Just What Does Go on in the Beauty Shop?
I will never forget that great feeling walking to work on the first day. I was back in Rolfe with my children and it was springtime. It was June of 1949. The birds were singing, the flowers were blooming, and I was walking on air. It was a far cry from the previous year in Des Moines. There, all I remember were trucks, busses and sirens. Oh yes, and “Dorothy, my dress needs ironing.”
My first beauty shop, the one I bought over the telephone, was in downtown Rolfe. I don't mean to say I bought an entire office or a building; what I bought was office equipment, consisting of scissors, chairs, hair dryers, combs, some plastic capes and so on. I rented space in the basement of a brick building where upstairs a local physician, Dr. Clark, had his practice.
In fact the first couple of months the shop wasn’t really mine at all. I worked for the previous operator, Aloma, before she got married. This was fine with me since she introduced me to her customers, and on a few occasions, I was glad she was there.
One day after I had been working with Aloma for about a month, I noticed that steam wasn’t coming out the heating pads as I thought they should. Since I wasn’t familiar with that type of pad, I didn’t think much about it. Then I took the pads off and only a little hair was curled. I called Aloma over and she just looked at it. She said she had just purchased this new kind of pad and guessed they weren’t any good. She had me finish the shampoo she was giving and she redid the hair that had not curled. Later, I told her I was sure glad she was there. She just shrugged things like off. I guess we all learn to adapt.
My kids stayed at home alone those first three months when I worked in Aloma’s shop. One day the phone rang and it was Jerry. “You should see what Richard did ?“ he said. I imagined the worst. What did he do? He cut his hair off, of course. I guess it was a case of the son not taking after the old man, but the old woman.
Another time the telephone rang. Again, it was Jerry. You’ll never guess what Melva did. It seemed that a neighbor girl put her finger in an electric socket and got a nasty burn. Nothing serious, mind you. A few years earlier this girl was playing with matches and managed to burn down their cob shed.
One thing that worried me during those first three months when my kids were home alone, was the sound of the fire whistle. I always worried that they might burnt the house down. We had local telephone operators at that time and as soon as I wasn’t busy, I would ring Frances in the telephone office and ask her whose house caught fire. She always answered my ring by saying, “No, Dorothy, it isn’t your house.”
Although the shop in downtown Rolfe was pleasant, I wanted to have my shop in my home. So, a few months later when I received the word that I passed the State Board and could operate my own shop, I moved from the downtown shop to the front room of my house. The room was only 14 x 14 feet, but it was more than adequate. So, now in addition to being able to look after my kids, I didn’t have to pay any rent.
I worried that many of the customers who had been going to the downtown shop for years would not follow me to my own home. But, most of them did and for this I was always grateful.
About that time I started thinking about a name for my new shop. Of course there were the “cutsie” names like The Clip Joint, Hair After, Hair Today - Gone Tomorrow, Cutting Loose, The Cutting Edge, A Cut Above, The Scissor Wizard, Shear Delight, Permanently Yours, and on and on. Then, there were the artiste’ names like Picasso’s Salon Studio, Studio 2000, Studio I Designs, Paris Designs, and so on. For me anyway, I always worried about going into a place where the beauty operator wore what looked like an artist’s frock, where I never knew if I were going to get my hair cut or painted.
Then, of course, there are the “homey” names like Donna’s Designs, Nancy Cut & Curl, Barb’s Boutique, and so on. I opted for this type and named my shop, Dorothy’s Beauty Shop. Later, I decided to go “high brow” and called it Dorothy’s Beauty Shoppe.”
When I started work in my shop, beauty operators were required to wear white cotton uniforms that had to be starched and ironed. A few years later, nylon came along -- such a help. Still later, we were allowed to wear colored skirts with a white tunic. Although clothing requirements changed, we were always required to wear white shoes.
After moving the shop into my home, things really started to look up. Without having any rent to pay, I managed to save some money and in only a couple of years managed to get out of debt. I can still remember writing that last check.
I was so happy getting out of debt that I decided to redecorate my shop, the 14 x 14-foot room in the front of my house. The shop furniture was never new and the room was not remodeled when I moved into my home. So, I bought some new equipment, put in a new floor, and painted and papered the walls. Three walls were painted a pale green and the fourth one was covered with an eye-catching wallpaper of birds and green vines. You almost thought you were sitting in an bird cage. I thought it gave my shop a nice touch.
I asked one lady, known for her brutal honesty, how she liked the new decor. She said, “It’s all right if you like green.” Then added, “But who likes green?“
But I liked green and those birds kept me company for many years. For the next twenty years I had some of the most enjoyable experiences of my entire life. My customers became my friends. I loved them all and I like to think the feeling was mutual.
Pediculus humanus
When you go to beauty school you learn a lot more than just combing hair and giving permanents. We learned the Latin names of every muscle and nerve above the waistline. We never learned why we had to learn the Latin names of every muscle and nerve above the waistline -- we just did. I guess if someone came in your shop and told you she wanted you to trim her Dermis carposus, you’d know right away what to do.
Oh yes, another thing we learned about in beauty school was about Pediculus humanus. You know, head lice. Of course, our teacher told us the only critter we would ever see would be the one in the textbook. But, for completeness, there it was. So much for Pediculus humanus.
One day a smartly dressed lady comes into the shop complaining of scalp itch. She had just gotten out of the hospital and had developed this persistent itch. She had stopped by the doctor’s office before coming to my shop to determine the cause. She said she didn’t want to come to my office if she had something contagious.
But she told me not to worry since ‘Doc’ took a peek at her head and told her the itch was probably just a side effect from the medication she’d been taking. She then proceeded to sit down and I put a cape around her neck. I then took a comb out of the drawer and ran it through her glomp ! The comb came to an abrupt halt about a half inch into the hair. Good grief, I wondered. What do we have here? My mind then flashed back to that textbook picture from beauty school.
Pediculus humanus? “Excuse me,” I said and carefully removed the comb from her hair and walked to the other side of the room where I put it in a pan of formaldehyde solution. Were my suspicions correct? I knew “sticky” hair was not a good sign. I had to be sure. You don’t joke about lice. You don’t just say out of the blue, “I wonder if you’ve got lice?“ I walked back and carefully pulled the hair apart. The textbook Pediculus humanus would not be the only head lice I would ever see. This little guy tried crawling under some hair where he could be safe. It was probably a she rather than a he since her hair was full of nits. Dirty sticky nits.
I gingerly removed the cape from around her neck and took a rather deep breath. Ok, I said to myself. Say it, Dorothy. Say it out loud. It isn’t a sin to have lice. Anyone can get ‘em. What was I going to tell her -- you’ve got lice? No, Dorothy, you’ve got to be more tactful than that.
“You’ve got lice,” I said. “It’s not a sin to get lice,” I added hurriedly. “Anyone can get ‘em.” The woman sat in the chair horrified, and then she said at last, “I asked my husband if there was a chance I might have, uh …
“Don’t be ridiculous,” her husband said, “No one gets ... uh,..“
But ridiculous or not, she had ‘em. I told her how to get rid of them and added that she might give her husband the same treatment. I then sent her home with a cheery, “See ya later”.
I then made up some excuse and canceled all my appointments for the day and spent it washing down the shop with formaldehyde. I hung that cape on the clothes line for the next week. After that I burned it. You can never be too careful with Pediculus humanus.
A few weeks later I was in the grocery store and happened to meet her. She thanked and thanked me over and over for discovering the source of her itch and how to get rid of them. I never told a soul about the lice, not even my children, for all the obvious reasons. I suspect that she might have been thanking me for that, too.
Hair dryers are not as new as you might think. As long ago as 1500 B.C., hot irons were used by Assyrian slaves to curl the hair of kings and queens. In the 1920s the idea of blow drying a woman’s hair started as an advertising gimmick for a vacuum cleaner that proclaimed you could “even dry your hair with it.” By attaching a hose to the exhaust one could easily dry hair. (A little dusty maybe, but dry.) A company in Wisconsin that had just invented the electric milk shake mixer used the motor in the mixer to make the first commercial blow dryers.
When I was in beauty school, they told us we were learning to become Cosmetologists. For someone that was one for twenty years, that was about the last time I ever heard that word. Most people would say that a person who cares and beautifies hair is a “beauty operator” or “beautician.” Other common names are hair designer or hairdresser. Most beauticians don’t care what you call them, just don’t call them barbers.
From time to time beauty supply companies would hold seminars over the weekends in various places. At that time they would demonstrate such things as how to use their new products or how to give new haircuts and permanents that were becoming popular. Anyway, at one of these lectures we were told that we were not beauty operators. That sounds so unprofessional, the man said. You are professionals. You are beauticians and you are hair dressers, but you are not beauty operators. I guess we had an identity crisis.
Giving the Customer What They Want
In the early 1950s most girls wore their hair
fairly long. I had a customer who had a 16-year-old daughter who had beautiful
long hair. The hair was
naturally wavy and it bounced when she walked. The
mother was so proud of that hair. But, then it happened. The duck tail!
Every girl in the country was getting one. Especially the girls that had
naturally wavy hair. It was so cute. And so short. The duck tail turned up in
the back just like a duck’s tail. Very short. The daughter wanted to get one,
too; all her friends had one. No dear, you have such lovely bouncy hair. But
Mom, my friends… Now that is enough of that dear. Some day you’ll thank me.
A few days later the telephone rang. It was Mother. I could almost hear the tears coming down her face. Daughter had gone into the bathroom. Locked the door. Well, ... I don’t have to tell you what she did. I just don’t know whatever possessed her, the mother said. What can you do, Dorothy? she asked. I didn’t want to tell her I was a beauty operator, not a magician, but I told her to bring the daughter to my shop and I would take a look at it. Oh my. Oh my.
Later that day they both came in. Daughter had chopped it up pretty good, but I did the best I could with such short hair. A duck tail, of course. It was the only cut I could give hair that short. Daughter was in seventh heaven. Mother did admit that it did look kinda cute. They left. Daughter smiling broadly. Mother shaking her head, saying to me as she left, “I don’t know whatever possessed her. Children!
What Do They Call Ten Rabbits Walking Backwards? A Receding Hairline, Silly
Young girls go to beauty school because, “I just love working with hair -- those new styles are so groovy. [At least they used to say that.] I’ll go back home and introduce the new styles to those old women who haven’t changed their hair styles in fifty years -- I’ll make the town over.” And then they arrive back home to the real world and ... .
Much of my income was earned from older women who developed arthritis in their arms and had difficulty lifting (oh, so stiff, they’d say) their arms over their heads. Many of these women had worn the same style since they were girls a half century before. That was the style they wanted. You had better believe it, too.
The word “shampoo” was originated in England by British hairdressers from the Hindu word “champo,” which means “to massage.” But it wasn’t until 1890 that the first detergent-based shampoo was introduced in Germany. Before this time women washed their hair in various concoctions, such as Egyptian women who washed their hair in a mixture of water and citrus juice. The modern shampoo business owes its start to the American, John Breck, who developed various scalp cleansing solutions in an attempt to stop his own baldness. He didn’t succeed in curing his baldness, but he did come up with a shampoo that became popular in beauty parlors back in the 1930s. Nowadays, shampoos do a lot more than just clean hair. They prepare your hair for perms and hair coloring, as well as add body, texture and shine.
I had an elderly customer who had beautiful white hair. She wore it finger waved (this was popular a long time ago) straight back so that her forehead would show. A forehead that showed her intelligence. But then it happened. It’s called aging. Her white silky hair started to recede at the temples. “Can’t let her look bald,” I thought. So each week I’d swing the wave over to cover the bald spot and put a little curl over the thin spot on the other side. Hardly noticeable. Don’t mention it to her. She always seemed so pleased. Then one day about a year later she said, “You’re not putting my wave straight back, Dorothy.”
Uh, I hesitated and explained why I was doing what I did.
“I don’t want it that way. Put it back like it was – straight back!” I did. The next time I started the slow process over again. Didn’t want her to look bald.
And she wasn’t the only old lady who had her own ideas about hair styles. One lady in her eighties had never cut her hair in her entire life. Never! But each time she came in the shop she told me she was thinking the impossible. After all, it was the mid 1950s and short hair was the rage. I kept telling her she should think about it more before taking the big jump. I knew she would be unhappy after it was cut. Then one day she said she decided against cutting her hair. “Last night,” she said, “I had a dream that you cut my hair and I looked terrible. When I awoke I realized it was still there. My long lovely hair. You’ll never know how relieved I was,” she said I was a little relieved, too.
I had another elderly lady whose long hair hung to her waist. I always cut and curled the top and sides, but she left the back long. The first time I gave her a perm, I wondered what I was going to do with all that hair. She said she wore it in a “figure eight.” Uh, well they hadn’t taught us how to make those in beauty school. I had no idea how to make one Well, I held my breath and took that long hair and made a figure eight. Or at least it looked like a figure eight to me. However, the next time she came in she asked me if she might do the “figure eight” herself. I was delighted.
It was an education to watch her. She leaned forward from the waist with all that long hair hanging in front of her. She then swung that long hair around as you might swing a lasso and started to pin it up. I thought it would be a mess, but when she was finished It looked lovely. All that long hair was done up in a large bun that really looked like a figure eight. Yes, it was shaped like a number eight. No doubt every pin was put in the same place it had been put for the past 70 years.
Her family hosted an open house for her birthday. It was her 95th, I believe. I had just given her a perm the day before, and she was worried that it would not look real nice for her party. I told her to have her daughter-in-law bring her in after church and I would comb it for her. This she did and after her hair was all combed and in place, I took a fancy comb out of my showcase and put it beside her perfect figure eight. She was thrilled with the comb and insisted she pay for it, but I couldn’t let her. After all, it isn’t every day that one has the privilege of giving a small gift to a 95 year-young lady.
When I worked on her, she often told me about her younger days and about the good times she had when her future husband was courting her. I discovered that kids back then had the same interests and as much fun as they do today.
This dear lady lived nearly a century. I had the privilege of fixing her hair after she died. Yes, I thought of it as a privilege. After I combed out the top and sides, the funeral director asked me what I was going to do with all that long hair in the back. I told him, “ I’m going to do it in a figure eight, of course.”
You Did Say Pinkish Rinse, Didn’t You?
My father used to say if you give my Mother a paintbrush, she will paint everything in sight. For other women, give them a bottle of hair dye and they will color every head of hair in sight.
“Well Dorothy, you know I like to do different things with my hair, one of my younger patrons told me once. “I’ve been blond, I’ve been brown, but I’ve never been this pinkish color before. And she decided she didn’t like the latter. She had just come home from college but before she left school, she had gone to a drugstore and bought some hair coloring. But, whatever color she had intended, it didn’t come out as planned. So she came home and I managed to get the color back to her original light ash blond. I think she kept it
Candy, a teenager, had lovely hair. Her mother always wanted it curled, but somehow it never seemed to curl very well. When the shorter style came in I suggested that we cut it short. It was absolutely lovely. I told her mother that with Candy’s high cheekbones she looked like a cute papoose. Her mother laughed and told me that she had Indian blood on both sides of her family. Indian hair needs to handled differently than the hair of whites.
African woman have always regarded their hair as a reflection of their heritage, and have decorated it to reflect family and tribal customs. Because African-American hair is generally curlier and courser than Caucasian hair, various hair products have been developed over the years to address this fact.
One person in particular, Madame C. J. Walker, is credited with starting the modern black care revolution. The orphaned daughter of ex-slaves, she created a multi-million dollar industry in the health care industry from a single ointment she cooked up on her stove in 1905.
Even though people travel far and wide, they often return home from time to time. This one young woman left Rolfe to live in the southwest part of the United States, but came back every summer to visit her parents. While in town she would come into the shop and I would shampoo and set her hair. She was a delightful person and we were good friends. Well, she had just arrived for her annual visit and came into the shop. But this time there was something different; she had a towel wrapped around her head. She asked me if I had time to do something with her hair. It seemed she hadn’t had time to go to her regular beauty operator to get her hair colored before she left home, so her husband told her he’d help her out. She was going to put a little ash-brown coloring in her hair so it would match her complexion.
I asked her what she wanted me to do, thinking she probably wanted a set. Well no, I need a little more that, she said. I told her to take off the towel so I could take a look.
She did. She had the brightest orange hair I had ever seen. I couldn’t help but laugh and neither could she. It was the funniest head of hair either of us had ever seen.
She told me that her husband offered to go to the drugstore for the coloring. He looked over all the colors and discovered that ‘warm’ coloring meant more red. It just adds some tint, the druggist told him.
Her husband even offered to help color her hair when he returned home. This is the kind of husband every woman should have. Yeah. When he finished the job, however, her hair didn’t have just a tint of red, but was a very dark red. The husband told her it wasn’t his fault, but that of the druggist. Her husband told her not to worry, however, since the box said if the color turned out too red or too dark, just shampoo and it will come right out. Yeah.
So they shampooed, and they shampooed, and they shampooed. “And you know what,” she said. “It was still dark red!” But my husband told me not to worry since we could always use some peroxide on it. But, they didn’t have any peroxide, so he suggested laundry bleach. It was the same stuff, he told her. After all, if laundry stains come out, so will the dye. This is the kind of husband every woman should have. Yeah. Well, they used the bleach and just as her husband said, the red came right out. It was now orange. At that point the husband didn’t have any more suggestions.
So, for the next hour I took out the remaining coloring and dyed it back an ash brown. We laughed the whole time. I suspect she remembers that incident to this day. And I suspect she reminds her husband about it, too.
While blonds may not really have more fun than brunettes or redheads, they certainly spend more time in the beauty shop getting it that way. Blond hair has been the “hair of choice” for most women since the days of Greece when women used bleach from Phoenicia to lighten their hair. In the 4th Century B.C., the Greeks said that the sun’s rays were the best way to lighten hair. During the first-century the Romans preferred black hair and dyed it with a mixture made by boiling walnuts. In England during the time of Elizabeth I, red-orange hair was popular. Although the first commercial haircolor was made in France in 1909, it was the American company, Clairol, that launched the modern day business of hair coloring with its ad, “Does she or doesn’t she ?“ She does.
And as a matter of fact, so does he.
When I was in beauty school I was in my early 30’s and was beginning to show a few white hairs in the front. The other girls always said they liked to set my hair so that the white showed up. Soon a great deal of white was showing. One time when my son, Jerry, came home from college he looked at me and said without batting an eye, “You’d better do something about that”. Well, I followed his advice. I left some white in the front, but the rest remained a pretty dark brown (right out of a bottle) for all the years I worked -- and some years after that.
In fact one day one of my younger customers asked me how I got that white hair so white, and natural looking. I just smiled, and told her that was my natural hair color, but the nice brown came out of a bottle. You’re kidding, she said. No I wasn’t kidding.
So, what’s the best way to stop falling hair you ask? That’s easy, the floor! Actually, I am trying to make a point. Sometimes people would come into my shop and expect the impossible. Sometimes I could help them and sometimes I couldn’t.
One day two high school girls, who had parts in the Junior Class Play, noticed that the playbook said one of their characters was supposed to have dark brown hair, but the girl had light brown hair. So, what to do about it. It was obvious something had to be done.
So, they went to the drugstore and bought some dark brown hair coloring. They did. And they colored her hair. They did. And did it come out a nice dark brown? It did not. But it did come out the loveliest dark green you could ever imagine. If she had played a frog, she would have loved it.
And guess where those two young girls went next after they saw the green hair? You guessed it. The next morning this girl and her friend knocked at my door at 8 A.M. Unfortunately, I had to tell them I was busy all morning, but to come back over the noon hour and I would try to do something for them. They then went to school. When the director of the play saw the leading lady with dark green hair, I understand she nearly fainted.
But over the lunch hour I worked on her hair and by I P.M., it was back to the original medium brown. I don’t think she tried making it dark brown again though.
If there is one thing that will make a beauty operator grimace, it is the lady that comes into the shop with photo of a beautiful model and say, “This is how I want my hair.” Especially, if the model is a young, beautiful woman with great hair and a fabulous face and the lady in your shop is, uh, not a beautiful woman with great hair and a fabulous face. You generally say something like, “But, it wouldn’t look as good on you since she has such a skinny body and you are a little, uh, more rounded.” Of course, you never actually say that, you just think it. Just keep a smile on our face and start making suggestions.
It began like any normal day. I had just finished shampooing the first lady and put her under the dryer, and was starting to shampoo the second lady. I was using my new shampoo hose with its high pressure nozzle. The older one was too heavy and didn’t have enough pressure. I liked a lot of pressure to get the shampoo out of the hair.
So, I lathered up her hair with shampoo and after washing it, reached for the nozzle. I wanted to test my new nozzle so I turned on the water full blast. Do you know what happened? I guess I had shampoo on my hands and that nozzle took on a life all its own. It shot out of my hand like a rocket and stood almost straight out. It whirled around and around in the air and sprayed water to every corner of the room. It didn’t miss a spot including the lady under the dryer. I finally managed to grab the thing and turn off the water. The poor lady under the dryer must have jumped a foot. The lady getting the shampoo didn’t move a muscle.
George the Resident Cat
For many years while I worked in the shop I had a big black cat named George. At the time it was the state law that pets were not allowed in beauty shops. Now, although George generally didn’t obey many laws, he did obey this one. He never did come into the shop; he’d just walk by the door and stop and look inside. Well, I shouldn’t say never. There was this one woman, who if she were under the dryer, he would always stop and look, and then come in and try to jump on her lap. I always managed to intercept him, however, before he did and put him outside. This lady was never aware of the attraction she had on George. I asked her once if she liked cats. She looked at me and said, “I can’t stand them.” I started to think that George might have had other ideas when he came in the shop.
I Don’t Do Doggie Cuts
One very hot day a lady came into my shop carrying a small white poodle. It was the cutest little poodle you ever wanted to see. The way she made over him, I thought she wanted his hair cut. But she didn’t and she just put the dog on the floor and tied its lease to the chair. I joked and said not to get upset if I suddenly grabbed the dog and threw it out the door, it only meant the state health inspector had just driven up. She offered to take the dog outside, but I said it was O.K. for him to stay. After that, however, she took my hint and tied him to a tree outside. I always wondered how George treated that dog when he was tied up to the tree.
Pregnant Ladies and Babies
Pregnant women often go to the beauty shop and mine was no exception. States have many rules that all beauty shops must follow, and requiring each shop to have a berthing room might not be a bad idea. And a two-way radio connected with the nearest hospital.
One day a young mother-to-be came into the shop for a hair cut. Very pregnant. She had long brown hair. Very thick. Cut it off, she said. Cut it short. I won’t have time to bother with it after the baby is born. I started cutting. Beautiful hair. Wavy, bouncy. Almost a shame to cut it. I barely took a couple of snips off the back when her head dropped forward. Thinking she was just a bit tired, I used my usual “head raising technique” for drooping heads and pushed up on the chin. But her chin didn’t lift. I looked at her cheek and it was very white. She had fainted. Passed out cold.
Call to the lady who had just come in. Come help. I quickly removed her cape. Grab her under the knees and I’ll hold her under the arms. Lay her on the floor. Rub her arms and legs. I’ll get a wet towel and rub her forehead. Hurry. Hurry. Just keep calm.
She comes to and starts to sit up. Stay laying down we tell her. I’m sick, she says. Quick, the basket from under the shampoo bowl and dump out the empty perm bottles. Hurry so she can use it. She is sick. Vomits. She gets up and sits in a chair. Still weak and woozy.
Her husband then arrives to take her home. I escort her to the car, and tell the husband what has happened. Tell them to come back later when she’s feeling well and I will finish cutting her hair. Walk back into the shop.
During the entire incident there was a third lady in the shop who was under the dryer absorbed in a magazine. When I came back in the shop she stuck her head out from under the dryer and asked me what was going on? I look up and you had this girl on the floor,” she said. “What was she doing down there?” Another day in the beauty shop, I thought.
Kids. Kids, and Kids
For the most part I loved working on little girls. Well, most of them anyway. One of my customers had a four-year-ponytail old daughter she always brought with her when she came to my shop. She was such a darling little thing and seemed to have a special liking for me. She also had a special liking for Tootsie Rolls. I always gave her one when she came through the door. No doubt the Tootsie Rolls played a crucial part in our friendship. But, she was my good friend. So I thought. Her mother had been telling her for weeks how nice it would be when she got her very first haircut. And with a big smile that stretched from ear to ear, the little girl told me she was going to have her hair cut someday. She would sit in that chair and let me cut off those curly locks. That’s what she told me. Someday came. Her very first haircut. In they came. All smiles. I put the little board across the arms of the chair and suggested that the little one jump right up. Little little girls give beauty operators who plan on cutting off their locks. She put her hands on her hips and planted her feet apart and announced, “You’re not going to cut my hair.” Mother begged. Then she threatened. Then she did everything she could think of. Daughter did not cry, but she did not get into the chair. She did not have her hair cut.
This whole scene was rerun many more times at later dates. Every time she would come through the door beaming. But when the moment of truth arrived, she became as stubborn as a mule.
Then one day the little girl came beaming in the door, but this time her mother wasn’t with her. Her father brought her. When the little girl went through the her usual routine, daddy picked her up, sat her in the chair and said, “Now sit!” She did, and I cut her hair. I cut her hair many times after that. I wonder if she still likes Tootsie Rolls.
One of my customers had a teenage daughter who had long brown hair, but the mother decided she wanted the daughter to get her hair cut. So, they both came in and the girl got in the chair. This was in the 1950s when hair was very short. So, I parted off the lower section of hair and pinned the rest to the top of her head. Took my scissors out and cut off the lower section to the right length. Everything was going fine. Oh, yeah. Just then Daughter started to cry. What is the matter dear? Mothers use a certain tone of voice in a beauty shop when talking to their daughters. Yes, they do. They sometimes have a certain tone of voice when they talk to the beautician.
Mamma, I don’t want my hair cut. At school the girl would have said, mother, but in the beauty shop it was always “mamma.” But you said you wanted your hair cut, Mother said. No I don’t, said the girl, her voice rising to a pitch that would break a glass.
But my dear, me speaking, I have already started to cut it. It won’t look very good if I leave it like this. But I don’t want it cut. Louder and louder. I don’t want it cut. Mother then said limply, Well if you really don’t want it cut, I suppose you don’t have to have it cut. But I’ve already started. It will look terrible. Me speaking again. I felt like crying myself. So I didn’t cut any more and the girl was happy. I wasn’t.
It reminded me of the time I told one mother to let her daughter and myself decide how to cut the girl’s hair. The two of them had spent an hour haggling over the length of the girl’s haircut. I was tired and it had been a long day. Sometimes thoughts become words when they shouldn’t and I said something like, “Well, I wish you would make up your minds.”. I smiled and started “treading water”. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that,” I said. We remained friends. The girl got her way and I cut her hair and gave her the perm. Everyone was happy.
One day a woman came in with her little girl, a third grader, who had never had her hair cut and was more than just a little shaggy. So, I cut the girl’s hair and gave her a perm. Anyway, a few weeks later this little girl’s teacher comes into the shop. She told me she came to school one day and saw a new little girl in the class. She thought it was a bit odd that the girl’s mother wasn’t with her on her first day, so she went back and asked the new girl her name. The girl looked up with her usual sweet smile and told her. Did she feel embarrassed, she said. The girl really did look different.
Little girls often have ideas about hair, too. One time a little miss, a ten year old, came into my shop. Her mother made the appointment for her just before school was to resume in the fall. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of cut the mother wanted, so I asked the girl. Oh just trim it a little, she said. Are you sure that’s what your mother said. Yes, sure! I did. I trimmed her locks just a little. She skipped happily out the door and headed home. Ten minutes later the telephone rang. You guessed it. Mother, on the line said, “Why didn’t you cut my daughter’s hair?” Guessing what was going on I told her what my instructions had been. “Oh that child,” she said. I suggested the daughter come in again and I would cut some more off. She did. The mother was happy. I’m not so sure about the girl.
One lady in town had three of the best behaved children you can ever imagined and were my very favorite customers. When she came in for a haircut, she’d sit the little ones on the floor and give each of them a book, where they would sit and read while I worked on their mother. Once she brought all three of them in for haircuts. She explained to the girls that she had to go downtown but that she would be back soon. Now, the two older ones had been in for haircuts before, but the little one hadn’t. I cut the two older ones and then sat the little one, who was about three, upon the board and cut her hair. She was so good but when I lifted her down I noticed that her panties were a little wet. She must have been so frightened. She was a perfect dear. I gave her a special hug along with a special treat. She came in for many more haircuts, and we became very good friends.
The husband of one of my regulars suggested that I put my shop on his front porch. After all, he said he supported me. His wife, daughter, mother-in-law, and even some sisters-in-law were all regulars of mine. He said it would be nice to hear what was said in that shop. If he only knew.
Over the years I’ve heard more than my share of comments from husbands who sometimes accompany their wives. Here are a few things I’ve heard from husbands who have come in the shop.
“Don’t cut my wife’s hair. It looks sexy the way it is.”
“Why don’t you do something different with my wife’s hair.”
“Hello, I’m the better half of ....
(if he is bald) “Can I get a permanent?”
Some things require a sense of humor -- otherwise you might get very irritated. There is always the mother (always the mother) who makes an appointment for her darling daughter and tells you how she wants (the mother wants) the hair cut. This is fine but unfortunately, it never ends there. While you cut the little darling’s hair, these mothers stand next to you and tell you how to cut every single snippet of hair, which, of course, is not a very good way to give a good haircut) You get nervous and can’t make a move without bumping into the mother. I once asked a good friend of mine and a beauty operator if she ever had this problem. “I’d like to step back and come down on her foot with a pair of high heels,” she said. I guess I wasn’t the only operator who had this problem.
My Kids in the Shop
One rule I made when I started to work was that my children could come into the shop and stay as long but they had to be quiet and not be rowdy while in there. I never had to scold them at any time so I pretty good.
I also told them that I hoped they would smile and speak any of the customers. They must have done this, for it wasn’t long until my ladies started telling me that I had the most friendly children in town.
Barb used to come in and visit with the ladies or read a book sometimes. One of my ladies always brought me flowers from her flower garden and one day as Barb, who had allergies, came into the shop. She stopped cold and said, “Where is it”? I knew what she meant, and pointed to the flower. My lady never brought another one in.
Jerry never spent much time in the shop. He would stop and tell me he was going over to see his friends, but that was the extent of his visiting.
Since Richard was only four years old when I started working, it was quite different for him. He practically grew up in there. He would bring his ‘Little Golden’ books in and lay flat on his stomach in the middle of the floor and read them. Several of my ladies would have him sit on their laps and read to him while they sat under the dryer. I suggested that he lay to one side of the room, but sometimes he would forget and lay in the middle, so that the ladies had to step over him.
Mrs. P. came to my shop every Saturday afternoon at four o’clock for the entire 20 years that I worked. It was not uncommon for her to bring me an ice cream cone or some sweet rolls that she had baked that morning. I have never eaten rolls as light and fluffy as hers. She also brought Richard a package of gum every week. One day I told her maybe she shouldn’t since she would spoil him. “Now you keep quiet,” she said. “This is between Richard and myself’. After a while I told Richard he really shouldn’t expect a treat, but he always camped out by the door when she arrived and gave her a big smile. Later, he even started meeting her at her car to turn on the charm.
Little Boys and Puppie Dog Tails
Sometimes I think all the equipment you will ever need when working on little boys is
one plastic cape
one safety pin
one standard comb
one pair of good scissors
one Colt 45
Now I hope you don’t’ think I’d ever think about shooting one of those little fellas, but there have been good times …
I generally worked in the shop from Tuesday through Saturday, and took Mondays off to do housework. Well, one Monday when I was doing my laundry, a lady knocked on the shop door and told me in no uncertain terms she wanted me to cut her son’s hair. Now. Son was about eighteen months old and quite a husky child. Well, I don’t know why, but I agreed. So, I placed the little fella in my special high chair, and, Waaaaaaaaaaaaa. Cried. Yeeeeooooooooo. Screamed. Stiffened up.
But the mother was determined. She sat in the chair, held him on her lap, and put a death grip on the kid. She was a large woman, and said, “Now cut it.” I was somewhat skeptical about cutting under such circumstances and started giving her all kinds of excuses why it might be a good idea to wait until a later date. About ten years, I was thinking. It didn’t work. She wanted it cut, NOW.
So, she held the kid, and I put the cape around his neck. He pulled it off. I put it back on. He pulled it off. The mother said to leave it off and just start cuttin’. I did. He screamed. I cut. He was so hot from squirming that he was soaking wet in sweat. There was sticky hair all over the kid, the mother; and me. It was nice to have a day off now and then.
One customer, who was also a close friend, became pregnant and told me she wanted me to give her new baby its first haircut when he or she arrived. Well, anyway it was a he, and about a month later she came in the shop carrying her new arrival. “I came in so you could give him his very first hair cut,” she said. I laughed. Then she said she was serious. “What hair ?“ I asked looking at him. She then laid him across her lap and said, “That one.” There on back of his little neck was a single strand of hair about an inch long. So, I took my scissors and ... snip. She took the hair to put in his baby book. He was the youngest customer I ever worked on. And no, I didn’t charge her a penny.
A few years ago, a long time after leaving my shop, I happened to meet a young lady while visiting a friend. In our conversation she just happened to mention that she attended grade school in Rolfe. She told me her maiden name, and I started thinking that I knew her when she was a child. I told her I was the beauty operator in the shop across the street from the school. “You cut off my braids,” she said. Yes, and you cried and cried, I said. Yes I did, she said. Yes I did.
Since the early 1900s, the permanent (perm) wave has evolved from 18 hours of torture with unpredictable results to a relaxing 60-minute procedure.
Throughout history women have valued the curls in their hair for status, religious significance, political messages, and beauty. Woman have endured more than just a little discomfort to obtain curls in their hair. The ancient Egyptians heated irons to curl royal wigs, and the Greeks used rollers to curl hair. But, it was not until the mid-1980s that a Frenchman named Francois Marcel became famous for his hair waving. Later in 1905, an Englishman named Charles Nestle created the first permanent wave machine that involved winding the hair around a rod and coating it with an alkaline paste enclosed in hot clamps. Electricity was used to heat the clamps until the hair had been sufficiently cooked. The entire process took six hours and the clients got plenty of curl. They often got dry, frizzy hair that was often damaged.
The story is told that Marcel began his career currying horses, but then decided to become a hairdresser. He failed at hairdressing so he returned to the horses. But, one day he noticed that a lock of his mother’s naturally curly hair was hanging straight and limp. He tried to restore the curl with an iron, and behold, he got a natural- looking wave.
In the early part of the century, there were very few beauty shops, and it was almost a sin to go to a beauty operator to get your hair done. One of my instructors in beauty school said women would often sneak in the back doors of beauty shops. Occasionally, a lady might get a Marcel wave. It was the real thing back then. I remember when my two older sisters, Pauline and Helen, got Marcel waves for their weddings in the 1920s.
As a young child I wore my hair in a Buster Brown cut. This style had short bangs over the forehead and was cut straight around the sides just above the lobes of the ears. Another style popular with girls and one that didn’t take the attention of a beauty operator was long straight hair. Older ladies pulled their hair back into a bun at the nape of their neck or on top of their head.
In Iowa the permanent wave or “machine wave” (the one invented by Charles Nestle) came into vogue around 1930. The first one I ever saw was demonstrated at the County Fair in Emmetsburg when I was a teenager. I remember the man who demonstrated the process saying it was the best thing that ever happened to women. And, insofar as women’s hair was concerned, he was probably right. The first permanent waves were given by wetting the hair with a waving solution and wrapping it around metal rods. The rods were then enclosed in hot clamps causing the waving solution to penetrate the hair shaft and curl the hair. The clamps were heated with electricity with the net effect that the women getting perms would sit under a maze of circuitry with steam hissing out of their hair. It looked like any moment she might either be electrocuted or boiled alive.
I gave a few of these “machine waves” when I first started working in 1949, but they were soon a thing of the past. While the steam was hissing from the woman’s hair, I had to stand next to her with a blower cooling down the “hot spots.”
“It’s getting hot over here, Dorothy” I can still hear the ladies saying. We were told in school not to ask if it was too hot, but was it comfortable. Believe me, it wasn’t comfortable, it was hot. As I have learned many times over, ladies will do almost anything for curly hair.
Thankfully, by the time I started working in 1949 a hair treatment called the “machineless wave” (also, called the heat wave) replaced the machine wave. In the machine-less permanent, the lady didn’t have to worry about getting electrocuted. Small pads filled with chemical compounds were wet and wrapped around the wet hair causing the hair to curl from a chemical reaction. When the chemicals in the pad became wet, they became hot and steamed. The pads hissed and steamed, but it wasn’t as hot as the machine wave.
One day I was was about to screaming that giving a machine-less clamp on the pads they were too hot. Well, wave to a lady and when she started I knew they weren’t too hot since I hadn’t wet them yet. I told her so but she kept on screaming. Finally, I took her hand and placed it on her head. When she felt the cold rollers, she calmed down. Women always worried about those pads getting hot.
Today’s hair products are a far cry from the way they were in 1500 B.C. when the Assyrians first began styling hair. Later, the Greeks thought that good hair style denoted culture and distinguished them from the “barbarians” of northern Europe.
About the time I started working in my shop, the large hair products companies (like Helena Rubenstein, Toni and so on) started selling the “dreaded” home permanent put out by the Toni company, called the “Toni.” it caused a great deal of concern among myself included. But, although many themselves home permanents, it didn’t very much. I guess the old adage if a woman has a dollar to spend, a beauty operator will never starve, remains true.
More on Hair Styles
Since the beginning of time a woman’s hair has
been her crowning glory. It is the fascination with hair that gives women the
delight to arrange her hair
in an unusual and beautiful way. And it has always
been that way. In the Song of Solomon it is written:
How beautiful you are, how very beautiful.
Your eyes are doves behind your veil.
Your hair is like a flock of goats,
Moving down the slopes of Gilead.
In the New Testament it says that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory. And how down through the ages women have loved doing things to their hair.
In the 1920s women started doing the unheard of thing of cutting their hair. And men, especially, thought for a woman to cut her hair was sinful.
I remember as a girl in the 1920s many young ladies were cutting their hair. Spit curls, as they were commonly called, were in vogue. A little lock of hair was curled flat on the forehead, in the shape of a number six, probably using spit to make it lay. Thus the common name for it. This was in the time of the Charleston and the Clara Bow days.
Ladies started wearing Marcel cuts. You could purchase a Marcel iron or a plain curling iron and if you could heat them to the right temperature, you could make nice little weenie curls.
When I started working in 1949, a three-inch cut was considered short. The heat waves had been popular for many years, and now the cold wave was coming in strong. You could give a cold wave in very short hair, where as to give a heat wave the hair had to be left longer.
Only the older ladies still wanted the plain finger waves. The younger ones were using pin curls to set their new permanents. These could be combed out in a nice soft wave or combed into a nice curl, depending on what you wanted. The pompadour was the most popular style at this time. The top was combed back into a deep wave, while the sides were combed up and back in a sleek wave.
Those who wanted their hair left long usually wore the back tucked up in a snood. This was a pretty net with ribbons or flowers woven through it.
When the younger women discovered that short hair was so much easier to care for, they naturally went for it. Soon, we had the ducktail which was very short with the back resembling you know what.
Then, the poodle cut, which is
self-explanatory, became popular. Those who didn’t like the short styles wore a
ponytail. It was all combed to the back and tied together with a pretty ribbon
in what looked like, well … like a beehive.
Then in the late 50s the tailored cut came in. It was very short, with the back cut so short that no perm could be put in. I always paid attention to the advertisements of the large department store shops in Des Moines for the names they gave those cuts. Often ladies would read these ads and decide they wanted such-and-such a cut. Because I had been reading the same paper, I knew just what she wanted.
When I was a beauty operator there were basically two types of permanents, acid and alkaline. The acid permanents (heat waves) are gentler, producing natural, yet long-lasting waves. Alkaline permanents or “cold waves” have more strength and produce a firmer more resilient curl.
I graduated from beauty school in 1949, about the time the cold wave was starting to become popular. I gave the machine wave and the machine less for a couple of years but the cold wave was the permanent of the future. The style in the early 50s was tight curls and the pompadour and pin curls were starting to be used instead of finger waves. Pompadours were made by wrapping a small strand of hair around the finger and fastening it down with a bobby pin. The hair was combed straight back in a deep wave and the sides back and upward in a wave. I tell you sometimes you could almost cut your finger on the crest of that wave. The sharper and deeper they were the better they were liked. Some ladies wore the back of the hair in what was called a tailored cut, which was cut very short. Some women even wanted it cut almost as a man’s haircut.
I usually used a razor to cut hair but on some hair the scissors worked better. The razor gave a diagonal cut across the hair shaft while the scissors gave a straight cut. We often did what was called “slithering” the hair when we wanted a layered look up the back.
I had one customer who didn’t like her hair cut real short but her husband did. He wanted the back cut short such as men wore in those days. One day he came in with her and informed me he came to see that I cut her hair the way he wanted it. Yeah. His wife was a bit uncomfortable to say nothing of the beauty operator. We ended up cutting her hair longer than he wanted and shorter than she wanted. The only good thing is that he never came back with her again.
Three hundred years ago in the courts of Europe a talc of yellow flour and gold dust was used to lighten hair. By the 1790s, the court of Marie Antoinette made powdering of hair the rage. But just as Marie Antoinette, powder went the way of the guillotine. Today, there are gels, glazes, mousses, spritzes, sprays, shiners, stylers, and waxes to create hair styles.
One of my customers had the prettiest auburn hair that always looked so nice when she left, but when I would see her a few days later, looked like she got caught in a windstorm. I knew that instead of combing her hair, she was just ‘picking’ at it, afraid she would comb out the wave. One day after getting a permanent, she told her sister she was going to brush her hair like Dorothy always told her to and when the wave came out she would go back and tell her. She did but the wave got deeper and deeper and she no longer looked like she ran into a windstorm.
In the early part of this
century, women wore their hair long and those who lacked it sought the bottled
magic of hundreds of potions all promising to grow it to the middle of their
back. The phrase: “A woman’s crowning glory is her hair,” was a popular phrase.
But during the First World War, women, forced out of
their homes into factories,
began to see long hair as a nuisance. Then in the wide-open days of the 1920s,
women’s styles became boyish and they began to wear “bobbed” hair (i.e. short).
The bobbed cut was not exactly new, it has been worn by women (and men) since
Roman times. However, it was more than a century since the bob was popular and
it became the rage for many people. (And an outrage for others.) When I was a
girl in the 1920s the big question was, “To bob or not to bob?
Some people said that a woman that bobbed her hair was a
“disgraced women” of low morals. And at least robbed her of her femininity.
Around 1950 there was a trend from longer styles to shorter styles and when all the girls with long hair saw how cute the short cuts were, it didn’t take them long to call me on the phone. They’d generally said something like, “Dorothy, I want my hair cut. Can you cut it right now? I generally told them to come in later in the day and I’d work them in, which generally caused them to say, “But I’ll loose my nerve by then,” she’d say.
Suddenly, in the late 1950s
there was the poodle cut.
I’ll give you three guesses
what that was like. If you happen to have a pet poodle, put him out in the rain
for
ten minutes and there you have it. If you want to know how to cut a poodle
cut, just cut it two inches long and put in a tight curl. Never mind setting it.
Other styles popular in those
days were the flip and the
pageboy. In both the flip and shoulder length. In a flip the then the
curls were turned up. In a pageboy you
turned the curls under.
Many of the older ladies wore a French twist. The hair was longer and a stylish roll was combed and pinned up the back of her head. I sold pretty rhinestone combs to wear alongside this roll. One day I decided I would try my own hair that way. I did it and although the hair looked nice, I decided I looked like a little old woman. I quickly changed it.
In about 1955 rollers replaced pin curls as a means to curl hair. At first they were difficult to use. They consisted of a small cylinder of wire mesh around which you wrapped the hair. Later, they were available with a brush inside that held the hair while it was being wrapped. The rumor was that a beauty operator somewhere had trouble with the original ones so she placed a brush inside it to hold the hair. The owner of the shop saw her do this and started manufacturing them. Still later, plastic rollers were used to attract the hair while it was being rolled.
You probably remember in the
1950s when Dwight D. Eisenhower was
President. Well, his wife, Mamie, had very
thin hair and wore her hair in bangs. Suddenly whether she looked good or not,
everyone wanted “Mamie Bangs.” I put them on young folks, I put them on old
folks, and I put them on fat and thin folks. Everyone wanted Mamie Bangs. And
of course, if you were a Republican, you wanted them even more.
Talking about politics, I remember one time in the early 1960s when John F. Kennedy was President. Of course, every magazine had a picture of Jackie on its cover. One day a lady under the dryer picked up a magazine with a picture of Jackie Kennedy on the cover. Suddenly, she slammed the magazine on the floor and said, ‘‘I get so tired of seeing that woman.’’ She was wearing Mamie Bangs, of course. Who says women don’t make political statements with their hair.
In the late 1960s the behive was the hair
style of choice. You just combed back the hair until every strand stood straight
up. Then smooth out the
outside so it was real smooth. I never liked to give
them and thank goodness the style never lasted very long. It was almost
impossible to sleep with them. Some girls wrapped their entire head in bathroom
tissue when they went to bed, hoping it would help it stay in place. Of course
you couldn’t move while you slept. Generally, the girl got up with paper all
over the bed. One company even sold paper caps that you could wear at night. You
can understand why the style lasted for only a few years.
Believe it or not, combs have been in existence for more than 6,000 years when the Egyptians first made them out of fish backbones. The word is derived from the ancient Indo-European term, “gombhos” which means teeth.
In the early 1960s the Hollywood cu