were donned. Women’s wigs were often long and braided, adorned with gold ornaments or ivory hairpins. Men’s faces were generally clean shaved, but stiff false beards were sometimes worn.

In classical Greece women’s hair was long and pulled back into a chignon. Many dyed their hair red with henna and sprinkled it with gold powder, often adorning it with fresh flowers or jewelled tiara’s. Men’s hair was short and even shaved on occasion.

In austere Rome the tendency was to follow Greek styles. The upper classes would use curling irons and favoured the gold powdered look of the Greeks. Women often dyed their hair blonde or wore wigs made from hair of captive civilization slaves. Later, hairstyles became more ornate with hair curled tight and piled high on the head often shaped around wire frames. Hairdressing became popular and the upper classes were attended to by slaves or visited public barber shops.

Native American Indians were divided in their hairstyles – those on the East Coast sporting entirely shaved heads save for a ridge of hair along the crown, whilst Plains Indians, both men and women, wore the recognized long braids adorned with feathers. Further South the Incas sported black headbands over relatively, short often bobbed hair, whilst Aztec women plaited their hair entwined with strips of coloured cloth then wound around the head. The Mayan nobility, although having shaved heads, donned high, ornate headdresses

In the 15th century – The Renaissance period – the ladies of the upper classes really took ‘plucking’ to its limit! If you think tweezing the odd eyebrow here and there is painful, imagine yourself plucking the entire front hairline away to give the appearance of a higher forehead! The rest of the hair was tightly scraped back to show off the elaborate headdresses of the day. This was a practise common in Europe whereas the upper class ladies of Italy preferred to cover the hairline with low caps and jewelled turbans. They did, however, envy the fairer hair of Northern Europeans and sat for many hours in the heat of the sun in an attempt to Bleach their hair. The ‘bleach’ of the day was made using either saffron or onion skins!
By the 16th century Queen Elizabeth was the main female icon and set the trends for the era. Her lily-white complexion and red tresses set women everywhere rushing for copious amounts of white face powder and red wigs. Thos really serious about achieving a pallid complexion used the very successful but highly poisonous white lead, adding glowing cheeks with – lead based rouge! Follow this with a thin layer of egg-white to bind it all together and you were ready to party

The 18th century saw the emergence of elaborate wigs, mile-high coiffures and highly decorated curls. White powdered wigs with long ringlets were the order of the day often tied back with a black bow for men or decorated with feathers, bows and garlands for women. Big hair was definitely the ‘in’ thing and many styles were modelled over a cage frame or horsehair pads – the bigger the better. Some immensely tall coiffures took hours to create and were heavily starched and powdered. However, the length of time spent creating these elaborate styles did mean that weeks went by between styling and the mixture of horsehair and heavy powder created perfect nesting material for vermin!

This didn’t seem to put them off though, and some adventurous souls had mini gardens or maritime scenes complete with model ship incorporated into their style – in fact it was not unknown for imaginative ladies to create mini-bird cages complete with birds on top of their heads!

Following the decadence of the previous era, the Victorians took a much more subdued and puritanical line. Middleclass ladies, although not abandoning make-up completely, did tone things down considerably with more of an emphasis on natural beauty. A Victorian lady would play up her natural features and aimed at a healthy hygienic look. Hair was supposed to look sleek, shiny and healthy and styles were altogether more elegant and demure. The hair was often smoothed down with oils and curled into long ringlets, fringes were short and decoration was more subtle.
Hairnets were often worn during the day to keep curls
confined and clipped to the back of the head with a simple ivory comb or black bow. Later in the century hair was often plaited and wound into heavy coils pinned neatly to the nape of the neck. Neatness was the order of the day and ‘loose’ hair would have been considered vulgar. Men of the time kept their hair relatively short, pomaded with macassar oil and most would have worn some form of moustache, beard and sideburns.

1920’s society very much abandoned the puritanical standards and constraints of Victorian life. The ‘Roaring Twenties’ saw the emergence of short, bobbed and waved styles, signifying the new independent, free-spirited, free-woman ethos of the day. Women increasingly had access to cinema and theatre and trends were set by the ‘superstars’ of the time. Make-up was very much back in fashion – powder, rouge and very red lips were ‘in’ albeit in a more demure way than the earlier 18th century Style. Men’s hair remained short, as in the Victorian era but was most often worn with a centre parting and slicked back using brilliantine and highly perfumed oils.

http://www.ukhairdressers.com/history%20of%20hair.asp

Observation: I don't see anything about women never cutting their hair until the 1920s....I see though that as far as hair styles/trends go the 20s brought in a very SHORT hair style.

I'd like to see the evidence women never cut their hair until recently