[h-cost] 1880s hair-styling terms: crimps and fedoras
I'm writing a novella set in 1887 with three teenage girls as the main characters, and as a result I've been doing research into the slang pop culture and so forth of the time period in New England. The 1880s are Not My Era, and I've run across a term-and-a-half that confuse me. Here's the passage, from The Familiar Letters of Peppermint Perkins, with the terms and phrases ***starred***. -- I did begin that very night by not ***doing up any crimps.*** I was going to wear my hair like Clara's. She never wears any crimps. Runover girls never do, though they have never advanced any sufficiently good reason to me for not crimping it, for they all look like old fuds with it so, and they spend just as much and more time brushing and smoothing it ***at night than I do on my Fedoras.*** Well, I was going to say I didn't do up any; but about three o'clock I woke up and remembered that I had promised to go skating with Charlie Brood out to Jamaica the next morning, and I knew any amount of self-improvement wouldn't make up for the absence of crimps in his eyes, so I just snaked out of bed and ***up with two Fedoras;*** but no sooner had I got them up than my conscience began to reproach me for my weakness, and after I got back into bed I determined that even Charlie Brood's criticisms shouldn't influence me, and I began to take them down; but you see I was so sleepy, getting up so suddenly (it all was like a dream), that I only got one down before I dropped to sleep, and the next morning you ought to have seen what a fright I looked. You know how high my forehead is, and shiny. Well, there I was with all that shining expanse and ***one little bob on the left temple***, and I overslept on account of getting up so, and was late, and before I could do anything Charlie Brood was after me. -- The crimps part I only find partially confusing; I'm familiar with crimping as something one does to curl one's hair with hot irons, but not as an overnight treatment. Is this a reference to putting one's hair in rags? Leaving it in braids overnight for braid curls? Something with hairpins? Or...? The one that really confuses me, though, is the Fedoras. What on earth are these? The context makes it seem pretty clear that this is either another method of creating curls overnight or another name for overnight crimps, but what is the actual method, and what does the result look like? Or, does the name perhaps refer to the location of the resulting curls, rather than the method? Any ideas? -E House ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] 1880s hair-styling terms: crimps and fedoras
What a fun topic!!! Love vintage hair styling! And since my hair wont hold a heat curl for more than 35 minutes, I've explored a lot of no-heat curl options. :) A fedora is a particular style of hat. It was quite the norm to give hats a little treatment at the end of every use, especially in the case of suede, felt or velvet, where a brushing not only knocks the dirt off but refreshes the surface texture. People did this with garments too to get a little more wear out of them between washings, or to keep non-washable garments clean. There are quite a number of ways to achieve curls, without modern curling irons, and women have been doing it since the dawn of time. To me, crimp implies more of a folded, zig-zag type curl than a round curl. Or at the very least, tight and small curls. In the 1880s, many irons existed for hair styling many of which would achieve a crimped look. Even a iron for clothes could be used to curl hair. But I agree that the author is implying that it is a set and air dry style...and that the starring character is being lazy with her beauty routine. LOL! What you suggested are all definite possibilities. While bobby pins are a newer invention, standard hair pins have been around since before the birth of Christ. In addition to pinning curls to your head like 40s pin curls, hair pin curls could be achieved in the same way that hairpin crochet is done; take a small strand, wrap it back and forth on the needles, pin the whole thing in place and let it dry. A twist set creates a more crimped look too. Either you take small sections of hair and twist the sections together tightly. Or you take one section and twist it around something else. Then, once it is fully try, you carefully un-twist. It's all the same process, whether you use only your own hair or wrap around something else. The twist out set is done today, usually on kinky curly hair but even those with straight hair can achieve a similar look. Do a web search for twist out to see what I'm talking about. :) Or watch this girl. She uses drinking straws and bobby pins to achieve no-heat crimpy curls. I love it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBik0XlFZKE And for something older (1700s), check out this lady's video on paper curls. I know you were leaning toward no-heat styling, but there's a catalogue in the beginning of the video that makes this worth watching for your book research. A few pages of hair tools are shown. As an alternative to rolling the hair around a heated rod, one could have wrapped the ends in paper, then rolled up the hair and folded the paper over the ends to hold it in place. Then, iron it with a flat iron, let it cool and pull off the paper to reveal springy curls. I had to hunt but here's a youtube link demonstrating it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP9PJsY5__4 On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 7:00 PM, Elena House exst...@gmail.com wrote: I'm writing a novella set in 1887 with three teenage girls as the main characters, and as a result I've been doing research into the slang pop culture and so forth of the time period in New England. The 1880s are Not My Era, and I've run across a term-and-a-half that confuse me. Here's the passage, from The Familiar Letters of Peppermint Perkins, with the terms and phrases ***starred***. -- I did begin that very night by not ***doing up any crimps.*** I was going to wear my hair like Clara's. She never wears any crimps. Runover girls never do, though they have never advanced any sufficiently good reason to me for not crimping it, for they all look like old fuds with it so, and they spend just as much and more time brushing and smoothing it ***at night than I do on my Fedoras.*** Well, I was going to say I didn't do up any; but about three o'clock I woke up and remembered that I had promised to go skating with Charlie Brood out to Jamaica the next morning, and I knew any amount of self-improvement wouldn't make up for the absence of crimps in his eyes, so I just snaked out of bed and ***up with two Fedoras;*** but no sooner had I got them up than my conscience began to reproach me for my weakness, and after I got back into bed I determined that even Charlie Brood's criticisms shouldn't influence me, and I began to take them down; but you see I was so sleepy, getting up so suddenly (it all was like a dream), that I only got one down before I dropped to sleep, and the next morning you ought to have seen what a fright I looked. You know how high my forehead is, and shiny. Well, there I was with all that shining expanse and ***one little bob on the left temple***, and I overslept on account of getting up so, and was late, and before I could do anything Charlie Brood was after me. -- The crimps part I only find partially confusing; I'm familiar with crimping as something one does to curl one's hair with hot irons, but not as an overnight treatment. Is this a reference to putting one's hair in rags? Leaving
Re: [h-cost] 1880s hair-styling terms: crimps and fedoras
OH!! I forgot! I was going to give you one more link...old videos of women doing their hair. I love this! http://frazzledfrau.tripod.com/titanic/hair.htm On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 8:29 PM, Sybella mae...@gmail.com wrote: What a fun topic!!! Love vintage hair styling! And since my hair wont hold a heat curl for more than 35 minutes, I've explored a lot of no-heat curl options. :) A fedora is a particular style of hat. It was quite the norm to give hats a little treatment at the end of every use, especially in the case of suede, felt or velvet, where a brushing not only knocks the dirt off but refreshes the surface texture. People did this with garments too to get a little more wear out of them between washings, or to keep non-washable garments clean. There are quite a number of ways to achieve curls, without modern curling irons, and women have been doing it since the dawn of time. To me, crimp implies more of a folded, zig-zag type curl than a round curl. Or at the very least, tight and small curls. In the 1880s, many irons existed for hair styling many of which would achieve a crimped look. Even a iron for clothes could be used to curl hair. But I agree that the author is implying that it is a set and air dry style...and that the starring character is being lazy with her beauty routine. LOL! What you suggested are all definite possibilities. While bobby pins are a newer invention, standard hair pins have been around since before the birth of Christ. In addition to pinning curls to your head like 40s pin curls, hair pin curls could be achieved in the same way that hairpin crochet is done; take a small strand, wrap it back and forth on the needles, pin the whole thing in place and let it dry. A twist set creates a more crimped look too. Either you take small sections of hair and twist the sections together tightly. Or you take one section and twist it around something else. Then, once it is fully try, you carefully un-twist. It's all the same process, whether you use only your own hair or wrap around something else. The twist out set is done today, usually on kinky curly hair but even those with straight hair can achieve a similar look. Do a web search for twist out to see what I'm talking about. :) Or watch this girl. She uses drinking straws and bobby pins to achieve no-heat crimpy curls. I love it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBik0XlFZKE And for something older (1700s), check out this lady's video on paper curls. I know you were leaning toward no-heat styling, but there's a catalogue in the beginning of the video that makes this worth watching for your book research. A few pages of hair tools are shown. As an alternative to rolling the hair around a heated rod, one could have wrapped the ends in paper, then rolled up the hair and folded the paper over the ends to hold it in place. Then, iron it with a flat iron, let it cool and pull off the paper to reveal springy curls. I had to hunt but here's a youtube link demonstrating it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP9PJsY5__4 On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 7:00 PM, Elena House exst...@gmail.com wrote: I'm writing a novella set in 1887 with three teenage girls as the main characters, and as a result I've been doing research into the slang pop culture and so forth of the time period in New England. The 1880s are Not My Era, and I've run across a term-and-a-half that confuse me. Here's the passage, from The Familiar Letters of Peppermint Perkins, with the terms and phrases ***starred***. -- I did begin that very night by not ***doing up any crimps.*** I was going to wear my hair like Clara's. She never wears any crimps. Runover girls never do, though they have never advanced any sufficiently good reason to me for not crimping it, for they all look like old fuds with it so, and they spend just as much and more time brushing and smoothing it ***at night than I do on my Fedoras.*** Well, I was going to say I didn't do up any; but about three o'clock I woke up and remembered that I had promised to go skating with Charlie Brood out to Jamaica the next morning, and I knew any amount of self-improvement wouldn't make up for the absence of crimps in his eyes, so I just snaked out of bed and ***up with two Fedoras;*** but no sooner had I got them up than my conscience began to reproach me for my weakness, and after I got back into bed I determined that even Charlie Brood's criticisms shouldn't influence me, and I began to take them down; but you see I was so sleepy, getting up so suddenly (it all was like a dream), that I only got one down before I dropped to sleep, and the next morning you ought to have seen what a fright I looked. You know how high my forehead is, and shiny. Well, there I was with all that shining expanse and ***one little bob on the left temple***, and I overslept on account of getting up so, and was late, and before I could do anything
Re: [h-cost] 1880s hair-styling terms: crimps and fedoras
Thanks; lovely resources. I'm definitely familiar with the fedora as a hat; I've just never heard of it as a hair styling technique before, hence my curiosity! Thanks to Google books and the Ngram viewer (hugely useful for etymological study), I've managed to track down a possible link. The fedora was named after the hat that Sarah Bernhardt wore during an 1882 play called Fedora. (Meaning that all those manly men in noir movies were wearing a girl's hat...) Perhaps the hairstyle she wore during the play ALSO started a fashion for a particular style of curls, and the girl in that passage I quoted was setting her curls into the particular style that Sarah B wore during the play; it sounds like it must have been one really tight curl per side, covering the forehead. (Sadly, I've been unable to find a photo of Sarah B in the original fedora hat with her fedora curls.) Also, I've come to the conclusion that 'crimp' and 'curl' were being used as interchangeable words. -E House On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 11:37 PM, Sybella mae...@gmail.com wrote: OH!! I forgot! I was going to give you one more link...old videos of women doing their hair. I love this! http://frazzledfrau.tripod.com/titanic/hair.htm On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 8:29 PM, Sybella mae...@gmail.com wrote: What a fun topic!!! Love vintage hair styling! And since my hair wont hold a heat curl for more than 35 minutes, I've explored a lot of no-heat curl options. :) A fedora is a particular style of hat. It was quite the norm to give hats a little treatment at the end of every use, especially in the case of suede, felt or velvet, where a brushing not only knocks the dirt off but refreshes the surface texture. People did this with garments too to get a little more wear out of them between washings, or to keep non-washable garments clean. There are quite a number of ways to achieve curls, without modern curling irons, and women have been doing it since the dawn of time. To me, crimp implies more of a folded, zig-zag type curl than a round curl. Or at the very least, tight and small curls. In the 1880s, many irons existed for hair styling many of which would achieve a crimped look. Even a iron for clothes could be used to curl hair. But I agree that the author is implying that it is a set and air dry style...and that the starring character is being lazy with her beauty routine. LOL! What you suggested are all definite possibilities. While bobby pins are a newer invention, standard hair pins have been around since before the birth of Christ. In addition to pinning curls to your head like 40s pin curls, hair pin curls could be achieved in the same way that hairpin crochet is done; take a small strand, wrap it back and forth on the needles, pin the whole thing in place and let it dry. A twist set creates a more crimped look too. Either you take small sections of hair and twist the sections together tightly. Or you take one section and twist it around something else. Then, once it is fully try, you carefully un-twist. It's all the same process, whether you use only your own hair or wrap around something else. The twist out set is done today, usually on kinky curly hair but even those with straight hair can achieve a similar look. Do a web search for twist out to see what I'm talking about. :) Or watch this girl. She uses drinking straws and bobby pins to achieve no-heat crimpy curls. I love it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBik0XlFZKE And for something older (1700s), check out this lady's video on paper curls. I know you were leaning toward no-heat styling, but there's a catalogue in the beginning of the video that makes this worth watching for your book research. A few pages of hair tools are shown. As an alternative to rolling the hair around a heated rod, one could have wrapped the ends in paper, then rolled up the hair and folded the paper over the ends to hold it in place. Then, iron it with a flat iron, let it cool and pull off the paper to reveal springy curls. I had to hunt but here's a youtube link demonstrating it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP9PJsY5__4 On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 7:00 PM, Elena House exst...@gmail.com wrote: I'm writing a novella set in 1887 with three teenage girls as the main characters, and as a result I've been doing research into the slang pop culture and so forth of the time period in New England. The 1880s are Not My Era, and I've run across a term-and-a-half that confuse me. Here's the passage, from The Familiar Letters of Peppermint Perkins, with the terms and phrases ***starred***. -- I did begin that very night by not ***doing up any crimps.*** I was going to wear my hair like Clara's. She never wears any crimps. Runover girls never do, though they have never advanced any sufficiently good reason to me for not crimping it, for they all look
Re: [h-cost] 1880s hair-styling terms: crimps and fedoras
Hm. I see what you mean. In the first reference, the comparison is made about the time spent brushing hair vs brushing the hat clean. And in the next, she's using the hat to hide her unstyled hair because she was too lazy to set it. She was saying that Charlie would be disappointed with her for not having her hair done. But it does say two fedoras, and that she fell back asleep with one side undone. Unless she's splitting it down the middle, doing a quick twisted bun on each side, and putting the hat over, I don't know how she'd get two hats on her head. What year was that written?? Maybe there was a styling hair tool called a fedora. And I'm loving the Sarah B story. I'm going to have to research that tonight. :D I would like to add this though. If you're planning on wearing a hat, you do have to style your hair with the hat in mind. The hat influences the style, for sure. I'm not sure if there was ever a hair style that was a fedora style but depending on the shape of the hat, or where it sits on the head, styling it right is everything. On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 9:59 PM, Elena House exst...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks; lovely resources. I'm definitely familiar with the fedora as a hat; I've just never heard of it as a hair styling technique before, hence my curiosity! Thanks to Google books and the Ngram viewer (hugely useful for etymological study), I've managed to track down a possible link. The fedora was named after the hat that Sarah Bernhardt wore during an 1882 play called Fedora. (Meaning that all those manly men in noir movies were wearing a girl's hat...) Perhaps the hairstyle she wore during the play ALSO started a fashion for a particular style of curls, and the girl in that passage I quoted was setting her curls into the particular style that Sarah B wore during the play; it sounds like it must have been one really tight curl per side, covering the forehead. (Sadly, I've been unable to find a photo of Sarah B in the original fedora hat with her fedora curls.) Also, I've come to the conclusion that 'crimp' and 'curl' were being used as interchangeable words. -E House On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 11:37 PM, Sybella mae...@gmail.com wrote: OH!! I forgot! I was going to give you one more link...old videos of women doing their hair. I love this! http://frazzledfrau.tripod.com/titanic/hair.htm On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 8:29 PM, Sybella mae...@gmail.com wrote: What a fun topic!!! Love vintage hair styling! And since my hair wont hold a heat curl for more than 35 minutes, I've explored a lot of no-heat curl options. :) A fedora is a particular style of hat. It was quite the norm to give hats a little treatment at the end of every use, especially in the case of suede, felt or velvet, where a brushing not only knocks the dirt off but refreshes the surface texture. People did this with garments too to get a little more wear out of them between washings, or to keep non-washable garments clean. There are quite a number of ways to achieve curls, without modern curling irons, and women have been doing it since the dawn of time. To me, crimp implies more of a folded, zig-zag type curl than a round curl. Or at the very least, tight and small curls. In the 1880s, many irons existed for hair styling many of which would achieve a crimped look. Even a iron for clothes could be used to curl hair. But I agree that the author is implying that it is a set and air dry style...and that the starring character is being lazy with her beauty routine. LOL! What you suggested are all definite possibilities. While bobby pins are a newer invention, standard hair pins have been around since before the birth of Christ. In addition to pinning curls to your head like 40s pin curls, hair pin curls could be achieved in the same way that hairpin crochet is done; take a small strand, wrap it back and forth on the needles, pin the whole thing in place and let it dry. A twist set creates a more crimped look too. Either you take small sections of hair and twist the sections together tightly. Or you take one section and twist it around something else. Then, once it is fully try, you carefully un-twist. It's all the same process, whether you use only your own hair or wrap around something else. The twist out set is done today, usually on kinky curly hair but even those with straight hair can achieve a similar look. Do a web search for twist out to see what I'm talking about. :) Or watch this girl. She uses drinking straws and bobby pins to achieve no-heat crimpy curls. I love it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBik0XlFZKE And for something older (1700s), check out this lady's video on paper curls. I know you were leaning toward no-heat styling, but there's a catalogue in the beginning of the video that makes this worth watching for your
