Following A Victorian Home Made Hair Care Routine (1889)

Oh no. (, inquisitive, music, ), Historical cosmetics have a reputation for including well not exactly the most pleasant sounding of ingredients., Thankfully, by the late 19th century, we're largely doing away with the lead and alum of previous centuries and most of the ingredients for the recipes printed. In home guides such as this selection of hair treatments, I've collected from an 1889 source which I'll be consulting in this video, are still available. Today. ( Bernadette coughs ) That burns. I'm curious to know, first and foremost if these products work, but I'm also interested to investigate what these routine treatments can tell us about the lives of the people who used them, how much time it takes to make up these Recipes, for example, and how much time it takes to apply the products, what effects they might have on the hair if they lessen or add to maintenance time. All things that can give us a clue as to who might have been using them in their day-to-day lives And why., But before we can test to see if these products actually work, we first need the products themselves., So ready your drachms and pipkins, because we have some Victorian potions to brew. ( music for practicing Science ). So we're going to start with the first recipe, which is a recipe for a solution to curl the hair, because this one specifically requires sitting for one week.''. Many of the mixtures for curling the hair are injurious, but the recipe given below will be found to be harmless.''. We shall see about that considering. We are about to put such questionable chemicals as carbonate of potage, which is potassium carbonate, liquor of ammonia and rectified spirit, which has a 95 % alcohol solution. In my hair., First and foremost for the purpose of this entire experiment, I've had to go ahead and get a couple of Victorian measuring objects.. Firstly, because a lot of these recipes give quantities in drachms, which is not a quantity of measuring that we commonly use today.. But the other thing is: a lot of measurements are given in ounces, which, yes are imperial measures and yes, I, as an American, am well-versed in the imperial measurement system.. However, the current US measurement system for ounces is actually a little bit different from the Victorian fluid ounce.. So this little cylinder here has a measure of both for fluid drachms, as well as fluid ounces from approximately the 1890s.. So this will give me the correct quantity of fluid ounces.. For this recipe, you will need ( warm music, ) dry salt of tartar cochineal powdered.. Yes, that is in fact the highly potent natural dye. Liquor of ammonia. Essence of rose, glycerine, rectified spirit and distilled water.. So, first on our list, we are told to measure out one drachm of dry salt of tartar, which is carbonate of potage in parentheses, which in our modern day terms is potassium carbonate.. There is a chemical warning on the front of this. Safety, glasses and adequate ventilation.. ♪ La dah, dah, dah, dah, ♪ ♪, It's the mother ♪. These are not in fact safety, glasses., One half a drachm of cochineal powder.. If you don't know what cochineal is, it is an insect. They produce when crushed very potent red-scarlet-purple dye.. Ok. Now we get into the liquid stuff, which is good, that they had us, do the powdery stuff first, so it doesn't all stick to the inside of the thing. Clever.. They know what they're doing. One drachm of liquor of ammonia. ( poisoned hacking, ) That burns. Oh. And it's foaming.. That'S got to be a good sign right. Next essence of rose. Next is glycerin, of which we need one quarter of an ounce.. Okay, the rose oil has actually calmed down the ammonia burn, which is good news. Rectified spirit of which we need one and one half ounces., Just in time to burn our sinuses again. And finally, we need 18 ounces of distilled water., 16.'' Mix the ingredients and let them stand for one week stirring, frequently then filter.''. This smells not the worst. In a weird way: it smells kind of sweet, but also very potently chemically.. You can definitely smell the rose oil and I think that's what's giving it that nice sweet smell along with 95 % alcohol as well as ammonia.. So it is this weird like Delicate, Victorian Chemicals, (, tm ). It is very purple.. It will be an actual miracle if this does not dye my hair purple.. This needs to now be set and rested for a week., While that sets over the next week. I'Ll take a moment in the interim to tell you about our very necessary sponsor for today's experiments. 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Might I just say that the sweet aroma of Bergamot Rose lends a certain glamor to those iron sulfate stains, Follow the link below and use my code to get an exclusive 20 % off your first order to try out Blueland for yourself. And now with clean surfaces And hands: let's check in on our curling fluid. ( whimsical, music, ), Good morning.. Some time has passed. Our little potion here is looking kind of gross, but this is going to get strained and all finished up in just a minute. Before we get started with that, though, I'm going to head over to the hob, because one of our next recipes Involves rosewater., So that's gon na take a couple of minutes to boil and simmer.. So let's get that started and then we'll come back to here and then we'll make the other two recipes. ( inquisitive, music, ) Right. That is simmering now for 20 minutes. And in the meanwhile, we are going to go ahead and finish up this recipe.. All that really needs to happen with this is that this just needs to be strained through a cheesecloth or a muslin cloth just to get rid of these particles so that you have a nice clean, liquid., (, inquisitive music continues ), And here we have our final Liquid. Give this little cover and set this aside go check on our rosewater, and then we will move on.. This recipe states that the intention is ,'' to keep the hair in curl for a definite period of time, especially in damp weather.''. So basically, this one is for hairspray.. However, this does go on to warn that ,''. These preparations, owing to their gummy character, should not be used very frequently, as they tend to harden and dry the hair and cause it to crack and break in combing.''. So not a recipe to be used with great frequency.. However, this recipe will supposedly hold your curls in place.. The three ingredients that we need for this are rosewater. We need gum tragacanth, which is basically a glue oil of sweet almond.. So the first step it says, is to break up the gum tragacanth into small pieces.. They are quite small already, but I'm going to go ahead and just crush them up a little bit more.. I don't think they want them to be powder. And we need three quarters of an ounce of these.. This is a fluid ounce, so this won't really help us at all, but I actually don't have scales so we're gon na roll with this.. This gum, tragacanth, then gets added to the rosewater.'', Allow to stand in a warm place and shake occasionally until the gum is softened throughout.''. Well, luckily, for us, our rosewater is still a little bit warm because it's just come off the stove.. It doesn't give us a time as to how much time we are supposed to be allowing our gum tragacanth to stand, but it does say long enough until it is softened throughout making a jelly-like mass.. I wonder how long allow to stand is because it's been 15 minutes and we are not achieving a jelly-like like mass, quite yet.. Well, I suppose this means allow to stand while one goes and has lunch., Then we will check back in and see what the situation is. Right.. Oh, this is what they meant by one big gelatinous mass.. This is about an hour and a half later.. The gum tragacanth gets filtered out, leaving just the fluid. ( experimentation, music ). So the final ingredient is, we need a half a drachm of this sweet almond oil.. The final step is to mix thoroughly.. I don't know precisely what they mean by thoroughly. Granted. This is oil and it is behaving very oily, which means it will forever be separated slightly from the water.. We will give this as thorough a mix as we can possibly manage.. There is something., It does have a nice color and it does smell relatively nice like rosewater, but I'm a bit confused about the oil. What this is supposed to be doing., I wonder if the oil is meant to give it like shine and finish, because this does feel very greasy.. But I suppose the answer to that question will be determined in the experimentation phase. ( inquisitive, music )''. Many persons dissatisfied with the color nature has bestowed upon their locks resort to dyes to produce whatever hue may happen to please their fancy., And though the writer has no sympathy whatsoever with this course and sincerely believes that nature's arrangement of the coloring of hair eyes and Complexion is rarely improved by the interference of art in deference to the wishes of those who desire to use such recipes. The following are given.'' ( tense, impish, music ), The /shade/.. Let us have a look at our ingredients list.. The first is green sulfate of iron, which nowadays is often used for soil conditioning common salt, Bordeaux wine.. We will also, in a later stage of this process, need nut galls, which come from oak trees, which have actually frequently been used in black dyes and ink and have been used for many centuries.. Finally, we will need some French Brandy., Two drachms of green sulfate of iron.. This smells exactly as you would expect a sulfate to smell., So here's. What I'm thinking is happening is that this iron sulfide is oxidizing on my hands and is turning my hands a suspicious grayish, color. As mildly disconcerting. This is for my hands. I do think this bodes well for the function of a hair, dye., Okay, so the final ingredient we have for this first round is Bordeaux wine. And we need 12 fluid ounces of this.. This is not the way this is supposed to be: done. ( struggle, music, ), Oh no., Oh No.. I need another plan. Disaster has stricken., Not that we couldn't have all seen this coming. But. 12 fluid ounces of wine. ( concerned stirring ). So these ingredients now need to simmer together in this glazed pipkin for five minutes. To the hob once again. ( inquisitive, music ). So my hob does this thing where it won't heat? Unless the thing covers the thing entirely, which makes sense from a safety point of view, but not from a Victorian pipkin point of view., Aha success.. So while that gets up to heat, which will take a minute, I'm gon na get started crushing up some of these oak galls, which we need two drachms of.. This will then get added to the simmering mixture over there and then continue to simmer for a bit.. It looks so stupid. Look at it., So I think the reason why they specify glazed pipkin in heavy italics in this recipe is because that glaze will help to keep the sides of it from completely staining. (. Inquisitive music continues: ). Okay, we have taken a minute to let this cool down a little bit.. It'S still slightly warm.. So the final step in this recipe process is to add this to a bottle. Noooooooo. It'S not going very well at all. And to this we're going to add one tablespoon of French Brandy.. This now gets corked shaken, and this now gets let to stand for two days wherein hypothetically this will separate into some clear and some not clear, mixture., We'll see what happens. Before we get started with washing and dying experiments ] we're first going to need some hair. And fortunately I am in need of a little trim.. This is the sample on which I will test the dye since I'm ~rather suspicious~ of Victorian dyes. Anne Shirley Cuthbert. What have you done to your hair? Why it's green (, inquisitive, music )? This book gives a very similar recipe for cleansing the hair, as the one demonstrated in my Edwardian haircare video of yore, but roughly involves one egg yolk mixed into one pint of warm water with one ounce of rosemary, spirit.. Rosemary spirit seems to be the one ingredient during the course of this entire experiment. That does not seem to be available today., So I've mixed, half an ounce of rosemary oil with half an ounce of the plain rectified spirit which may or may not have been A how this was actually done historically and B. A wise decision for using so close to the face We'll get to that later.'' Before using any of the liquids named thoroughly cleanse the hair from dust and grease by washing it with hot water, containing a pinch of soda or borax. Dry perfectly before applying the dye.''. There'S also a note in this text that says ,'' for hair washing should not be done oftener than once a week.''. This entire bathroom smells like. It is intoxicating me with rosemary. Yeah, I'm afraid. That'S, not just rosemary oil., (, Bernadette, sighs, ). I never thought I would be doing this again, but here we are. (, briefly dying from consumption, ) (, a sigh of ennui ), I'm clean now.. Now we just wait for this to dry. I'll, see you back in a couple of hours. ( buttons, clicking ), (, whimsical, music, ), ( messages, popping ), ( messages, resonating ), ( buttons, clicking ), ( messages, pops ). I cannot recommend washing your hair with a 95 % alcohol solution with your head tipped forward. As you are straight-up inhaling said, 95 % alcohol, solution. ( messages, resonating ), My hair isn't yet dry, but our sample hair is dry., So we can go ahead and experiment with the hair dye on this. ( gentle music ). I mean it's looking pretty potent., However. The instructions do say that there should have been a separation with a clear liquid, but that has not happened.. So I'm not sure what this is all about, but I suppose let's go ahead and see if it works.. My hypothesis is that it will still work. Considering that it was dying, my hands and it has got that iron sulfate in it, so it should do something.. This smells so strongly of wine, and I have no tolerance for this right. Now., I'm just gon na. Let this sit in here for a couple of minutes.: I'm not expecting it to immediately look distinctly different, but given the oxidization properties of the iron, I'm expecting that it will probably take a couple of minutes to develop once it's been taken out of this mixture.. I'M also not going to rinse this since a lot of Victorian hair dyes are not water fast, or at least they don't last more than a couple of washes, or even one wash at all., The main reason being, of course, that people weren't washing their hair. Quite as frequently., I would guess that this would have just been used and then dried and then just brushed through, but not actually washed.. This would have been reapplied when you rewash your hair and it starts to fade.. It does look like it's starting to do something.. I can't tell whether this is just being the hair being dark, because it's wet or if it actually is starting to do something.. I guess I will just have to be patient and wait for this to actually properly dry., But I'm hopeful.. So we are all dry.. As you can see, the dye did have an effect.. It didn't dye the hair black, which I'm not sure was the initial intent, but it did as the instructions say, darken the hair.. I do rather like my original hair color better. So I will not be using this on my real actual hair.. It is very powdery and filmy like you, can still feel it.. It feels like there's, definitely a residue on it.. My next question is: is this wash safe? Does this just wash straight out in the water, or does it stay in permanently Post-wash and one dry? Here we have our hair sample., As you can see, it has lightened slightly, but it hasn't quite lightened completely.. So I imagine that this dye would come off eventually, after probably two or three washes, but it lasts. You know not the worst. ( buttons clicking ) ( message: pops ), ( message resonates ), (, gentle music ). So I'm not 1000 %. Confident in how this curling lotion, as they call it in how this worked., I guess we'll find out - hence, is the point of the experiment., But it does say in the instructions to wet the hair while dressing and then, as the lotion dries, the curl will take. Effect., I don't know if that means that this liquid alone is going to be responsible for making the hair just spring into a curl.. My hair still reeks of rosemary and alcohol by the way., Not only my hair, but the entire workroom.. My hair also feels weirdly sticky., Like it's been drying for about seven hours now, and it's still feels a little bit damp, which leads me to believe that this is not water. But it is some combination of oil and alcohol and egg, which makes sense, because that is precisely what I have adulterated my hair with., I'm first just separating that front section of hair which will be put into rag curls and set overnight.. This first side here will be dampened with the curling fluid just before setting, while the other side will be dampened just with water before setting.. This way, I can maybe get a sense of whether or not the curling fluid makes any difference in the curls that have been set.. My goal is to try and make these rag curls quite tight, because the 1880s up to about 1889, the hairstyle is very floofy and frizzy up front.. The hair is probably a lot shorter than mine is, but I'm trying to go with as tight curl as possible. So that I can hopefully frizz it up a little bit hide some of the length of it under some pins and get away with something relatively 1889.. I do really wish the Victorians would stop putting so much strong scent into all of these products, because my sensory system is quite overwhelmed with all of the rose oil and the almond oil and the rosemary. And they're, not subtle. They're, very potent. When you're putting this Many products in your hair - it is not the most ideal, sensory experience. And now, finally, I'm just going to dampen the ends of my other hair with this stuff. Let this dry just to see if, like the instructions, seem to imply if, when this dries in the hair, it curls the hair without doing all this nonsense.. So we shall see the results, tomorrow., ( curious, but vaguely concerned music ). So here is the verdict on the curl situation.. As you can see, this is the end of the hair that I just dipped into the solution last night and then just let to dry.. I'M genuinely surprised that it did actually do something.. It did actually put a bit of wave into my hair.. Admittedly, I only dipped a little portion of it last night and I was actually really shocked that it like sprang up into an actual curl. So I got excited and I did the whole end of it., But I guess because it's heavier and it clumped together a little bit more. It didn't have as much of an effect here. As you can see it's just more of a wave., So I think the way that you're supposed to do this is kind of combining the application of this lotion, with a sort of like curly girl method handling of The hair, where you have to kind of make sure that it's drying in a position that you want it to. And then it will kind of stay. In regards to these set curls. I don't think was meant as the application for this, but I will say it made a little bit of a difference.. This side of hair definitely came out a little bit crispier. As I was removing the rags. This side was very difficult to remove because the hair was very much like clinging onto its shape.. This side, however, was very easy to remove, but the hair was not as clinging to the rag.. These curls are a little bit softer they're a little bit frizzier they're a little bit less like in a nice crisp shape.. These are a lot less frizzy and a lot more just compact.. So, let's see what we can do in terms of 1889 hairstyling. (. Still curiously concerned, but cautiously optimistic music ). So here's what we have so far.. I realize this experiment is at a distinct disadvantage because I'm not accustomed to doing 1889 hairstyles and therefore I don't have that skill of repetition that would make this a little bit more. Realistic., I do have a little bit too much fluff here at the front, but there's not really anything I can do about that.. The curl on this side is a little bit tighter and a little bit more sculptable than the curls that were just held by water.. It'S not noticeable really at all. I don't think so. I don't think a potion like this is necessarily necessary to achieve the quintessential perfect 19th century curl, but I do think it helped definitely.. So those who were ambitious enough to put in the time and the labor to making that apply it set it et cetera, would have got slightly crispier results perhaps.. Now the final question we have in this hairstyling endeavor is whether or not our hairspray works. Calling this hairspray is kind of a misnomer.. It is not sprayed into the hair., It would have just been applied to the fingers gently like this and then just patted into the hair.. The hair `` spray'' in quotes is kind of okay, given that I've got the recipe right which is not guaranteed.. I didn't actually find it to be very strong, despite the warnings of breakage in the recipe.. So if it's not strong and damaging, then I'm not really sure what the point of it is.. If I've merely done the recipe wrong, which I suspect may have been around the almond oil stage, since the liquid did feel more oily than sticky., I'm not sure if our sweet almond oil is the same as what's called for in the recipe of the 19th century.. But in that case it's possible that this is supposed to be strong and would only have been used for special occasions., The other two recipes. I was actually quite impressed with., While the curling fluid didn't have drachmatic effects. It still did do interesting, textural and wavy things that I will most definitely be unironically continuing to experiment with in my 21st century existence.. The dye, whilst not exactly relevant to my personal needs, did still work and survived a wash, even which is pretty impressive. For a 19th century hair dye., As I was working out, the recipes, the one thing that I really noticed is A the amount of time that each of these items took to prepare and B how many ingredients went into some of these items.. This video itself took me weeks to prepare for simply because I had to source all of the ingredients find all the items buy. All the items. And I have access to the internet.. I can just go online and search for things like potassium carbonate and rectified spirit.. I do have a sense that a lot of these items could be found more easily by going to an apothecary or the local grocer or the general store.. There is definitely the element of the time it takes to acquire all of these ingredients as well as the cost it takes to obtain all of these ingredients as well as, of course, the time it takes to prepare the recipes themselves.. So I started to ask the question: would these things be worth doing? These household guides in general tends to be written more towards a middle-class readership towards women who don't have a full repertoire of domestic staff or any domestic staff at all. But who also might have a little bit of spare time and a little bit of spare cash.. They provide a way for people to keep up with fashionable trends and regular practices of the household without having to hire staff, to do that or to have been brought up in an environment where they would have been taught this stuff.. So I hope you enjoyed today's shenanigans.. I will be back anon with some more dress: history, experimental archeology, all sorts of excitement.