Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-02-25
THE OLDEN TIME.


Hair Powder and Wigs and Patches
How Fashion Used to Torture Her
VOtaries.
The st. PduEs Magazine of London has
an article on this subject from which we
extract as follows:
No doubt hair powder and wigs were
carried ultimately to great excuses, both as
regards ,uncleanliness and extravaganza of
arrangement. The hair, from being simply
and tastefully arranged, rose into mountains
of woods, pomades and meal; and there is
no question that, through the extreme and
increasing difficulty of erecting them, as
well as the expense of hair dressing ladies
frequently combed and brushed their hair
but once in eight, or even eleven weeks,
sleeping in calaShes or caps large enough to
contain the greasy piles, and on the eve of
balls scarcely at all, for in the season the
manifold engagements of the hair dresser
made it necessary to employ him days be-
fore the event, if notice had not been sent
him sufficiently early for him to appoint
later date. The horrible results of these
habits may be better imagined than de-
scribed.
For all that, let it be remembered, there
is nothing in the world so becoming as gray
hair powder, both to old and young. 1t
softens the whole face, gives a strange
brilliancy to the eyes and complexion, and
makes the eyebrows and eyelashes much
darker than they really are. These consid-
erations probably account for the length of
time during which it continued in fashion.
There is another fashion which has gen
orally gone hand-in-hand with hair power,
and which came in vogue during the reign
of Charles l., and continued up to the be-
ginning of the last century. The patch, as it
| came first in, was one ofthe most harmless
and effective aids to beauty ever invented.
| 1t was but a tiny, mole-like spot of black
velvet or silk, which was used to draw at
! tention to some particular feature, as well
as to enhance, by contrast, the fairness of
the cheek. Thus, if a girl were conscious
! of pretty dimple III her chin, or of long
| eyebrows; if her forehead formed the best
! part of her face, or her mouth-she cum
ningly placed the little patch near it, and
| consequently every time you looked at her
| your eye was insensibly drawn by the patch
to the best feature, so that you partly forgot
! any less handsome detail. To the accus-
toned eye the patch gives singular finish
| to the toilet; it is like the seal on letter or
! the frame to picture. You see the gray
! powdered curls and the bright eyes, and the
! low, luxurious bodice,and the ribbon necklet
around the throat; and, if the patch be alb
sent, it is instantly missed, and the whole
/ toilet seems incomplete. This crafty little
piece of vanity was afterwards
vulgarized, OF course, and the
| tiny round spot was transformed
into star OF crescent that increased in size
| and multiplied in number; blind vanity for
got that in trying to draw attention to all
! her features at once, she drew attention to
| none; and, later on, it ran into such an alb
surd extreme that ships, chariets and
! horses, and other devices in black paper,
| began to disigure the female visage, and
| at last the whole face was despatched with
vulgar shapes, having no meaning, except
sometimes political one, and being of no
! value to beauty whatever, and then the de-
! graded fashion died a natural death. There
! is picture by Coypel, in the Louvre, at
! Paris, of lady whose face is positively
blurred, effaced, by large patches of various
| patters, five in number, in which it is easy
to see how many patches defeat the aim of
one. 1t is indeed amazing how any such
| fashion so foolish could have been ever fol-
| lowed, even for single season.
1t was about 1850 that the heads of the
ladies were at their biggest. They had been
steadily growing for some years, and &C
cording to the published directions for hair
dressing by the fashionable BARRIERS of the
period, they rose rapidly from ''one foot" to
''three feet high" Many of Reynolds por-
traits show the hair rising two feet above
the face, and these probably are moderated
| and idealized. OF course no human hair
could cover a cushion as tall as this, and
proportionally wide; the monstrous curls
and rolls were, therefore, chiefly false, and
additionally trimmed with "ten yards of
ribbon" ropes of beads, artificial flowers,
immense plumes of ostrich feathers, and
scarfs of gauze, as well as other ornaments,
and-the acme of bad taste-models in
! glass of ships, horses and chariots, cater
pillars, filters of pigs, and manymore. In
! 1887 the unclean towers fell, and it became
fashionable to arrange the hair in lOoser
and certainly more tasteful style-large
curls to the waist, unpowdered, ornamented
by a gauze kerchief and flowers, as Greuze
| painted them.