Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1910-03-03
STYLES IN
HAIR

It's funny about hair said the girl
who likes to talk. People in former
years didn't have such time over
their topknots! Why, when l was
| little girl l can remember my mother
taking her hair in one hand, combing
it upward in three motions, giving it
one twist think they called it
French twist-and then it ran UP the
back of her head to the top. Then
with one more motion she cooled what
was left up above on the roof some
where, jabbed in three hairpins and
that was all there was to it. And my
mother was stylish woman, too!
false front at that time, though it
was considered a sort of disgrace to
the family, and she was invariably
| spoken of as poor Aunt Amelia much
as though she was feeble minded or
afflicted with cork leg. Hair was
hair then and everybody seemed to
have it. l still remember the girl
named Abbie who walked up the hill
by our home to school with her hair
in two thick symmetrical braids tied
with cherry ribbon. From the second
| primary grade to the first high school
year Abbies braids grew far below
! her waist and were just as thick at
the ends as at the top. Every girl
had thick braids and the mothers
weren't behind in that respect, either.
They wouldn't have known what to do
with rat unless they had used it to
stuff a soft cushion
81 don't know where all that hair
has gone to, I'm sure.
"At the present time," proceeded
the girl who likes to talk, "to own
little hair attached to your scalp is
| taken as a personal injury by the hair
dressers. They tell you in sad tores
that it's impossible to dress your hair
| so that it looks fashionable if you
have any of your own.
I've never been exactly crazy
about my hair" declared the girl who
| likes to talk, because I was brought
up in the belief that it was an entire
ly natural thing to have hair grow on
! ones head, and grow thick and long,
| just as much as it was natural to
grow teeth or nose. When / was
in school had occasional spasms of
| trying to arrange my hair after the
| prevailing mode, but somehow it
| never worked.
But I've never been actually apollo
getic and unhappy till this winter.
I've got so now that stink and cover
at the sight Of hair-dressers sign
and shudder with apprehension if
have to enter the shop The first
/ hairdresser l approached this winter
| with request to be made beautiful
regarded me with unconcealed horror
as she started to take down my locks
"'Why!' she gasped, you don't wear
braid'
why should | wear braid? asked
| /, in superior, comfortable way.
have plenty of my own hair to braid
if / want to-
"Thereupon the hair-dresser explod-
ed. Didn't | know that a braid could
not be arranged properly unless both
its ends were free? The only thing
to be done, if one was so unfortunte
as to have hair, was to wad it up over
a cage-like cap and pound it down into
as near nothingness as possible and
then wind around ones head braid
80 inches long at least, made of the
very best imported hair. Yes, such
braid was expensive. Anywhere
from $35 up to S100, and, of course,
the more individual the shade the
higher the price. My own hair always
had looked most ordinary brown to
me. Firmly l refused the $50 braid
and the hair-dresser threw up her
hands. All she could do for me- it
appeared, was to make an old-fash-
toned pompadour and an old-fash-
fashioned array of puffs at the back
out of my own hair, to be sure, but
as nearly as possible like the false
sets you can now buy at reduced
rates. So after paying her | went
home and took down my hair and did
it up my own way.
"a few days later | surged into an
other hair shop and fell into the hands
of a gum-chewing young person called
Mabel to whom | broke the news at
once that did not own braid. Mabel
didn't faint She said to leave it tC
her, and as | was in chair with an
apron tied around my neck and help
less, ] did.
Some day Mabel is going to be
perched on a pillar of fame. / don't
know exactly what she did or how she
did it, but when she was through will
me l was fashionable dream She
tied and divided and subdivided an(
twisted and wreathed my hair till
emerged with the semblance OF per
!, fectly lovely braid pulled out al
around my face. Oh, it looked simple
. and lovely and most becoming and
, was entranced.
"Do you know, it took me three
quarters of an hour to get the hair
pins out when ! took down my hair
Why, | had hairpins stacked up arount