Category:
Hair and Hairstyling

The Blonde Brigade

Apr 1938: Actress Jean Colwell came up with a sure-fire way to end all wars. Her idea was that if a group of beautiful, blonde women stood in between the two opposing armies, in the "no man's land," then the soldiers on each side would refuse to attack because "No soldier will shoot at a good-looking blonde." Peace would be achieved!

To make her vision a reality, Colwell placed an ad in a New York newspaper:

Are you blonde, beautiful and ready to join men in the trenches in the next war? It's the last chance to save this idiotic man's world. Jean Colwell, 124 West 55th.

The response was enthusiastic, and within a month she had enough volunteers to form a "blonde brigade," all wiling to risk their lives for peace.

Wisconsin State Journal - Mar 29, 1938



Los Angeles Times - Apr 27, 1938



Owensboro Messenger - Apr 2, 1938



Women of other hair colors didn't want to be left out. So there was soon also a "red-headed regiment" and a "brunette battalion."

San Bernardino County Sun - Apr 30, 1938



Of course, none of these women were ever shipped to the front line to serve as a human shield. Colwell herself spent the war in Forth Worth, Texas performing in plays. After the war she moved to Japan as a civil service worker. When she died in 1986, she was back in Fort Worth. I haven't found any info on what she did between 1946 and 1986.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Nov 14, 2021 - Comments (4)
Category: War, 1930s, Women, Hair and Hairstyling

Strictly feminine is the woman devoid of superfluous hair

The more often I say that sentence, the stranger it sounds.

Pittsburgh Press - July 30, 1939

Posted By: Alex - Fri Nov 05, 2021 - Comments (4)
Category: Advertising, 1930s, Hair and Hairstyling

Aluminum Al

In 1952, scientists at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady created the aluminum version of a Chia Pet. They called him "Aluminum Al".

Source: Google Arts and Culture



Science has not yet discovered how to grow hair on a billiard ball, but chemists in the General Electric Research Laboratory here can grow a handsome head of "hair" of a beard on "Aluminum Al," who is nothing more than a sheet of pure aluminum cut out in the shape of a mans head. As shown above, "Al" in a few minutes time can go from complete baldness through the tomahawk-type haircut to the tonsorially-respendent "Mr. Esquire hairdo. Amusing though he is, "Al's" purpose is a serious one of helping provide a better understanding of the most effective ways of using aluminum, which is replacing copper in many critical applications. According to GE scientist, aluminum could be not be used were it not obliging enough to furnish its own protective coating, a thin film of aluminum oxide, when cut. The film keeps air away and prevents further oxidation. "Al" demonstrates a condition under which this does not occur. When his surface is scratch under mercury, the film does not form. Instead the oxide sprouts out along the scratches is an uncontrolled, hair-like growth. Prof. J. H. Hildenbrand, University of California, is credited with the idea of first trying the oxidation principle on a cut-out head.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Sep 13, 2021 - Comments (1)
Category: Science, 1950s, Hair and Hairstyling

Baldness at the FBI

William Sullivan was a high-ranking official at the FBI from 1961 to 1971, when Hoover was director. In his tell-all book about his time there (The Bureau My Thirty Years in Hoover's FBI) Sullivan claimed that one of Hoover's many eccentricities was that he didn't like bald-headed men... to the extent that Hoover wouldn't allow bald men to be hired as agents, because he believed their baldness made a bad impression:

The FBI's main thrust was not investigations but public relations and propaganda to glorify Hoover. Everyone who worked in the bureau, especially those of us in high places around him, bear our share of the blame.

Flacking for the FBI was part of every agent's job from his first day. In fact, "making a good first impression" was a necessary prerequisite for being hired as a special agent in the first place. Bald-headed men, for example, were never hired as agents because Hoover thought a bald head made a bad impression. No matter if the man involved was a member of Phi Beta Kappa or a much-decorated marine, or both. Appearances were terribly important to Hoover, and special agents had to have the right look and wear the right clothes...

Though a bald-headed man wouldn't be hired as an agent, an employee who later lost his hair wasn't fired but was kept out of the public eye.

I guess that means that, under Hoover, Walter Skinner would never have made the cut.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jun 30, 2021 - Comments (2)
Category: Government, Officials, Hair and Hairstyling

Combined hat and comb

In 1920, Alva Dawson of Florida was granted a patent for a "combined head covering and hair comb". In his patent he explained:

Among the objects of the invention is to provide a combined head covering and comb so constructed and arranged that the wearer of the head covering may comb up his hair coincidentally with the removal of the head covering from his head, and hence without rendering himself conspicuous in so doing.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't possible to use this hat-comb without rendering yourself very conspicuous.



Popular Science - Oct 1920

Posted By: Alex - Sun May 02, 2021 - Comments (0)
Category: Patents, Headgear, 1920s, Hair and Hairstyling

Hair Popping

Hair popping was developed as a claimed cure for baldness around the 1950s. It involved pulling on the scalp until it made a popping sound. And yes, it was apparently quite painful.

Some details from Baldness: A Social History by Kerry Segrave.

Trained dietician and cosmetologist Rita Hartinger was the foremost practitioner of the "hair popping" technique of hair preservation and regrowth; she was working out of New York City in 1968. Eight years earlier she had learned the trade from its originator, hairdresser Marsha Lewis, since retired. Hartinger called herself a "professional hair popper," believing her method of scalp stimulation helped her customers keep whatever hair they had and perhaps sprout a new crop. "I make the hairs healthy.... When you lift up the scalp from the bone structure by popping, it stimulates circulation and nourishes the tissue. Then the hair is strengthened, and it is less likely to fall out," she said. A journalist who watched Rita in action reported that each tug on the scalp did indeed produce a "pop," and he described the sound further by writing it was "as if a kernel of popcorn had exploded on his head."

Hair popping, as a cure for baldness, fell out of fashion. But recently it's re-emerged as a fad on TikTok. Though it's now being called 'scalp popping'.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Apr 21, 2021 - Comments (2)
Category: Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, Hair and Hairstyling

Cow-Tongue Baldness Cure

Several sources have independently reported that the way to cure baldness is to have a cow lick your head.

Regina Leader-Post - Mar 8, 1984



Colombian hairdresser says he can lick baldness
November 29, 2000

PEREIRA, Colombia -- Want to lick hair loss? A Colombian hairdresser says he has found a way to lick baldness -- literally. His offbeat scalp treatment involves a special tonic and massage -- with a cow's tongue. "I feel more manly, more attractive to women," says customer Henry Gomez. "My friends even say 'What are you doing? You have more hair. You look younger.'"

Posted By: Alex - Sat Apr 10, 2021 - Comments (2)
Category: Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, Cows, Hair and Hairstyling

The Clairol Beauty Game



This is a game which promotes learning about perms and hair styling.


Source.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Feb 28, 2021 - Comments (1)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Games, Stereotypes and Cliches, 1960s, Hair and Hairstyling

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