18th Century Hair, Don't Care

Styling with my 18th century hairdo

Sometimes we do really stupid stuff in the pursuit of recreating an aspect of history. Dressing my hair in an 18th century style using period means and methods (to a reasonable extent) is by no means the dumbest, but it's probably the messiest.

So why would one even go into this venture? Surely, if you want to look ye olde timey there must be a better way? There probably is. I could wear a wig, maybe I could use modern products, but where's the fun in that? As I would come to learn at the end of this experiment, a wig or modern products just don't give you the same look at all. So wanna learn about 18th century hair stuff? Ok, here we go.

To best understand dressing 18th century hair, you should understand the complex sciences of cooking a hearty breakfast complete with bacon and pancakes. Essentially, that's what you're putting in your hair: bacon grease and pancake mix. Alright, so it's a little more complicated than that, but same basic concept.

Two major products are used for 18th century hair dressing: pompatum (pomade) and hair powder. Several period recipes for both of these products exist and can easily be found via a simple google search. In true 18th century fashion, the recipes are fairly vague and don't call for specific ingredients or include ingredients that cannot be easily obtained in the 21st century.

Applying the pompatum.

In simple terms pompatum, now called pomade, is a mixture of rendered animal fats (and occasionally beeswax) meant to hold the hair in place. Hair powder is a very fine starch that absorbs the moisture from the pompatum and locks the style in place. Each recipe can be customized in small ways, such as changing up the animal fats used, adding color to powder, scent, etc., but the effect is consistent across the board. I have used several types of pomades in my lifetime: fat based, petroleum based, and water based, and I have to say that the fat based is the best stuff by far. It holds in place unlike water based, but it doesn't run like petroleum based does.

Anyway, I didn't really feel like experimenting with different fat mixtures, starches, and recipes, so I let the ladies at American Duchess do that for me, and I used the recipes out of their new book. The recipes work well though I do have a few thoughts. Thought one being that you do not need to wash your mutton tallow. It may give you a good feeling that you're going to remove the gamey smell by washing the tallow for a week, but in reality it doesn't do anything. Take it from a guy who makes beef tallow on the regular, the smell is either going to stay or go based on the nutrient content of the fat and there's nothing you can do about it. All that washing your tallow is going to do is potentially introduce bacteria into the tallow mixture via the water and extend the process. My other thought is that after working with both beef and mutton tallow, I think that beef tallow made from true suet is a viable (and cheaper) alternative to mutton tallow. I'll try that one on my next batch though.

Freshly powdered hair.
Now I'm ready to terrorize the neighborhood kids

Both products are very simple to make and take about 30 minutes total. I was going for a simple style with buckles on the sides of my head only, so i really didn't need too many tools to style my hair. All that was needed was something to separate the hair (my wife suggests alligator clips), a makeup brush to apply the powder (she suggests a kabuki brush), a curling iron, hair ties, and bobby pins. You will also need something to cover yourself with so you don't get powder all over your clothes and a buddy to style your hair.

The first thing that you have to do after combing your hair out is apply the pompatum and powder. To do this, you section out the hair and work the pompatum in one section at a time using your hands and combs. Your hair should look greasily damp when you're done, not soaking wet. We didn't have alligator clips to easily section it out so this process took about 30 minutes using hair ties and combs.

After greasing your hair down you apply the powder with a brush. Once again, you section is out and do it one bit at a time to prevent clumping. Make sure that you absorb all of the pompatum or you will have problems later on. Again, no clips so we used hair ties and we had a crappy small brush, so it took about 30 minutes to complete. More lessons learned.

We had to pause to powder the tiny human's hair too.

Now that you have the pompatum and powder in your hair, you will look like a scary witch and are prepped to scare all the neighborhood children.

The hair looks really cool at this stage. It was at this point that I realized that trying to recreate 18th century hair with a modern wig or using modern products just doesn't cut it. The definition of colors in the hair created by the natural hair color and powder simply is not something that can be duplicated with any modern means.

The next part is styling. This is the cool part because you get to experience how crazy the pompatum and powder really is. We were just doing two curls on each temple which is pretty simple to do in theory. I didn't think I had enough hair for two curls, and Allie assured me that I have enough hair for at least five on each side. Essentially, you section out the hair for the side curls, style them, and then push everything in the center back while trying not to fry your hair or get powder everywhere.

Allie's hand for volume compairison

To make the curls, you back comb the side section, which will result in your hair literally standing on end straight off your head because that's how fricken crazy the pompatum and powder holds. Then you apply some more pompatum to the base of the hair section and then your curl. After the curl is done, you will roll it over a cylinder to hold the hard shape (we used a section of 5/8 PVC pipe, but the originals were made of clay, and then you pin it in place. You can use regular old bobby pins, but if you want to be more historically accurate you can use Amish hair pins because they look almost exactly like surviving 18th century hair pins.

And that's really it in a nutshell. Tie the rest of your hair back, put a ribbon in it, and call it a day. The powder doesn't really go everywhere once it's set in the pompatum so it's really not that messy. And getting it out it a breeze. Shampoo your hair while everything is dry, then jump in the shower and it all comes right out. Your hair will feel fantastic afterwards too because you've just given it a nice oil treatment.

So what does it feel like to wear all this crap in your hair? It's quite nice actually. Your hair isn't that heavy, and the scents from the essential oils in the pompatum and powder are quite relaxing. I don't feel greasy nor are you permanently emanating a cloud like Pig Pen from the peanuts. Everything pretty much stays in place. The product will give your hair an insane amount of volume. I have super thick hair in general, but this stuff brings that to a whole new level.

If you want to find out why the wife and I were doing this, stick around for the next post to find out. It's for a super cool even that's on the horizon.