New Britain herald., 1930-09-26
HAIR WAVE NO NEW ARTIFICE
 
Women in Ancient Days Had
 Charming Coifur@, Too

Washington, D. C., Sept 26 - From Grecian queens to movie queens and from Broadway to far off Africa, women of all ages and colors have used ringlets, curls and plaits to heighten their charm. The made to order wave is by no means a modern beauty device, according to bulletin from the Washington. D. c. headquarters of the National Geographic Society, for even in an- cient times curled hair was consid- cred more attractive than straight and it nature did not provide waves, art supplied them.
 ''The fair Poppea Sabina, Em- press of Rome GA. D. 65), and dom- ineering influence over the boy king Nero, had her hair made into a mass of small ringlets, plastered close to her head by use of salves, unguents and often kind of mud. Observe almost any statuary of women in the Greek style and you will find this stonelike wave predominant and most notable of all, the familiar Statue of Liberty.
 Crude curling irons, combs that resemble stiff paint brushes, crush ed henna leaves and other herbs for dyeing, were the accessories used. Long hairpins and brilliantine in the form of oils and ointments usually completed the coiffure.
 Hair and hairdressing is also 'weman's crowning glory among the uncivilized women of African tribes. who subject themselves to endless suffering to perfect their headdress- ses In the Belgian Congo a beauty spends several days arranging a coiffure which lasts six months or more. Literally hundreds of tight. small plaits resembling the everyday dust mop fall from the center of the head.
 Another tribe starts in infancy to change the shape of the skull by binding it with bands of giraffe hide and hair. These are frightened from year to year as the head grows larg- CT and longer, enabling the women to make an unusual and striking headdress. A sort of wooden frame work of circular bands is placed on the back of the head and the long woolly hair is closely woven and bound around the frame. The result ia an inverted basket which flares at the edge.
 Rabbit Ear Coiffures
 Most picturesque of all IS a olack Psyche who combs her frizzes straight up, then parts them in the middle and works them into two horn-shaped projections. The effect is of long, stiff rabbit ears.
 Decorating the hair with feath- CTS. flowers and ribbons has been a custom followed through the centur- s ies In the French courts such fa- vorites as Isabella of Bavaria, La Duthe. and the Countess of Artois stripped the ostrich and killed the shellfish to supply plumes and pearls for their hair. It took head full of ringlets and curls to anchor the large plume e-bedecked cart wheel hat worn by Gainsborough' famous Duchess of Devonshire.' The celebrated queen of world tragedy, Marie Antoinette of France, wore a curled -all-over hairdress, with ingenue shoulder curls. And for originality the English poet and novelist, Letitia Landon parted her dark tresses and tied them in a bow for topknot.
 Fearful and wonderful were the cultures of the gay nineties. They reached the extreme in their pro- waving surface, made possible by concealed rats
 Women have worn their hair long because they have always been taught to believe that the hair is the ''crowning glory of their appear ance. In the past the bobbing fad was popular at the court of Louis at the court of James the First. But the bob today which originated in wartime is hardly a fad. American women declare they retained it as a custom of comfort and conven- fence and as a symbol of freedom. Masculine taste in Biblical times dictated the assertion: If a woman have long hair it is a glory to her. But twentieth century women defi- antly established leaders of the bob with the shapely shingle; the diff cult long bob; the free windblown style; and the still freer boyish bob"